From a financial crisis at Gadsden's Wharf to a 25-year brasserie milestone and a Michelin kitchen's Puerto Rican roots, here's what Charleston's press covered this month.
June brought a reckoning at the International African American Museum, a second location for Sorelle, and a long-overdue feature on Wild Common's Orlando Pagán. Rue de Jean turned 25 quietly on King Street, Wild Olive got the Southern Living treatment again, and Philosophers & Fools picked up a national indie-bookstore honor. These are the places that showed up in our Briefing and in Charleston's press over the past four weeks — and why each one is worth your attention right now.
The IAAM marked Juneteenth with its annual 'Juneteenth on the Yard' gathering even as the institution announced six months of staff and leadership furloughs beginning in July — a financial shortfall severe enough to make the City Paper's front page twice in one week. The museum confirmed it will remain open; as the Briefing put it plainly, go and spend money in the gift shop.
The City Paper profiled executive chef Orlando Pagán this week, tracing how his Puerto Rican heritage shapes the menu at the Michelin-starred Spring Street tasting room — including through pop-up formats that push further into his culinary roots than the fixed menu allows. If you haven't been since the star landed, the piece reframes what Pagán is actually cooking toward.
Rue de Jean turned 25 this spring — a milestone the City Paper noted pointedly: the King Street French brasserie opened in 2001, before Charleston had arrived on the national restaurant map, and has outlasted dozens of trendier successors since. The moules frites and Saturday cassoulet are still the real draw; the anniversary is a reasonable occasion to go without feeling like a tourist.
The Post & Courier's food desk returned to Wild Olive this month, making the case for why the Johns Island restaurant earned Southern Living's 2025 restaurant of the year — framing the piece as a reminder rather than a revelation. The outdoor-only room on Maybank Highway has been doing exceptional work for years; reservations book fast on weekends.
A historic painting of the June 28, 1776 Battle of Sullivan's Island — a pivotal early American Revolution victory — was reinstalled at 51 Meeting Street this month, timed precisely to America's semiquincentennial. As the Briefing noted, it's one of the more resonant objects on public display in the city right now.
USA Today named Philosophers & Fools one of the best independent literary bookshops in the country, according to a Post & Courier item from June 11 — recognition that landed quietly for an Elliotborough spot that's still relatively new. The natural wine list and daily-popped popcorn remain the neighborhood draws; the national citation is the news.
The Indigo Road group opened a second Sorelle — inside the old Macintosh space on upper King — and followed it with a sold-out late-night pasta party during Spoleto's pre-party weekend, per the Briefing. The bar program at the new location leans heavier on amaro; the pasta menu is identical to the original.
The popular Mount Pleasant taproom announced a downtown second location in a historic building near MUSC on Cannon Street, per the Post & Courier on June 16 — no opening date set, but it's the most significant brewery news on the upper peninsula in recent memory. Worth tracking before the soft-open announcement drops.
The Post & Courier asked the pointed question this month — are Charleston's most visitor-popular restaurants actually worth the hype? — and put Husk, Magnolias, and Hyman's Seafood under that lens together. Husk's position in the piece captures the local consensus accurately: still worth going for the historic house and the bar burger, considerably less so for the full dining room experience since Sean Brock's departure.