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Frosty Frog Cafe has blended frozen daiquiris at Coligny for more than 25 years

Frosty Frog Cafe opened in a corner of Coligny Plaza in the late 1990s with a cartoon frog for a narrator, and the frog still writes the menu.

The thatched-roof daiquiri bar at Frosty Frog Cafe, with a Frosty Frog Cafe sign on the counter and white chairs in front.

Photo: Google Maps

Frosty Frog Cafe sits in a corner of Coligny Plaza on Hilton Head Island, a short walk from Coligny Beach Park, and it has been blending frozen daiquiris there since the late 1990s. In November 1999 the cafe's website announced that the Frosty Frog was "now open" and "quickly becoming Hilton Head's coolest place to be." It is open from 11 a.m. to midnight every day. The directory entry is Frosty Frog Cafe, and the cafe's own island page is hiltonhead.frostyfrog.com.

Frosty came south from Lake Erie

The cafe has always been narrated by its mascot. Its 1999 website told "The Legend of Frosty": a young frog sitting on the icy water of Lake Erie, longing for a warmer world. His first hop landed him in Charlotte, where he became known as "the Blender of the Best Frozen Drinks Ever." He still wanted the water, so he skated south to Hilton Head, where, with help from friends and a "little bit of luck from 'The Frog Gods,'" he brought the island "a taste of Frosty's World."

The bar inside Frosty Frog Cafe, with stools, many televisions and sports pennants covering the ceiling.
The bar inside.Photo: Chris, via Google Maps

The same site asked for partners to help spread Frosty's "message of love, peace, and daiquiris to hot and parched public," and named Patrick Taylor as the man to call about it.

Frosty still writes the drink menu. The Hurricane is "Frosty's natural disaster, a category 5 cran-raspberry storm," and the White Russian is a drink he hopped 10,750 miles to Moscow to bring home.

The Hurricane has been on the list since 1999

The Hurricane is the one to order. It was on the first daiquiri list in 1999, billed as "a New Orleans tradition served Hilton Head style," and it is still the base of several of the house blends today, mixed with piña colada, with mango, or with peach.

The first menu named its dishes after people

In 1999 the food menu read like a guest list, with wings, sandwiches and salads named for friends and family. Some of those names have outlasted a quarter century of menu changes. Carol and Angie are both still on it, and Carol's Burger is still a 10-ounce patty that the menu calls a monster, just as it did then.

Around the corner, Frosty's Closet sells the frog on T-shirts, golf polos, koozies and club covers, under Frosty's motto: "Life may not be a party…but we sure act like it!" Inside the cafe, 24 TVs carry the games.

Coligny Plaza was the island's first downtown

The plaza around the cafe has its own founding story. Norris Richardson, a grocer from Thomasville, Georgia, opened Forest Beach Market on the island's south end in 1956, before there was a bridge, with the building materials shipped in by barge. It was the first grocery store on Hilton Head, and it grew into Coligny Plaza, home to the island's first bakery, first pharmacy and first ice cream parlor. His son JR and JR's wife, Leslie, run it now.

The covered patio at Frosty Frog Cafe in Coligny Plaza, with red and orange high tables and a hanging fern.
The patio.Photo: Sonder Quest, via Google Maps

Frosty kept hopping

The 1999 legend ended with Frosty's "new dream of bringing his frozen concoctions to the rest of the world." The world so far reaches two more places: Frosty Frog Cafe in Bluffton at Parkside Commons, and Frosty Frog Express on River Street in Savannah.