Charleston, SC REVIEW

My wife and I were in Charleston for New Years, from 12/31-1/3. I posted a thread asking for recommendations, and a couple people in that thread asked for a review. So, here I am to do the best I can.

First, I'll say that we were there during a time of record low temps, so there was some frigid air coming off the bay that hindered some of our plans of really checking out the museums, market, carriage rides, and just exploring.

ACCOMMODATIONS:

So, we live in the MS Delta and the original plan was to leave about 10 a.m. on 12/30 and drive to ATL and just find a hotel for a night there and drive the rest of the way on New Years Eve. But we made really good time and I got a room at the Inn at Middleton Place outside of Charleston so we drove all the way.

After that, we had an AirBnB on Cumberland St. We booked on AirBnB, but it was a loft owned by a group called Luxury Simplified Retreats. We stayed in the "Palmetto Loft". I would highly suggest this place. It's in a great location, parking is nearby, the ownership group is easy to work with, not a lot of rules about clean up and whatnot like some AirBnB's, so I would look into anything that they are involved in if you're not going to stay at a hotel... The Charleston Market, Vendue Hotel and Rooftop Bar, museums, and a ton of restaurants are within two or three blocks.

PLACES WE VISITED:

Middleton Place is really cool. The garden is super cool and kind of a maze, but I can imagine it being really beautiful when everything is blooming. The grounds around the house are really beautiful also. You're overlooking the Ashley River, so that makes for a nice back drop. We chose not to tour the house, and only walked the grounds. There are numerous members of the Middleton family buried in a tomb in the garden dating back to the 1760's. One thing that caught my eye when I was reading the list of people buried there, was that the family had a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a former SC Governor, and a signer of the Declaration of Secession.

When we got into Charleston, my wife saw on Snapchat that another couple we are friends with were in town for a wedding. We got hooked up with them and found VIP tickets to the Yorktown Countdown for New Years Eve. For those that aren't familiar, it's a NYE Party on the deck of an Aircraft Carrier in the Bay. There were goods and bads, but overall I'd do that again. It was obviously cold, but they had the VIP area heated as best as they could. The drink lines were long and there wasn't much seating at all, but the entertainment was really good and it was still a blast. A good time was had by all. If you're not in town to do this, going and touring the ship would still be worth the visit if you're into that sort of thing, ships, airplanes, and whatnot.

So I had to get up on New Years morning and move our car by 8 or risk getting a boot. My wife was up and decided to tag along. This turned out to be a great idea. We got the car out about 7:15 and there was literally no one out yet. So we took advantage and started poking around the residential part of downtown. Down Bay St, along The Battery, up and down whatever street we felt like going down. Got to see a lot of beautiful homes with no traffic and at our own pace.

New Years Day we hung out with our friends until they had to fly out, and then we went to the Aquarium for a couple hours. Pretty cool aquarium. Part of it is a sea turtle hospital, so that was interesting. It's also right beside the Ft Sumter Museum (closed on New Years Day), so if that interests you, you have a couple spots there right beside each other.

New Years Night we hung out in our loft and watched the SEC piss the rest of the country off.

January 2, we got out of the city. We went to the Charleston Tea Plantation. I'm a farmer, so any kind of agriculture interest me, but even my wife enjoyed it. It's definitely worth a visit and is not an all day affair. They do a good job of giving you a quality tour, but don't drag it out. It opens at 10 a.m. If you get up and get out there when it opens, you can easily get back into town by lunch or have plenty of stuff to do elsewhere outside of town.

We also went to the Firefly distillery and there's a winery beside it. I would not suggest doing this. The Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka is good, but you can buy that anywhere. The wine is not good. There's just better stuff back in town.

What really sucked about our trip was that 1/3 was supposed to be our museum day... aka my day... But we got up and it had started raining more than forecasted, things were starting to freeze up, and the town was in the process of totally shutting down. So, we had to make the decision to get the hell out of town or risk being snowed into a shut down city for 2 or 3 more days... Luckily we got out and dodged Charleston Snowpocalypse.

FOOD:

For the record, I'm a very picky eater, so I'm not the best reviewer unless it's traditional breakfast food, steaks, other grilled stuff, and desserts.

Breakfast/Brunch:

Virginia's on King: Yes, definitely. Pancakes are awesome, but huge so don't fill up on those because they have plenty of other stuff that looks great. I got eggs and sausage. I wish I would have gotten some fried chicken though. That's what they are known for, and I just didn't for some reason.

Prohibition: Again, a yes. We actually didn't eat here. We ate at Virginia's that morning, but our friends got up later than us and were going to Prohibition. So we met them there and drank Mimosas while they ate. They said the food was great also, especially the steak and eggs. Also a really cool building.

Callie's Hot Little Biscuit: Yeah, it's pretty good. Seating is limited, but the food is worth standing for. We ate here right before leaving town. The sidewalk was frozen over, but there was still a line out the door. My wife said her sausage was a little heavy on the sage side, but I had the bacon/egg biscuit and it was great. So were the little miniature cinnamon biscuits.

Glazed Gourmet Doughnuts: These were great too. Worth it, and it's a good starting point, if you're just looking for a quick bite before working your way down King St.

LUNCH

Tattooed Moose: I think the original one is downtown somewhere, but there's also a location out towards the Tea Plantation. I can't even remember what I got, other than some duck fat fries, but it was good.

DINNER

Paw Paw: Ate here NYE before going to the Yorktown. It was fantastic. I had a tomahawk pork chop with some kind of mashed potatoes. Wife got a salad and mac and cheese. Tomahawk Pork Chop and the Mac and Cheese were the two that stood out.

Hall's Chophouse: Awesome. The Hall family owns a number of restaurants in town, and one of the sons (Wally) was there greeting, taking pictures when asked, checking up on different tables. He's a former sports executive and you can tell he loved sports as he was talking about Alabama-Georgia matchup. Service was awesome, food was even better. Steak and creme brulee were the highlights.


If you're staying in the "French Quarter" part of town, there is a ton of stuff in walking distance, and it looks to be very safe. Uber is also an easy option.

There's so much of the history, architecture, and museums that I know I missed, which is plenty of reason to go back. I could easily do two or three more days just in the downtown area.

My to do list when I go back is the Market, Confederate Museum, Carriage tour, and there's 3 or 4 other museums that caught my eye that people were going in and out of.


ETA: edited to be a little more thorough on a couple things since it's now in the stickied thread.