A CHANCE OF PACE: Belhaven's quaint culture attracts visitors for more than just a night.

• Author: Mims, Bryan
• Position: GREENSHOOTS

Teresa Van Staalduinen apologizes for what she calls a hot mess, then insists she's running her mouth. With a sheepish grin, she beseeches me to come back and have dinner when Spoon River Artworks and Market is open. "I'm really passionate," she says. To that, there is no doubt. When speaking other passions for art, interior design, homegrown food or her hometown, her thoughts roll like the creeks meandering into Beaufort County's Pungo River, sweeping its 2-mile-wide tide past Belhaven.

"I love our town, every nuance of it," she says while standing in the farm-to-fork restaurant that she and her husband, Mark, opened in 2012. "I don't think I'm a restaurant person at all; I'm an artist." Indeed, her background is in art and design; her paintings adorn the restaurant where the chef serves eggs Benedict with crabcakes, steak Oscar and fish tacos, all sourced from the region. "I love the creativeness of artful dining."

Van Staalduinen's hot mess refers to the building that she's renovating into a wedding and event venue. Across the street, she's revamping another structure into an art gallery and market to showcase North Carolina food and drinks. Both are expected to open in May.

Spoon River--its name inspired by the song she heard on the radio while she was cleaning the floor of her future restaurant--attracts foodies from a wide region. It's also a favorite among the legions of boaters traveling the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway who dock at any of the town's three marinas.

Mixing old and new

Belhaven, located about 30 miles east of Washington on U.S. 264, is a town of about 1,600 people, a third fewer than in the 1980s as its major industries of commercial fishing and lumber largely left town.

It is perched on the pine-rimmed banks of the Pungo River, just north of where it empties into Pamlico Sound. The elevation is practically sea level, so many newer homes are built on stilts and brick pilings. Follow Water Street east from downtown, the pewter expanse of the Pungo always in view, and one passes white picket fences, bed-and-breakfast inns, front porches garnished with white columns and balustrades, and yards shaded by loblolly pines.

A prominent site is River Forest Manor and Marina, a Southern Colonial mansion built in 1904 that hosts weddings and other events.

In recent years, shops and eateries have opened in downtown, tapping into Belhaven's popularity among boaters and the salty, small-town milieu that enchants many visitors...