When Charleston Grill serves its last meal on Aug. 23, a 36-year chapter of Charleston fine dining will close. While few will ever forget the Grill’s crab cake or its extraordinary wine list, its greatest legacy will be the people who created, maintained and worked in the world-class restaurant that incubated talent in the kitchen and dining room.
Since this month’s surprising closure announcement, there has been time to take stock of what the Charleston Grill meant to the people who worked there and to the greater community.
The birth of the Grill
Lowcountry legend Louis Osteen was opening chef in 1989 at the Grill, the cornerstone restaurant at what then was called Omni Charleston Place. He handed the kitchen over to Bob Waggoner eight years later. Waggoner brought sous chef Michelle Weaver with him, and she later became executive chef in 2009. Waggoner also brought Mickey Bakst to the Grill where he captained as general manager for 17 years before retiring in 2020. Bakst brought wine director Rick Rubel to the restaurant in 2005 and he ran the wine program for 15 years. These throughlines were deliberate and thoughtful. They built the restaurant’s foundation.
Charleston’s unofficial mayor
Anyone who visited the Grill during Bakst’s tenure knows just how important he was to the restaurant and to the Charleston community.
Paul Stracey, longtime general manager at the hotel, shared a story about watching Bakst greet guests at the restaurant door one evening many years ago.
“I knew how good he was, but it blew me away,” Stracey said. “Watching the peoples’ faces light up and the way he made people feel like they were the only ones he’d been waiting for that night. It was remarkable, absolutely remarkable.”
Baskt shared that the restaurant “was important in regard to the growth of the Charleston hospitality scene. There is no question about it. It had a major influence.”
Bakst also noted the charity birthed at the Grill — Feed the Need still works to alleviate hunger and homelessness in Charleston. There were fundraisers for firefighters, for hurricane relief and for Emanuel AME Church. None of this would have been possible, Bakst shared, without the support of Stracey.
That innate desire to do good for those in need led Bakst to his current role as founder, along with Indigo Road Hospitality Group’s Steve Palmer, of Ben’s Friends, a coalition of sober food and beverage people committed to their sobriety in the industry.
“The things that I learned through the relationships that I made at the Charleston Grill have enabled me to raise millions and millions of dollars for those in need in this community,” said Bakst. “And it is solely because of the Charleston Grill. The Charleton Grill gave me a platform, and The Charleston Place hotel gave me a platform, in which to develop relationships that ended up benefiting the community in countless ways.”
Inside the kitchen classroom
While turning out excellent food was perhaps the most visible part of Weaver’s job at the restaurant, it was her ability and desire to teach people that was most impactful.
“We’ve had such an outpouring from people reaching out to us after they heard the news saying ‘you guys have no idea how much you impacted our lives, I wouldn’t be where I am today without it,’ ” Weaver shared. “I think that’s our great legacy, to be honest. And it brings me great joy and pride. It was a special place.”
She also noted how food can do more than fill the stomach. It nourishes the soul.
“Our guys [in the kitchen] really didn’t get to interact a lot with our guests,” Weaver said. “Their interaction was that plate of food. This is how you’re going to touch people. I said ‘listen, that foie gras dish that you’re making, I’ve gotten two proposals and made a grown man cry. That’s how you touch people with food.’ ”
World-class wine program
Rubel first came to Charleston Grill as a consultant tasked with organizing the wine list (he noted with a laugh that Bakst very deliberately asked him to visit in the spring when the weather was great).
“Rick Rubel unconditionally set the tone for the wine experience in Charleston,” said Bakst. “He taught virtually every single person who went on to become an advanced sommelier. He elevated the quality of wine in restaurants here by light years.”
Rubel noted a long list of teammates who helped make the Grill what it was, including Sara Kavanaugh, Andrew Marshall and Femi Oyediran. He also mentioned that the pre-shift wine tastings and lineup were a pivotal part of developing wine professionals.
Rubel told a story about recently visiting Tutti, the pizza restaurant opened by Oyediran and Miles White, another former Grill employee.
“My boys saw Femi tearing up a little bit when he saw me sitting in the dining room” Rubel said. “To realize that I had that kind of impact on him and have my boys see that,” he trailed off, his voice filled with emotion.
Educating a local F&B star Oyediran started working at the Grill in 2008 as a server’s assistant and stayed until 2017 when he opened Graft Wine Shop. His countless accolades include being selected as ‘Sommelier of the Year’ along with White by Food & Wine magazine in 2019.
Lessons learned at the Grill still resound, Oyediran said.
“Everything I do is informed by my experience at the Grill. If anyone wants to say that I am successful at all, they should look back at where I was. There is no doubt, if you were in that restaurant and you paid attention and you took what you learned, you should win the world.”
The legacy of the Grill
The specifics of the restaurant space’s future remain unclear, but look for pop-ups before a new concept opens.
“A fresh new dining concept is planned for the future, and in the meantime, guests can expect a unique pop-up culinary concept to debut in the coming months,” said Casey Lavin, president of Beemok Hospitality Collection.
Bakst said the restaurant did what it was supposed to as Charleston’s food scene matured.
“It helped grow the community as a destination for hospitality and for fine food. But the time of the Charleston Grill has come, and the things that are going to happen are equally exciting in the next generation.”
Related
Help keep the City Paper free.
No paywalls.
No subscription cost.
Free delivery at 800 locations.
Help support independent journalism by donating today.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
