From Peninsula Grill's impending close to babas on meeting's King Street takeover, Charleston's restaurant map shifted more in August than it has in years.
The past month produced more consequential local news than most quarters: Peninsula Grill announced it will close as Planters Inn renovates, Rodney Scott's BBQ confirmed it won't return to 1011 King Street, and babas on meeting signed the lease on that same footprint. Meanwhile, Two Blokes Brewing opened a downtown taproom, the Gaillard marks the Lowcountry Jazz Festival's 20th edition this weekend, and the Sand Dollar Social Club sold to an Upstate developer. Here's everything worth knowing.
The Post & Courier confirmed what regulars had been dreading: Peninsula Grill is closing as the Planters Inn embarks on a significant renovation. Chef John Ondo — a Charleston native who returned to the kitchen where he once worked the line — has been central to its identity, and the window to sit in that velvet room with the coconut cake is closing fast.
Two weeks after Rodney Scott's BBQ confirmed it would not reopen at 1011 King Street — a closure tied to co-founder Nick Pihakis's $44 million bankruptcy filing — babas on meeting signed the lease, per the Post & Courier. The Italian-leaning café, already running on Meeting Street, is bringing its daytime format to one of the upper peninsula's more prominent restaurant footprints.
The King Street address is definitively gone, and the backstory is grim: the Post & Courier reported co-founder Nick Pihakis filed for bankruptcy listing $44 million in debts, a collapse that defines the chain's unraveling. The whole-hog tradition Rodney Scott built in Hemingway remains one of the most decorated in the South — the institutional question now is what form it takes next.
The Mount Pleasant taproom with the devoted stout following opened a second location on Cannon Street in downtown Charleston, per the Post & Courier — operators with established local credentials bringing a production brewery to a peninsula neighborhood that was overdue for one.
The Lowcountry Jazz Festival plays the Gaillard on September 5 and 6 — its 20th edition, making it one of the longer-running annual music events on the peninsula, per the Charleston City Paper. Two decades in, this qualifies as a genuine local institution rather than an annual act of optimism.
The Post & Courier broke the news that Folly Beach's most honest bar — open since 1976, dollar Buds, indoor smoking, $1 annual membership — sold for $2.4 million to an Upstate real estate developer and temporarily closed. What the new owner does with it will say a great deal about what Folly Beach is becoming.
Southern Living named the Gibbes one of the best art museums in the South, per the Post & Courier — a distinction that reflects both the Beaux-Arts building's standing and a 10,000-piece collection that keeps a disciplined focus on American art tied to the Lowcountry.
Winslow Hastie announced he will step down as CEO after nine years leading Historic Charleston Foundation, per the Post & Courier. His tenure tracked the sharpest development pressure the peninsula has faced in decades — who follows him will determine how seriously the organization fights the next round of demolition reviews.
The Post & Courier ran a full retrospective on Home Team BBQ's 20-year run as a South Carolina fixture, and the Charleston City Paper marked the anniversary separately — four locations from Sullivan's Island to Mount Pleasant, dry-rub wings that people drive across county lines for, and a model that outlasted every trend it predates.