GOOD GOOMBAYS: A made-to-order restaurant loan, with a side of diplomacy.

Kill Devil Hills on the Outer Banks in Dare County is typical of many oceanfront villages in North Carolina in that most businesses are locally-owned. Except during tourist season, it's a quiet, oceanfront community where everyone knows everyone.

Tony Sipe, who is in his mid-40s, has lived in Kill Devil Hills his entire life. For the past dozen years, he's worked at Goombays Grille & Raw Bar on the beach road, Highway 12. Goombays has been established for decades; its undersea murals, Caribbean-style entrees and collage of license plates on the wall create a popular ambiance. Hours extend until midnight, with dinner served until 10 p.m. Last year, longtime owners Charles and Karen Hennigan decided to sell.

"They were great, a married couple who worked all the time, like five or six days a week," Sipe says. "It was family owned for 32 years."

Sipe decided to buy.

A friend, Chris Miller, who is in his early 50s and had worked at Goombays in its first few years, joined Sipe in the purchase.

In April 2022, they contacted the Small Business and Technology Development Center at Elizabeth City State University, which referred them to a local branch office and Matt Byrne.

"He helped us so much. I have an economics background, and Chris has managed huge restaurants, but we would have been lost if not for Matt," Sipe says. "We were prepared for the front side of the business, but it was the other stufflike financing where we were not, and that's where the SBTDC came in. We could ask questions you wouldn't be able to ask your friend, or a guy down the street."

"No one here knew what was going on but Tony and Chris and myself, and the sellers," Byrne says. "One of the more interesting things was, they [Sipe and Miller] knew who they wanted to bank with so they drove to Wilmington to talk with a branch there, and it became apparent they needed to work with an SBA [Small Business Administration] loan."

The men's communication link with Byrne through the financial navigation process was what made the sale possible, Sipe says.

"He kept discretion through the process. We live in a very small town. If you're in the restaurant business, most people are friends. Discretion is the best advice on the financial side, and he went over every single number with us, answered every email, picked up the phone every time we called," he says. "It was like he was working with only us."

Byrne, Sipe says, has been involved in banking and financing in the area and "knew a...