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Since May 1, when Gov. Henry McMaster announced he was loosening restrictions on on-premise dining, South Carolina restaurant owners have grappled with how to best serve their patrons: Their decisions run the gamut from still-closed kitchens to fully opened dining rooms. But at least in the Charleston area, it appears black and white restaurateurs have on balance reached different conclusions about which course to take.
Just two years after bringing a familiar brand to downtown Charleston, IHOP has closed its location on East Bay Street.
At the start of the pandemic, the only thing people knew for sure was that nothing would ever be the same again, restaurants most especially. If restaurants managed to reopen, they would have to be reconfigured as space age catacombs replete with plexiglass, instant read thermometers and shiny sanitation contraptions.
Yes, they've got a stand. And whistles.
Charleston area restaurants which received federal loans to cope with the coronavirus pandemic can adjust their compensation terms, a fact that has surprised some front-of-house workers who’ve gone back to their jobs.
As diners’ opinions on the suitability of masks for restaurant settings this weekend hardened into bayonets to aim at their opposite number, the founder of a Facebook group which has emerged as the leading clearinghouse for Charleston restaurant information came close to shutting down her site.
Vivian Howard has swapped the order in which she’ll open the two venues at Renaissance Charleston Historic District Hotel, with the counter-service bakeshop now slated to precede the sit-down restaurant.
Matty Symons, a Mount Pleasant brewer whose curmudgeonly charm and community-first ethos made him a beloved character in Charleston's close-knit craft beer community, died Saturday. He was 50 …
The future of South Carolina’s hospitality industry looks relatively bright to restaurant owners, according to early returns from a COVID-19 Impact survey being conducted by the College of Charleston and Lander University. But there’s a catch: The most bullish restaurateurs don’t live in places reliant on the hospitality industry.
Chef BJ Dennis got his landlord’s permission to plant vegetables including okra, tomatoes and “old-school guinea squash” on a patch of land behind his second-floor Charleston apartment.
Scientific research hasn’t yet shown that disposable gloves help protect workers or patrons. Yet at restaurants across the Charleston area where employees aren’t required to wear face coverings, single-use gloves are becoming commonplace.
As if restaurant owners didn’t have enough challenges to surmount right now, steakhouses, burger joints and brisket specialists such as Lewis now have to figure out how to compensate for revenue lost to dining room closures while paying twice as much for their main ingredient and seating half as many customers.
Of the 31 states which have reissued reopening plans for restaurants, South Carolina is one of just 11 which hasn’t mandated masks for food-and-beverage employees. In four of those states, restaurant workers are officially encouraged to wear them.
Few if any Charleston area restaurants which at the start of the year were promoting their imminent openings have publicly backed away from their stated intentions. Here’s the latest update on other high-profile restaurants which were scheduled to open in the spring.
The owner of a downtown Charleston bar which fans hoped would soon be slinging daiquiris again has closed the location permanently, saying he wanted to retreat before a second wave of COVID-19 overwhelms the industry.
City Council on Tuesday night asked the Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee to consider closing portions of downtown streets, potentially compounding the square footage available for socially distant dining.
Trio owner Eric Gussin said the nightclub will not reopen “until we can do so safely.”
Charleston City Council on Tuesday night gave Charleston restaurant owners a little more physical and psychological room to maneuver, streamlining the process for establishing outdoor dining a…
Less than one year after settling a class action lawsuit brought by High Cotton employees who claimed they were required to foot the bill for having their work uniforms professionally laundered, Hall’s Southern Kitchens is being sued by a former Halls Chophouse employee over the same policy.
Restaurants across South Carolina on Monday were permitted to reopen their indoor dining rooms, nearly two months after Gov. Henry McMaster closed them in hopes of containing the coronavirus. Yet, despite operating in the shadow of massive revenue losses, most restaurants in the Charleston area brushed off the chance to usher guests back inside, instead continuing to offer takeout or outdoor tables.
The oldest family-run restaurant in downtown Charleston is the latest local culinary institution to announce it won’t reopen after suggested operating restrictions are lifted.
Restaurants across South Carolina can reopen their dining rooms Monday, according to Gov. Henry McMaster's latest decision rolling back restrictions amid the pandemic.
Buffet is big business along the Grand Strand, where vacationers queue up to help themselves to steamed shellfish, fried rice and sausage links, among other buffet fixtures. But the genre has come under fire from public health organizations trying to control the spread of the coronavirus.
The resulting project may be as emblematic of the current state of food-and-beverage as any initiative to emerge over the past few weeks.
To counteract the resulting despair which gripped the food-and-beverage sector, the festival in early April launched its “Pass the Positivity” campaign, which has emerged as the cornerstone of Wine + Food’s response to the pandemic.
Although there are no rules dictating what a Mother’s Day meal comprises, the following restaurants and catering companies are offering themed packages for the holiday this weekend.
The minor-league RiverDogs at the beginning of April launched a pickup operation giving fans a chance to order team-sanctioned lunches four days a week. Last week, they expanded the program.
Since the coronavirus pandemic began, the state's biggest craft brewing organization has repeatedly asked state officials to allow brewers to deliver their products to drinkers' doors. Those entreaties have been rebuffed at every level.
Workers at seven Publix stores across South Carolina have tested positive for the coronavirus, the supermarket chain on Tuesday confirmed.
Exactly four weeks after Gov. Henry McMaster issued a stay-at-home order for South Carolinians, some Charleston-area diners were so anxious to feel less cooped-up that they willingly waited up to 40 minutes in their cars for an available restaurant table on the first day that legal on-premise dining returned statewide.
A pair of Charleston hospitality outfits have earned spots on the shortlist for this year's James Beard Foundation Awards; Lowcountry leaders and journalists were also recognized.
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At least for the immediate future, FIG will offer takeout through its website on Tuesday through Saturday. The Ordinary, FIG's sister restaurant, will operate Wednesday through Sunday.
At this point, it appears people may be purchasing bananas for the express purpose of mashing them up with brown sugar and butter, perhaps because they’ve been seduced by banana bread images on social media. To steal a figure of speech from the pandemic’s other significant kitchen trend, sourdough bread, the madness is feeding itself.
Both McCrady’s and Minero, housed in the same building at 155 East Bay Street, will not reopen, The Neighborhood Dining Group today announced.
The South Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association is revising its recommendations for reopening restaurants to include a clause restricting the number of dine-in guests at any one time to some fraction of the building’s permitted occupancy.
South Carolina's milk producers large and small have no spilt milk to cry over just yet amid falling demand during the coronavirus pandemic.
Nana’s Seafood & Soul will remain closed when restaurants in downtown Charleston are able to reopen, though the North Charleston restaurant will remain in operation.
Under a S.C. Restaurant and Lodging Association plan presented Wednesday afternoon, restaurants would be permitted to open their outdoor dining areas May 4. Assuming the foray into on-premise service is successful, indoor dining areas would get the green light as early as May 11, but no later than May 18.
Parcel 32 is the first high-profile restaurant in Charleston’s dining district to announce it won’t return to service after the state’s dine-in ban is lifted. The building at 442 King St. will instead be added to Patrick Properties Hospitality Group’s existing portfolio of event venues.
In the raging sea of uncertainty that restaurant owners now must navigate, few swells are as daunting as the looming question of whether employees will come back to work. According to a survey conducted this month by The James Beard Foundation, 16 percent of restaurateurs consider “rehiring staff” a bigger obstacle to reopening than luring back customers or coming up with cash to pay vendors.
Creators of a new website which offered investors the chance to make money by backing select Charleston food-and-beverage businesses on Friday afternoon took down the page, citing complaints from owners who were listed without their permission.
Both Lowcountry Local First’s Chef’s Potluck and The Gibbes Museum of Art’s street party were scheduled for the coming week, leaving supporters to find other ways of advancing the aims of the popular annual events.
On-demand scattered, smothered and covered isn’t yet available in every Waffle House community. According to a spokeswoman, delivery through Postmates is an option at about 900 restaurants, or fewer than half of the chain’s total locations. Eighteen of them are in the Charleston area.
Restaurants both large and small are now at something of a PR impasse. In order to sell enough takeout food to stay solvent, restaurants need to let potential customers know what they have to offer. But it’s hard for a restaurateur with a stack of unpaid bills to justify the expense of a PR professional.
Under gathering restrictions intended to contain the coronavirus, the only kind of eatertainment most Americans these days are experiencing is Netflix and takeout. But new data suggests most of them aren’t in any hurry to return to the previous model, which doesn’t conform to their current notions of safe social distance.
With draft beer sales virtually zeroed out thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, Charleston-area brewers may soon have to dump full kegs of beer that have gone stale in distributors' warehouses.
Restaurant owners across Georgia say they were blindsided by Gov. Brian Kemp’s decision to allow restaurants to reopen April 27, fewer than four weeks after he shut down dining rooms across the state on the advice of public health experts. Many of them have already declared they have no intention of reopening next week.
If reader emails are any indication, many eaters aren’t sure where to look for local meat, produce, eggs, baked goods and other kitchen essentials. Here are a few reliable sources.
Regardless of what financial and societal havoc is in store for the country in the coming months and years, the taco — meaning some kind of tortilla supporting some kind of filling — is primed to survive unscathed. Yet the people who make and sell them aren’t guaranteed to fare as well.