From a financial crisis at the IAAM to a 25-year milestone on King Street, here's what Charleston's press has been tracking since mid-May.
Spoleto Festival USA dominated the city's arts coverage for three weeks running, but the month's more lasting stories unfolded elsewhere: the International African American Museum announcing staff furloughs while vowing to stay open, Rodney Scott's King Street location going dark without a reopening date, and Wild Olive on Johns Island finally getting the national retrospective it's earned. What follows is the month's essential reading, distilled.
The City Paper ran more than 30 pieces on Spoleto and Piccolo Spoleto across the month — highlights include Scottish Ballet's North American premiere of "Mary, Queen of Scots," Denis O'Hare debuting two separate commissioned works, the Martha Graham Dance Company's centennial performances, and a tribute to late chamber music director Geoff Nuttall. Per the City Paper's Mark Hogan, this was the season where "the USA in Spoleto's name" felt most prominent.
The IAAM confirmed it will remain open after disclosing a significant financial shortfall — but staff and leadership face six-month furloughs beginning in July, the City Paper reported on June 11. The museum is operating at full capacity now; programming this summer may look different once the reduced staffing takes effect.
The flagship King Street location closed abruptly in early May with no timeline given, the Briefing noted — a development that "blindsided regulars and rattled Charleston's barbecue community." Scott's social channels remain the only reliable source for any reopening news.
The Post & Courier's food desk returned to Wild Olive on June 12, making the case for why the outdoor-only Johns Island restaurant earned Southern Living's 2025 restaurant of the year — framing the piece, in the Briefing's words, "as a reminder rather than a revelation." Reservations on weekends are gone well in advance; a Tuesday is your best opening.
A historic painting of the June 28, 1776 Battle of Sullivan's Island has been reinstalled at the Nathaniel Russell House, the Post & Courier reported on June 12 — timed, not accidentally, to the country's approaching semiquincentennial. It's among the more resonant objects on public display in the city right now.
Vern's picked up a James Beard semifinalist nod for Outstanding Wine Program — one of three Charleston rooms on the 2026 list, per Eater Charleston — and the Post & Courier's food editor named it among five restaurants worth a June reservation. Waitlists tightened the day the Beard list went live and haven't loosened.
Rue de Jean turned 25 this month — a run the City Paper rightly noted predates "the wave of attention that transformed the city's dining scene." The King Street French brasserie opened in 2001 when Charleston had not yet arrived on the national restaurant map, and it has outlasted dozens of trendier successors since.
The Post & Courier reported on June 11 that Philosophers & Fools was named one of the best independent literary bookstores in the country — a national recognition for the Elliotborough bookstore-bar that opened to immediate neighborhood enthusiasm and has been building a following on natural wine and fresh-popped corn ever since.