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The Partner Desk Charleston's most engaged audience is reading right now Your business could be in this spot next week
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Happy Thursday, Charleston. Charleston has a birthday, and it's August 13, 1783, the day the state legislature incorporated the place as a city and, in the same stroke, quietly dropped the "w" from Charles Town. The clerk who copied out the act apparently couldn't let go, titling it "An Act to Incorporate Charles Ton" and spelling it that way throughout, two words, like a man easing himself into cold water.
The new charter carved the city into 13 districts, each with a warden, and created the office of intendant, what we'd now call mayor, which Richard Hutson won that September. So the next time someone tells you Charleston was founded in 1670, they're right about the town and wrong about the city.
Half the chefs in this town are quietly obsessed with banana pudding. But what are you actually ordering?
Dinner Club is Wednesday. The door closes Monday at 3:00 PM.
Six days out. A handful of French Quarter restaurants, six of you to a table, and one bar afterward where the whole club lands and compares notes.
Here's why Monday matters. You don't pick your table, the questionnaire does, and it seats you with people you'd actually want to eat dinner with. Building those tables takes real time, so registration closes Monday, August 17 at 3:00 PM. After that I can't add you, no matter how nicely you ask.
Wednesday, August 19. Seated at 6:45 PM. Everyone converges on one bar around 8:30.
What?!? This was a first. There were ZERO guesses in last week’s “Where Are We?” Not one. Now I’m not about making it so hard I don’t get engagement. So this week’s is pretty easy, I think. Maybe not for folks new-to-town, though? 👇🏼
And it was the mural on the side of GDC Home’s West Ashley store off Sam Rittenberg.
WEATHER
Thursday 95° / 79° ⛅ 💧24%
Friday 94° / 79° ⛈️ 💧37%
Saturday 94° / 79° ⛈️ 💧41%
Sunday 92° / 80° ⛈️ 💧40%
RESTAURANTS
A building on Cannon Street has been standing since 1866, and for most of that time it was a YMCA. Before this month is out, it starts serving uni. The man behind it ran an eleven-course taco tasting inside Grand Central Terminal, and he thinks Charleston has been getting sushi wrong at both ends of the price range.
WHERE ARE WE?
Just reply to this email, or if you’re reading on our website, email me here. The first person to guess correctly will get a shout-out at the top of our issue next week!
HAPPENINGS
Thursday, August 13
Sweat on the Ship x Jane Do | 6 - 7 PM | Patriots Point | A workout on an aircraft carrier flight deck. Yes, really.
Game Night at El Jefe | 7 PM - 12 AM | El Jefe Texican Cantina | Cornhole, Jenga, beer pong, tacos. Bring someone competitive.
Sip & Sculpt Pottery Workshop | 7 - 9 PM | The Whale | Throw clay, drink beer. One of those you'll be good at.
Friday, August 14
Lighthouse Inlet Bird Walk | 7:30 - 9:30 AM | Charleston County Parks | Folly's north end before the beach crowd wakes up.
Gator Tales | 10 AM - 12 PM | Charleston County Parks | Everything you assumed about alligators is probably wrong.
Southern Sips Mixology Class | 3:30 - 4:30 PM | Linnette's at The Dunlin | Two cocktails, built from the farm's own herbs and fruit.
Saturday, August 15
Saturdays at the Distillery | 12 - 5 PM | Firefly Distillery | Free, open-air, food truck, and Reso-Phonic playing until five.
Make Sushi With Chef Nikki | 5 - 7 PM | Commonhouse Aleworks | Learn to roll it yourself before the new hand roll bar opens.
The Princess Bride with Cary Elwes | 7 PM | Gaillard Center | Westley himself, telling the stories from behind the camera.
It's a 2000s Party (18+) | 9 PM | Music Farm | Low-rise everything and a playlist that peaked in 2006.
Sunday, August 16
American Gardens Sunday Bazaar | 10:30 AM - 2:30 PM | American Gardens | Flower farms, food vendors, live music, in King Street's newest park.
Grief Sucks by KevOnStage (16+) | 7:30 PM | The Charleston Music Hall | A comedian taking on the one subject nobody jokes about.
| Broker’s Take | August 13, 2026 |
Yes Is The Midpoint
An accepted offer used to feel like the finish line. Now it’s closer to halftime. The real negotiation has moved into the ten days after the contract, when the inspection comes back and both sides find out how badly they want it. Buyers have their confidence back and they’re asking for repairs again, and the sellers who prepped the house before listing barely notice it happening. The ones who get hurt are the ones who priced for a perfect house and then hand over a report full of surprises. Fix it before the buyer finds it, or price like they already did.
Jimmy Farrell
Broker, The Farrell Group
ICYMI
For twelve years the only way in was to ring the bell and wait for the buzzer, and now nobody answers.
→ Find out why the owners walkedThe co-founder of Kate Spade launched a second label ten years ago and has wanted a Charleston store the whole time.
→ See which King Street address she landedFive Charleston kitchens, five completely different banana puddings, and one of them started life as a doughnut filling.
→ See who deep-fries theirsRegulars are calling a new Rivers Avenue bakery a hidden gem, which is exactly the problem with hidden gems.
→ Find out what low-sweet actually tastes likeA church paid $14,500 for a downtown school building in 1981, and an architect just paid a lot more to gut it.
→ See what's going in where the cafeteria was
LIVE MUSIC
FRI — Everyone Orchestra at The Charleston Pour House — conducted improv from Ween and Dopapod alumni. Or Winelight at Forte Jazz Lounge — Sanborn, Grover, Spyro Gyra, done properly.
SAT — Easy Honey at The Windjammer — hometown surf-rock, beach stage, sunset timing. Or It's a 2000s Party at Music Farm — every song you screamed in a Civic.
SUN — Augustana at Music Farm — mid-2000s piano rock, seated and close. Or Reggae Sundays at The Washout — only a few left before the season ends.
FEEDBACK
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