Is culinary success spoiling Charleston?

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- We’re flattered, but please stop. That seems to be the general sentiment of Charlestonians regarding the national press their city has garnered in the last few years, particularly around its burgeoning culinary scene.

With prime coverage from the likes of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, Bon Appetit, Conde Nast Traveler and Food & Wine Magazine, Charleston has felt a substantial impact from media attention in the form of worsened traffic, rising rental prices and staffing shortages.

With a 35-person daily growth rate and tourism bringing six million visitors annually to the area, Charleston’s small town infrastructure is having a tough time keeping up with the volume of people moving throughout the peninsula and beyond.  

“The people who live here are frustrated and don’t want to see Charleston continue to be number one on these lists,” says Jamee Haley, executive director ofLowcountry Local First. “While some are thriving, we’re losing those businesses that provided vital services to the people who live here.”

“I want to see local businesses prosper in our community, but we must be careful of not killing the goose that laid the golden egg,” she says.

The nonprofit Haley leads advocates for local independent businesses and farmers by building a place-based economy that uses the community’s public amenities to make economic progress. She says the national press has certainly had a positive effect on local restaurants, which in turn provides more opportunity for farmers in the region — but more opportunity for farmers doesn’t always equate to more revenue.

“Rents in Charleston went up 26% in one year’s time,” she says. “Local businesses have been closing their doors at an increasing rate, because the sales they make don’t equate to the rent they are paying.”

“With so many restaurants and hotels opening, there is a real staffing crisis — we have seen restaurants close their doors and some that intended to open change plans due to the lack of staffing,” Haley says.

For many local restaurant owners, the tourism is both a blessing and a curse.

“If you’re in the hospitality business, it’s amazing,” says Brooks Reitz, principal at Neighbourhood hospitality design and concept firm. “It means increased traffic to our restaurants, so we can pay our people more and afford better talent.”

“But, gone are the storybook days of finding affordable places one block off the main drag,” he says. “There are no deals to be found anymore, and there’s a general feeling that we’re reaching maximum restaurant saturation.”

Reitz says Charlestonians are proud of the fact that they live in a booming food town, but it also means traffic and parking are much worse — and it’s increasingly difficult to get a table at many restaurants.

“As a restaurant goer, I yearn for the days when Charleston was a better-kept secret,” he says.

In the last four years, Reitz has seen countless out-of-town chefs and restaurant operators move into the Charleston market, some having more success than others. He says the secret is to become a part of the community first, do appropriate outreach, and then humbly join the restaurant scene.

“People here want to be courted a little,” Reitz says.

Perhaps no other chef knows that better than Sean Brock, often considered the face of Charleston’s restaurant scene. A James Beard Award winner and executive chef of Neighborhood Restaurant Group, Brock oversees popular local dining concepts Husk Restaurant, McCrady’s, McCrady’s Tavern and Minero.

Lacking any stereotypical chef ego, Brock feels the weight of being the community’s eminent voice on Lowcountry cuisine. When given the opportunity to brag about his successful consortium of eateries, Brock instead raves about other local mom and pop restaurants that he calls “the temples of Lowcountry cooking” — places like Bertha’s Kitchen, Hannibal’s Kitchen, Martha Lou’s Kitchen and Nana’s Seafood & Soul.

“My hope is that their cooking rises above all and they have lines out the door,” Brock says. “That flavor is what we’re all chasing — the soul and comfort of that food and how it makes you feel is what I’m chasing.”

In his experience, tourists from all over the world are curious about and fascinated with southern food.

“When people come to town, those restaurants should be their first stops to get a sense of what the cuisine feels like,” he says, “then you can go on to the newer restaurants that are inspired by that emotion.”

Because of Charleston’s history of slavery, much of traditional Lowcountry food is influenced by West African flavors, with many local ingredients originating from the crops used to sustain rice plantations. The descendants of these Gullah slaves brought Gullah Geechee cuisine to the Lowcountry region, and today their cooking techniques and flavors are a prized part of Charleston culture.

While filming season 14 of Top Chef in Charleston, Benjamin “BJ” Dennis appeared as a guest chef to teach the contestants about Gullah Geechee food. A specialist chef and caterer, Dennis focuses on cuisine made by generations of family members before him.

Dennis says the national buzz is good exposure for their cuisine, but has also had the untoward side effect of exploiting their culture.

“People come to town looking for things like sweetgrass baskets now,” he says, referring to the popular hand-woven baskets associated with Gullah tradition.

Dennis made note of many mom and pop businesses that have shuttered, seemingly replaced by their corporate counterparts.

“We’ve gotten a big influence of chefs moving in from outside the city because they thought it was cheap here, but now many of them are leaving, saying they should have come here 10 years ago,” he says.

Charleston City Councilmember Mike Seekings oversees the downtown peninsula’s restaurant-heavy district, containing many popular tourist attractions within four square miles. As a member of the community development and traffic and transportation committees, he’s witnessed the impact of the hospitality industry’s growth from a front row seat.  

“The changes have been obvious and dramatic,” Seekings says. “It has been remarkable for the better in terms of the culinary opportunities and exposure that chefs and owners have brought to the public.”

“Out of 40,000 people working in the hospitality industry in Charleston, 20,000 of them work on the peninsula and 83% of them drive alone to work,” he says. “This creates congestion and affordability issues, so getting and staying at work doesn’t support that community model.”

As board chairman of the Charleston Area Regional Transportation Authority, Seekings is tackling this issue from the front lines.

“The challenge is to make sure our residents are happy, and balancing out the tourism by finding a good way to share it [Charleston] with them,” he says. “Although growing, people don’t always recognize that we’re really a small town, not a big city… and we like it that way.”

“I challenge you to find another place like this; we’re second to none in the world,” Seekings says.

Just don't tell your friends about it.