From a carriage-tour editorial broadside to a landmark's financial crisis, here's everything that made Charleston news worth tracking this month.
August's press cycle delivered structural news alongside the culinary kind: Boone Hall Plantation is becoming a nonprofit, the IAAM is navigating a financial crisis with its doors still open, and Theatre 99's building just sold for nearly $7 million. Meanwhile, Peninsula Grill welcomed back a former line cook as executive chef, Home Team BBQ hit 20 years, and Palmira's pitmaster Hector Garate traded his smoker for a television camera.
The museum celebrated Juneteenth on the Yard even as it prepared to furlough staff and leadership for six months starting in July — a financial shortfall the City Paper called one of the most serious operational challenges since the 2023 opening. The institution is open; foot traffic and gift-shop spending matter right now.
One of the Lowcountry's most-visited properties is trading private ownership for foundation-led nonprofit governance — a transition the Post & Courier calls significant, with implications for how Boone Hall interprets its full history going forward.
John Ondo, who once worked the line at 112 Chalmers Street earlier in his career, has returned as executive chef — what the Post & Courier framed as a full-circle homecoming for one of Charleston's most enduring fine-dining rooms, now approaching its 30th year.
The building at 280 Meeting Street sold for nearly $7 million, with condominium plans announced — leaving the future of Charleston's flagship improv venue, per the Post & Courier briefing, firmly in the hands of a new owner.
Pitmaster Hector Garate is heading to television — the City Paper called the appearance 'the latest sign that the restaurant he opened in February 2024 has punched well above its age in national barbecue circles.' The lines, predictably, will only grow from here.
The City Paper marked Home Team BBQ's 20th anniversary this month — 'a milestone for one of the city's most durable restaurant brands,' now running four Lowcountry locations from Sullivan's Island to Mount Pleasant.
Founders Andrew Hare and Jared Hellman are expanding beyond their 2023 Park Circle original, per a City Paper report published July 31 — the first concrete sign that the converted-church café on East Montague has the legs to travel.
Rue de Jean turned 25 this year — the City Paper noted it opened in 2001, before Charleston had arrived on the national restaurant map, and has outlasted 'dozens of trendier successors.' The anniversary is a legitimate occasion to revisit the moules frites.
A truck crashed into the Savannah Highway drive-thru in late July, closing that lane, per a Post & Courier report — worth confirming current service status before making the trip out to West Ashley.