Six awards across three years, voted on by the people who live here. Here is the full record, what the Lowcountry’s Best awards actually are, and why an independent optical boutique on Hilton Head Island keeps winning them.
Six awards, three years, two categories. Here is exactly what the readers of The Island Packet voted:
2025 — Gold, Best Eyewear Shop. Silver, Best Eye Care.
2024 — Gold, Best Eyewear Shop. Silver, Best Eye Care.
2023 — Gold, Best Eyewear Shop. Gold, Best Eye Care.
The through-line is the Gold for Best Eyewear Shop — won in 2023, defended in 2024, and defended again in 2025. Winning once can be a good year. Winning three times in a row, in a market with several established optical practices, is a pattern.
Lowcountry’s Best is a readers’ choice program, not an industry panel and not a paid placement. The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette open nominations to the public, then open voting to the public. Residents of Hilton Head Island, Bluffton and Beaufort County decide it.
That distinction matters. A trade award measures what the industry thinks of you. A readers’ choice award measures what your actual neighbors and clients think — the people who sat in the exam chair, who came back when a hinge loosened, who sent their friends. It is the closest thing a local business gets to a public referendum.
It also means the award cannot be bought. There is no entry fee that produces a Gold medal here.
The honest answer is that the two categories reinforce each other. Best Eye Care and Best Eyewear Shop are usually held by different kinds of business — a clinical practice on one side, a retail optical on the other. Eyeland Optique does both under one roof, and the exam informs the frame.
A comprehensive exam here is not a prescription vending machine. It looks at eye health, lifestyle, screen time, sun exposure and how you actually use your vision through the day. That information is what an ABO-certified optician then uses to recommend a lens design and a frame that will genuinely work — not just the frame that looks best on the shelf.
The collection is the other half. Every house on the wall is chosen deliberately: Lindberg from Denmark for its screwless titanium, Chopard from Switzerland, l.a. Eyeworks for colour, Orgreen, Lunor, Vuarnet, Res/Rei, Thierry Lasry, and made-to-order lines for anyone who wants a frame that exists nowhere else. These are independent, largely handmade houses, and they hold up for years in a way mass-produced frames do not.
Then there is the part that does not photograph well: adjustments are free, repairs are done on site, and the shop knows returning clients by name. Personal-shopping appointments began as a necessity during COVID and became the preferred way of working — unhurried, one-on-one, with the whole collection open to you.
CH2 Magazine has profiled the shop three times — “Frame Worthy” in 2024, “More Than Just Glasses – A Spectacle” in 2025, and “Eyewear With a Wink” in March 2026 — each written by a journalist who spent time on the floor.
LOCAL Life magazine has turned to Billy Simmons, LDO, ABOC as its named eyewear and lens-technology expert in its annual trends coverage every year since 2022.
The full record, with links to every article and the official award listing, lives on our About page.
The shop is inside the Fresh Market Shoppes at 890 William Hilton Parkway, Suite 93, on Hilton Head Island. Parking is free and easy.
Book a comprehensive eye exam, a contact-lens fitting, or a private personal-shopping appointment — we usually have something open within the week. Or simply walk in and browse the wall.
Every topic in the journal is a conversation we're happy to have in person. Book a visit or just walk in.
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Read →Readers of The Island Packet voted Eyeland Optique Gold for Best Eyewear Shop in the Lowcountry’s Best awards three years in a row — 2023, 2024 and 2025. The shop is inside the Fresh Market Shoppes at 890 William Hilton Parkway, Suite 93, and carries independent handmade collections including Lindberg, Chopard, Porsche Design, l.a. Eyeworks, Orgreen, Lunor, Vuarnet and Maui Jim.
Lowcountry’s Best is the annual readers’ choice program run by The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette. Winners are decided by public nomination and vote across Hilton Head Island, Bluffton and Beaufort County — not by a panel, and not by paid entry. Gold, Silver and Bronze are awarded in each category.
Yes. Alongside three consecutive Golds for Best Eyewear Shop, Eyeland Optique won Gold for Best Eye Care in 2023 and Silver in both 2024 and 2025 — six awards in total across the two categories.
The full award history is published on the Lowcountry’s Best website at votedlowcountrysbest.com, which lists every medal by year and category.
