THE LOCALE | Nalu’s Restaurant & Beach Bar, Garden City Beach

THE LOWDOWN | Looking for a chill atmosphere with chilled drinks and great food? Stop by Nalu’s Restaurant & Beach Bar, because that’s where we wound up this week for happy hour.

Nalu’s Restaurant & Beach Bar is on Atlantic Avenue in Garden City Beach in a location that has housed various businesses, such as an ice cream shop and a surf shop. Surf decor remains. Surf and beach-inspired paintings and surfboards hang downstairs in the cafe and also upstairs in the bar area. The sea blue walls add to the beach theme, and the laid back atmosphere welcomes not only surfers, but all locals.

Patrons can sit in a booth on the first floor in the cafe, or if you’re headed to the bar, look for the doorway in the front corner with a stairway leading to the second level. Upstairs you can sit around the square bar, at a table or out on the balcony that overlooks Atlantic Avenue. There are TVs outside and inside, and head there on Sundays to watch the NFL Sunday Ticket. You can play darts and ring toss and catch live music.

Nalu’s Restaurant & Beach Bar specializes in mojitos, both traditional and flavored. The establishment also has excellent food. The menu includes items such as Captain Crunch Fried Chicken Tenders, Stuffed Portabella sandwich and Braised Short Ribs.

Happy hour runs from 4-6 p.m. daily. Deals include $1 discounts on liquors and 50-cents discount on beer, making for $3 well drinks and $2 domestic beers. However, happy hour is not the only time you can get good deals. If football is on TV, you can snag football specials including $2 domestic beers, $1.50 Miller Lite drafts, $3 wells, $9 buckets of beer and $6 Miller Lite pitchers. Football food specials include $5 wings, mozzarella sticks, pita pizzas, potato skins and more. On Wednesdays there’s an all-you-can-eat oyster special for 5 bucks from 5-10 p.m.

TIPS | You can park in spaces on Atlantic Avenue, or there is a new public parking lot in the back of Nalu’s, accessible from Waccamaw Drive.

FIND IT | 107 Atlantic Avenue, Garden City Beach. Call 357-NALU (6258)or visit www.nalusgardencity.com.

Mandy Rodgers, for Weekly Surge