Duct Cleaning in Pooler, GA

Big Bon Bodega, an award-winning neighborhood eatery and community gathering place featured on Food Network’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” is deeply honored to re-launch Miss Sophie’s restaurant at the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force at 175 Bourne Ave. in Pooler, Ga., serving classic, Southern-style lunch favorites.

Starting on January 6, 2026, Miss Sophie’s will be owned and operated by Big Bon Bodega founder Kay Heritage and Partner/Executive Chef Shahin Afsharian, joining popular Big Bon Bodega locations in Savannah, Ga. and Pooler, Ga. Miss Sophie’s was originally founded by Hazelhurst, Ga. native Teri Bell and her late husband, Steve, in 2006 and is known for serving signature Southern comfort food, from fried chicken to homemade banana pudding.

“We’re thrilled to expand Teri’s incredible vision for Miss Sophie’s, to honor her impressive legacy in Pooler and to reimagine Southern comfort food,” said Kay Heritage, founder of Big Bon Bodega. “We look forward to serving longtime customers and warmly invite area residents to discover the magic of Miss Sophie’s. We love the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force and hope to expose new generations of residents and visitors to this important piece of American history.”

For 2025, Miss Sophie’s will continue to serve customers Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. In 2026, Miss Sophie’s will be open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and will serve a full Southern-inspired menu daily, including Miss Sophie’s popular Southern Fried Chicken. The company recently underwent a re-brand and boasts a fresh, modern logo that reflects Miss Sophie’s new focus, energy and vitality. In response to customer demand, Miss Sophie’s will offer online ordering for the first time through the Miss Sophie’s website with support from Toast Online, Uber Eats, GrubHub and DoorDash.

“I’ve enjoyed feeding people over the past 20 years, but it’s time for me to step back,” said Teri Bell, co-founder of Miss Sophie’s. “I’ve known Kay Heritage, the founder of Big Bon Bodega, for many years and am familiar with her values as well as her love of quality food. It was a perfect match. I know that leaving Miss Sophie’s in her hands is the best thing I could do for my customers and for the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force.”

In addition to assuming ownership of Miss Sophie’s, Big Bon Bodega has also moved its production kitchens in Savannah and Pooler to Miss Sophie’s, freeing up additional seating for customers at both locations. Having a central hub for food preparation will help Big Bon grow and expand throughout the region, meeting the needs of customers throughout the area.

Under the leadership of Founding Partner Kay Heritage and Partner/Executive Chef Shahin Afsharian, Big Bon Bodega has earned national acclaim for its small-batch, handcrafted menu items using high-quality, non-GMO ingredients as well as unbleached flour, local honey and healthy ingredients. The company’s open, inviting atmosphere and innovative culinary creativity have captivated audiences across the country, earning exposure on “Good Morning America” and in national media including Condé Nast Traveler and United Airlines’ Hemispheres magazine.

To learn more about Miss Sophie’s, please visit sophiesmarketplace.com.

Residents say flooding got much worse after developers at the Outpost Bay project began raising their build site several feet higher than nearby properties.

POOLER, Ga. —

Residents in one Pooler neighborhood say they’re running out of patience — and dry ground.

Neighbors in the Hunt Club community say what used to be minor ponding during rainstorms has turned into serious flooding, and they blame new construction happening just behind their homes.

"Little by little, it’s getting worse. Will it reach the house? I don’t know," said homeowner Paul Roy.

Residents say flooding got much worse after developers at the Outpost Bay project began raising their build site several feet higher than nearby properties to construct new homes.

"They hauled in three to four feet of dirt," resident Jacky Horton. "Now it’s like a little mountain behind us — all that water has to go somewhere."

Homeowners say they’ve taken their complaints to the City of Pooler several times. While the city issued a stop-work order earlier this month, neighbors claim it was lifted within 24 hours.

"They told us they had eyes on it," Horton said. "But 24 hours later, construction was back on."

Some, like Thom Hall, now worry what this could mean for their property values. "If the neighborhood gets labeled for flooding, that hurts all of us," he said.

WJCL 22 News reached out to the City of Pooler multiple times and even attended a recent council meeting.

Pooler Mayor Karen Williams and the city manager declined to comment on-camera but gave this statement: "The city manager worked to get a meeting between the developer and residents. They are working with the neighbor's HOA president and on behalf of the residents."

Neighbors say the developer has requested a meeting to discuss the issue.

Rochelle Criter once again walked to the podium facing Pooler City Council members during the public comment period of a regular meeting.

She had spoken earlier, asking the council to vote "no" on anything that could potentially further impact the people living in the Hunt Club neighborhood when a buffer modification came up.

“I’m speaking on behalf of the residents in our neighborhood regarding the new subdivision being built at the front of the community,” Criter said. “I’m here to say, ‘We told you so.’”

Criter was referencing the concerns she and other residents had shared at a meeting in spring 2024 about flooding and damage to their property values that could occur with the construction of Pooler’s first subdivision of rental-only single-family homes.

Since construction began last year, workers have brought in copious amounts of dirt and sand and have removed all the trees and vegetation that helped prevent runoff into their neighborhood, she said. The developers also began to build well above the original grade, completely altering how and where rainwater drained.

“Homes that have never flooded in 20 to 25 years, and now we’re seeing standing water even after moderate rain,” Criter said, one of four to come speak about the flooding. “The retention pond the developer built is also too small and poorly designed and fills up after light rainfall.”

The Hunt Club residents are not the only Pooler residents to experience flooding or an increase in flooding this year. It's happening in other neighborhoods like in Barrington Estates, on Quiet Pine Circle, and even in apartments like the Preserve at Godley Station. Earlier in the evening before the council meeting, Tischler-Bise's President Carson Bise presented findings of feasibility study to implement impact fees in Pooler. Fees that could go toward stormwater infrastructure that could mitigate the impact new developments have on neighboring properties.

Mayor Pro Tem Aaron Henry said he could not say definitively that if Pooler had implemented impact fees back in 2007, when the first study was done, if it would’ve helped in cases like the Hunt Club neighborhood. But, it certainly wouldn’t have hurt.I

Impact fees are a one-time charge imposed by local governments on new development projects to cover the cost, in whole or in part, of providing public services and infrastructure that support that new development.

“An example would be if we had impact fees when Tanger Outlets or Costco was built,” Henry said. “We could’ve had impact fees that contributed to improvements to Pooler Parkway, and it would have to be a benefit to more things than just Costco. It’s a [monetary] contribution to what currently exists so we stay at a baseline.”

In May, Pooler City Council unanimously approved an agreement for $70,470 with Tischler-Bise seeking the viability of imposing such a fee. Ironically, the same company, which has done more fiscal impact analyses in the country than any other firm, had already done a study back in 2007. Bise was involved in the prior study, too.

In the previous study, Tischler-Bise made an assumption that there would be approximately 330 new housing units a year, and 25% of the total impact fee revenue would come from non-residential development. They ultimately estimated a total revenue of $1.3 million a year from residential and non-residential development, if the fee had been implemented.

Pooler has probably left tens of millions of dollars on the table for nearly two decades, according to Bise.

When questioned, Bise said that the study or fee probably did not move forward in 2007 due to “lack of political will.” Specifically, he said, that council believed at the time that if they implemented the fees, development would go elsewhere.

Growth and development came to Pooler, and continues. It’s one of the fastest growing cities in the state. growing more than 450% in population since 2000, when there were about 6,500 residents. It’s now about 30,000 strong, with anywhere between 15,000 to 28,000 expected to move in the area in the next five years.

The total number of commercial and residential permits issued in just 10 years has increased by 63.7%, according to a financial report from the end of 2024.

With all that growth, has come a slew of problems. Namely increased traffic, subpar roads and lagging infrastructure for the new growth. Going forward, impact fees could help address new roads, stormwater retention and parks needed to support new residents.

How could impact fees affect housing in Pooler?

Georgia is one of 29 states that has an enabling act for impact fees.

Under the act, municipalities that want to enact impact fees must do a few things: must have an adopted comprehensive plan containing a capital improvements element (CIE), which outlines necessary capital projects of public facilities; capital improvements must have a useful life of at least ten years; impact fees must be spent within six years. Lastly, eligible facilities include roads, water, sewer, public and open spaces, public safety, library and stormwater improvements.

Impact fees are not like taxes, Bise said, it’s more like a contractual agreement, for a one-time payment to build infrastructure, to fulfil the requirements of need, benefit and proportionate to demand. The fees have to go to something that everyone would benefit from, and the fees would be based on use.

“We’re going to have a fee by either size of house, or type of house,” Bise said. “Single family versus multi-family, office versus retail versus industrial. All of these have different demands for infrastructure. Fees have to be commensurate with that demand.”

One of the key things for impact fees is that it cannot be used for operations, maintenance or replacement. Meaning, Pooler can’t go back and use them for the general improvement or maintenance of existing facilities or infrastructure. The fees have to be used to fund infrastructure improvements directly related to new developments.

Bise also went over the common misconceptions when it comes to impact fees, like increasing the cost of housing or negatively affecting low- or moderate-income homeowners.

“It is somewhat true,” Bise said, of an increase in the cost of housing. “It depends on the economy we’re in, but all of that cost gets passed on to the price of the home. Who bears the brunt of these fees depends on where we are in the economic cycle."

For the latter, Bise said “it doesn’t have to,” and there are ways to mitigate that, like with progressive residential demand. Henry explained it like this: the impact fee would be based on the impact of the number of people per square footage of the house.

“The impact isn’t necessarily the property itself or the development,” Henry said. “It’s the number of vehicles, of people, it all depends on how you measure it. A thousand-square-foot house impacts less than one person, but as you start scaling up it impacts more people. Once you reach about 5,000 square feet, the impacts are the same. Once you have this upper limit it allows you to work out a formula, so the fee’s aren’t arbitrary.”

Methodology

There are three methodologies for calculating impacts: cost-recovery approach; incremental-expansion approach; plan-based approach; or past, present and future.

The most common method for calculating these fees is the present, or incremental-expansion approach. The fee is based on the current cost of replacing existing levels of service.

“It’s, for lack of a better term, formulaic, and it relies looking on standards such as acres,” Bise said. “What does it cost to build brick-and-mortar space today, or to buy an acre of land, and we calculate it that way.”

The cost-recovery approach is common in communities approaching buildout. This is when future developers are “buying in” to the cost the community has already incurred to provide growth-related capacity. Bise said, for instance, if a community has just built a public safety center that’s oversized for new development, the new developers are going to buy into the cost of that center.

The last approach Bise offered would only be feasible with an adopted master plan and commitment by the local government to a funding strategy to bring currently existing developments to a higher level of service.

Bise said they anticipate having the capital improvements element (CIE) and impact fee report ready sometime in November, which then would be workshopped. The current timeline is start the adoption process sometime in the next two months but that timeline may bleed into next year, with the latest date for adoption in March. The process involves a demographic analysis, determination of capital costs and the CIE, determining the best method for calculation, preparing the report, getting public participation and then finally a decision by the elected officials.

Henry said the fees would immediately go into effect for new development.

Destini Ambus is the general assignment reporter for the Savannah Morning News, covering the municipalities, and community and cultural programs. You can reach her at DAmbus@gannett.com