From a landmark closure on Market Street to a walk-in-only institution finally taking reservations, here's what the Charleston press has been circling the past month.
Peninsula Grill is running out of time, Chubby Fish has quietly become easier to book, and Two Blokes Brewing has given the downtown peninsula a proper neighborhood brewery. Elsewhere, babas on meeting is inheriting one of King Street's most prominent restaurant footprints, and the Battery's flood-mitigation future just cleared a meaningful bureaucratic hurdle. These are the stories that actually moved in Charleston this fall.
The Post & Courier has confirmed it more than once now: Peninsula Grill is closing as the Planters Inn embarks on renovations, ending nearly three decades of white-tablecloth service on Chalmers Street. Chef John Ondo — a Charleston native who once worked the line here earlier in his career — has been the room's anchor, and the coconut cake will be genuinely mourned. Go before the door locks.
The Post & Courier broke the news on September 30: Chubby Fish is ending its walk-in-only era and will begin offering a limited number of reservations through OpenTable — the single most consequential policy change at one of Charleston's most talked-about restaurants since it opened. Get on the platform now; those slots will not linger.
Per the Post & Courier, the Italian-leaning café already running on Meeting Street has signed a lease for 1011 King Street — the address Rodney Scott's BBQ vacated as co-founder Nick Pihakis filed for bankruptcy listing $44 million in debts. One of upper King's more prominent restaurant footprints is turning over; watch for babas to bring its daytime café format to the block.
Both Charleston City Paper and the Post & Courier confirmed the August 11 opening of Two Blokes Brewing's Cannon Street taproom — giving the downtown peninsula its first production brewery within walking distance of the Cannonborough-Elliotborough core. The Mount Pleasant original has a devoted following; the new address is new enough that lines haven't formed yet.
Charleston City Paper reported on September 30 that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has awarded $6.2 million in design contracts for two segments of the planned Battery extension — a flood-mitigation project years in the making that is now, for the first time, in formal engineering. Design contracts mean it is no longer a plan on paper.
As of this week the Grand Bohemian on Wentworth Street is now Hotel Operis — a full rebrand, not just a name change, according to the Post & Courier, with ownership repositioning the property around Charleston's theater and visual arts scene. Whether the programming follows the concept is the question worth watching.
The building at 280 Meeting Street — home to Theatre 99 — sold for nearly $7 million, with plans filed for six condominiums on the site, per the Post & Courier. The improv community has been tracking this since the demolition controversy surfaced; the new ownership now determines what happens to the venue's address.
Two significant developments in rapid succession: the Post & Courier reported that CEO Winslow Hastie is stepping down after nine years, then that a zoning challenge by the Foundation forced a proposed upper King Street hotel back to the design phase entirely. Leadership transitions at HCF carry real weight for how demolition reviews and preservation fights get decided on the peninsula.
Charleston City Paper called PURE Theatre's world-premiere production — described as "a searing sendup of Southern sanctimony" that exposes the hypocrisy behind performative piety — a sharp-toothed critical success. World premieres at an intimate downtown house don't repeat; check the remaining run dates before this one closes.