If I would describe someone who lives in Irmo, it would be someone who is loyal to community, in a very tight knit community who cares about what's going on in their neighborhoods, their town, and the area surrounding.

Everybody kind of knows everybody.

Most people that shop here with us know who we are and we know them.

So it's just known as a friendly town, I would think.

Irmo has a collective group of people We have people from all over the country looking for a place to relocate in South Carolina.

Well, my goal was when I first became mayor, I was to make Irmo the most desirable place to live in South Carolina, not only by what we do as a community, but the quality of life out here.

Irmo was founded in 1890.

We got chartered on Christmas Eve At the time, Irmo was a small railroad stop with no real community yet.

The trains would leave here, going to Newberry or going to Columbia.

They would stop and get water and fuel.

It's grown from that.

We've come in to a community where we have subdivisions throughout, but we are considered the gateway to Lake Murray.

Now we have the main drag called Lake Murray Boulevard and it comes from the interstate all the way to the dam.

And people use this as a through way to get to the dam and get to the lake.

And we like to then stop off, stop by our restaurants And visit all our fun places to stay.

Everything special about Mathias.

You know, we have things nobody else has, and we try to make sure everything you get is good.

We've been in different locations through, since it started from downtown to Dutch Square, and now in Irmo.

One of the most popular dishes is chicken salad sandwiches and pimento burgers.

The pimento burger is a five ounce patty.

and has pimento cheese on it.

We put mustard, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle and serve it with chips.

And that's probably our number one burger.

Same recipes that my dad is starting with, and we have never change them.

Still the same thing that always has been.

And that's what keeps it going.

Like it is.

We don't like the change.

We're in the big fat city directory as being one of the oldest businesses.

So that's something to be proud of.

My part was to keep it going long as I could, and I will.

And I like doing what I do, and so that's why I continue doing it every single day.

We chose Irmo for our location at both of our drive thru and our cafe here as a result of we really wanted to be within our community.

So my wife Jessica and I both grew up in Irmo.

We moved here in 1992 and we raised our kids here and we just want to give back into our community to be able to serve where we work.

What makes our cup of coffee special is we're very involved in the process from farm to cup.

So we're working with importers to not only find and source coffee, but find and source the best coffee we can.

So we work with smaller farms, make long term commitments and contracts on those coffees, so getting a fair price for them.

And then we bring it in, roast it in-house to control quality there.

And then it comes right up front to our barista, which is the last step in the chain of coffee coming from the farm to the cup.

And we're presenting it to you.

So each stage of the way, we have to take great painstaking work to make sure we maintain quality at every step of that.

So what, we're handing it off to you, that's the last step.

And we're hoping to honor every step going up to that.

We usually participate in various things, the Okra Strut happens every year, so we don't necessarily set up a booth, but we're pretty close proximity.

St Andrew's Road is actually closed for a parade first thing in the first thing of the Okra Strut.

The Okra Strut is actually a two-day festival.

We start on Friday night.

We have a couple of really awesome bands that come out and play.

We have amusement rides and people start getting their first tastes of our exhibitors and our vendors.

And then on Saturday it kicks off with a parade.

It is just over a mile long and usually has nearly 100 entries in the parade.

Everybody comes from the parade back into the park.

They enjoy the food there.

At lunch, they shop our exhibitors, talk with our craft vendors, and then we have entertainment all day long from community groups.

So it was actually started back in 1973 by the Lake Murry Irmo Women's Club, and they used it to basically do a fundraiser to build a library.

You know, I've actually been asked why okra a lot, the rumors that I have heard and that we've got documented are that they were trying to figure out what the ancient Irmese were like, and they figured it was just a bunch of short farming people that lived off of okra.

And so they use that as the idea and it's just grown since.

The Okra Strut plays a massive role in the Irmo community, I believe that the spirit of the Okra Strut is community.

We have wonderful folks that come together.

We have a commission of people that spend their whole year planning this.

We have a ton of volunteers that actually show up to help us put this on.

And then we have the community that comes out and enjoys it.

And when you come out to the Okra Strut, you get to live, you get to see one another and just ultimately have a great time with all kinds of people seeing and doing all kinds of things and just have a great weekend.

This is our town, Irmo, South Carolina.

I believe in Irmo.

And this is our town.

This is our town.

This is our town.