A few summers ago, if you pulled your boat up to Buffalo Creek on the west side of Lake Murray, your options were gas, ice, and maybe a bag of crickets if you needed live bait. That was the whole pitch. You filled up, you fished, you left.
Now you can tie off at the dock, order a burger and a bucket drink at Martin's Landing Bar & Grill, and if the wait is long or the mood shifts, walk a few hundred feet up the hill to Na'cho Margarita for tacos and a plate of seafood. Two restaurants, close enough that regulars compare them in the same breath, on a stretch of Marina Way in Prosperity that used to have nothing worth stopping for beyond fuel.
What Used to Be Here
The place was called Buffalo Creek Marina before Dale and Jennifer Martin bought it. According to WLTX's coverage of the purchase, the Martins picked up the property in April with a plan that went well past a fresh coat of paint: new docks, a renovated gas setup, revamped cabins, and a restaurant that didn't exist there before. They renamed it Martin's Landing.
The convenience store in the middle of the marina had actually closed around Thanksgiving the year before. When the Martins reopened it, they were upfront that it wasn't a full relaunch yet. Boating gear, bait, a few rods and tackle, but the shelves weren't stocked all the way. What mattered was that a marina people had written off as fading was suddenly moving in the other direction.
A waitress working there at the time, Hailey Roach, put it simply to WLTX: getting the marina right meant boaters wouldn't have to leave the property to get what they needed, then come back for dinner. A regular boater on the lake, Al Arnette, told the station something that sounds almost too tidy for a marina renovation story, but it's the kind of line locals actually say about places they care about: "I love the people and I love good things for the community."
Two Restaurants, Almost Touching
Here's the part that makes Buffalo Creek different from most Lake Murray dining spots. On most of the lake, restaurants are spread out enough that picking one is a real decision. At Marina Way, Martin's Landing and Na'cho Margarita sit close enough that people move between them without getting back in a car or a boat.
That proximity shows up in how customers actually talk about the two places. Reviewers describe Martin's Landing as scenic and social, with a full bar, live music some nights, and a menu that leans heavily on burgers and bar food. It's dog-friendly, it's got a deck over the water, and on a good night the karaoke carries across the marina. But it's also a young operation still working out its rhythm, and some visitors who've had an off night have said as much in reviews, then gone right up the hill to try the other option instead. That's not a knock on either business. It's just what happens when two restaurants are close enough that switching costs nothing.
Na'cho Margarita, for its part, isn't new to this. It already had locations on Lake Murray and near downtown Lexington before setting up at Buffalo Creek, and it's built a following on seafood-leaning takes on traditional Mexican dishes rather than a standard combo platter.
| Spot | What it's known for | Access |
|---|---|---|
| Martin's Landing Bar & Grill | Burgers, live music, dockside deck | Boat dock, free lot parking |
| Na'cho Margarita | Mexican food with a seafood lean | Short walk up the hill from the marina |
The Third Location Is the Real Signal
A marina restaurant opening is a nice story. A restaurant chain deciding to open its third location isn't luck, it's a bet backed by numbers somebody else already ran.
Na'cho Margarita is now planning a location in Newberry at 2064 Wilson Road, its third in the Midlands after Lake Murray and Lexington. The company hasn't announced an opening date publicly yet, but the expansion itself tells you something the marina renovation alone couldn't. A restaurant with two successful locations already doesn't add a third one on a whim. Someone looked at what Buffalo Creek was doing on a Saturday afternoon and decided the west shore of the lake could support more than a bait shop with a kitchen attached.
For a corner of Prosperity that spent years being the place boaters passed through on their way somewhere else, that's the tell. The dining scene here isn't a one-off renovation story. It's a business pattern repeating itself, which is a very different thing.
What's Still Missing, Honestly
None of this means Buffalo Creek has become a food destination on the scale of Lexington's Main Street or downtown Newberry. Martin's Landing is still a young restaurant working through service kinks that come with any new kitchen finding its footing, and the marina's convenience store, by the Martins' own account when they reopened it, wasn't fully stocked. This is a corridor in the middle of becoming something, not a finished product.
What it has now that it didn't have three years ago is a reason to stay past the boat ramp. That's the shift worth noticing if you live nearby and haven't been out that way lately.
The Rest of the Calendar Downtown
None of this touches Prosperity's town square, which runs on its own separate rhythm. The Hoppin' Arts and Crafts Festival takes over the square every spring, closing it to traffic for a day of local vendors, a car show, and a mural on Main Street that ties back to the town's original name, Frog Level, before it was rechartered as Prosperity in 1873. Fall brings the town's Spooktacular Halloween event. Winter brings the Christmas Parade on the first Sunday in December, preceded the night before by a Shopper's Walk and tree lighting sponsored by the Prosperity Business Association.
The square and the marina aren't competing for attention so much as covering different parts of the year and different parts of the day. One is where the town gathers on foot. The other is where it gathers by boat. Buffalo Creek having something to offer now just means the water side finally caught up.
If you're weighing what a home near this stretch of Lake Murray actually gets you day to day, that's worth factoring in alongside the schools, the drive to Columbia, and the lake access itself. A marina that's building a reason to stick around changes what a Saturday out here looks like, and that's the kind of detail that doesn't show up on a listing sheet.
If you're thinking about a move to Prosperity, Chapin, Irmo, or anywhere else around Lake Murray and want someone who actually knows which corners are changing and why, Heather Shuler would be glad to talk it through. Schedule a consultation whenever you're ready.
