The building at 104 East Doty Ave. started life in 1904 as the town's ice plant and, for a time, Summerville Electric and Power's operation — the upstairs once held block ice, the interior once produced it. A 1980 renovation turned it into the restaurant it is today, adding the fireplace, front porch, and windows still in use. Along the way the space has housed several other restaurants and even a jewelry store and music shop before landing in its current form.
The menu is farm-to-table Southern with New Orleans-leaning touches: she-crab soup, housemade pimento cheese, shrimp and grits built on a house shrimp broth with andouille and mushrooms, buttermilk fried chicken with red rice and collards, pecan fried pork chops with apple chutney, and a Cajun pasta with blackened chicken and andouille. Steaks, a fried shrimp platter, and desserts like beignets and citrus buttermilk crème brûlée round things out.
It's family-owned, with a cozy, historical dining room downstairs and a bar upstairs — reachable by 21 steps — pouring from a collection of more than 650 liquor brands. A refrigerator near the entrance, reportedly once sat on by Al Capone, is one of the building's stranger holdovers, along with a metal roof installed after Hurricane Hugo tore the original off.
The menu is farm-to-table Southern with New Orleans-leaning touches: she-crab soup, housemade pimento cheese, shrimp and grits built on a house shrimp broth with andouille and mushrooms, buttermilk fried chicken with red rice and collards, pecan fried pork chops with apple chutney, and a Cajun pasta with blackened chicken and andouille. Steaks, a fried shrimp platter, and desserts like beignets and citrus buttermilk crème brûlée round things out.
It's family-owned, with a cozy, historical dining room downstairs and a bar upstairs — reachable by 21 steps — pouring from a collection of more than 650 liquor brands. A refrigerator near the entrance, reportedly once sat on by Al Capone, is one of the building's stranger holdovers, along with a metal roof installed after Hurricane Hugo tore the original off.