The question everybody has been asking since May finally has an answer, and it is not the one the barbecue crowd wanted.
Babas is taking 1011 King Street.
The cafe announced on Aug. 21 that it is relocating its Meeting Street location into the stand-alone building that housed Rodney Scott's Whole Hog BBQ, the restaurant that helped earn Scott a James Beard Award in 2018. A Coldwell Banker representative confirmed that Babas co-owner Edward Crouse, who runs the trio of cafes with his wife Marie Stitt, signed the lease.
Which means the pit is not coming back to that address. Not in September, not ever.
Why it matters. For three months, 1011 King has been the most conspicuous question mark on the peninsula. One sign said temporarily closed. Another said available. The neighborhood filled in the blanks.
Here is what actually happened. Rodney Scott's closed in May as its Alabama-based parent, Pihakis Restaurant Group, absorbed millions of dollars in lawsuits and liens. In August, founder and CEO Nick Pihakis laid out roughly $44 million in debts in a lengthy petition filed in Alabama. Every restaurant the group operated has since been shut down or handed to somebody else. Charleston just happened to have the most famous one.
Scott himself is not out of the picture. He has been running pop-ups around town, including at Munkle Brewing Co., and his attorney Michael Gruenloh said on Aug. 21 that the pitmaster is actively pursuing a new location he hopes to open soon. Take the man at his word. He told the Post & Courier in May that he intended to reopen even if it meant starting somewhere new.
For Babas, this is a straight upgrade. The Meeting Street cafe, a 2021 collaboration with the wine and cheese shop goat.sheep.cow., has always been charming and always been cramped. The King Street building comes with a real kitchen.
The bigger working kitchen "will allow us to improve and refine what we love doing most: handmaking our food and beverages, expanding our catering offerings, hosting epic events and serving the fine people of Charleston the most delicious menu we can muster," Crouse and Stitt said in a statement carried by the Post & Courier.
The mechanics. Babas on Meeting stays open through the end of September. goat.sheep.cow. is not going anywhere and keeps 804 Meeting St. The Cannon Street and Wentworth Street locations are unaffected.
So King Street trades a James Beard pitmaster for a fourth Babas. That is not a knock on Babas, which is very good at what it does and now gets the room to do more of it. It is a fair description of what the block lost and what it gained.
The more interesting address is the one Rodney Scott has not named yet.
This is a summary of an article published in the Post & Courier. Click here if you'd like to read that article.
