Picks and Pans – Charleston, SC

Kudu is a super friendly coffee shop right in downtown Charleston where you can watch the locals stream in and out all morning long, all the while enjoying the coffee, the wifi and the sunny patio outside.

After finally realizing that parking near the historic district of Charleston was a major pipe dream, we parked the van farther out and rode our bikes in along the bay. It was a great, albeit windy, ride, which finally had to end when we were stopping so frequently to gawk at the enormous old mansions lining the Charleston streets that we were getting biker’s whiplash… so, we locked up the bikes and continued our adventure on foot. Walking around the city, I was enveloped by the thick aura of history. The city holds the story of its past in every crevice and turning down some streets it overwhelms you like a humid Carolina day.

This gallery was a welcome reprieve from the ubiquitous “Low County” landscapes that graced the front windows of nearly all the other Charleston  galleries. I especially liked the wood sculptures by Phillippe Guillerm. He takes the traditional form of a violin and melts it to fit his ideas.

Yet another Brantley recommendation, The Pour House was a great place to end our day. We started out back where they have a deck and bar that are reminiscent of a great summer house party and ended up inside where we heard the bluesy-funk of Tribe 13 and Cyril Neville, an Austin, TX/New Orleans group. I was still dancing my way out to the van by the end of the night.

We stopped in to this little neighborhood cafe on our way out to Fort Moultrie and Sullivan’s Island. The staff was really nice, the customers were definitely regulars (everyone addressed each other by first name) and the bran muffins were super yummy!

We ended up venturing out here after Joseph from the Martin gallery told us about the incredible history of the place. It was an active fort during the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War, Spanish-American War, all the way up through WWII. The NPS has done a really great job restoring parts of the fort to represent its significance throughout each historical period. Our only complaint was that the cannons look so utterly climbable that it seems almost cruel when the rangers ask you to dismount.

Hooray for Brantley! This was the last of her suggested stops in Charleston and it was perfecto. We sat in the ocean breeze on the porch while we ate our superbly yummy burgers….and it was pretty cheap!

Alright, y’all probably already know about the crapitude that is Starbucks, but Sean and I had the pleasure of becoming re-acquainted with just how lame the coffee conglomerate can be while we were in Charleston. We were having some GPS difficulties while searching for our morning coffee and wi-fi fix, so we finally gave up and walked into a Starbucks. We bought our icky, burned, oily coffee and sat down to get on the internet only to discover that we had to pay $4 a piece to get 2 hours of internet. No way!! We packed up, walked out, dumped our coffee in the gutter and found our way to Kudu for some locally owned, deliciously brewed and FREE wi-fi accompanied coffee. Take that Starbucks (along with the $4.50 we paid for coffee we didn’t drink).

…or complete lack thereof in downtown Charleston. Although this was definitely a result of the Easter weekend tourist influx, it was still pretty sucky to spend such an unusually long time trying to park the van. We eventually came up with the genius strategy of parking outside the downtown area and biking in. Bikes rule! Parking drools.