Origin Story Part 4
From New Orleans to Folly Beach
Hello! If you are just picking up the Grape to Table newsletter, thanks so much for joining to learn more about wine, food, and travel. But right now we are in the midst of my origin story (haha) – so please see the first three newsletters to catch up on the story.
For those in the midst…I moved from New Orleans to Charleston in December 2005 – specifically Folly Beach. I had lived in Charleston once before (a summer during college), and I knew that Folly was a bohemian stronghold in this region that was far more conservative than New Orleans – thus fitting. I also needed to feel I was truly gaining something as I left so much behind. The beach seemed like the perfect gift to myself!
And therefore, I came to live by the sea – walking the dogs at dawn and dusk with waves crashing, and that ocean breeze coating us in a thin layer of salt. I found work at Hominy Grill but ultimately fell into a summer job at Woody’s Pizza – just a short bike ride from my house. Despite the charm of island life, I was still desperately homesick for New Orleans and had already decided I would move back. So I figured – might as well spend the summer entrenched in Folly Beach. And almost by accident, I made a few Folly friends, which ultimately changed everything.
While I truly did not leave the island very much that summer, I did become an early devotee of Ted’s Butcherblock on my occasional trips into downtown Charleston. Ted Dombrowski had just opened his old fashioned butcher shop in 2005. He focused on farmers who took care of their animals and the land. He also had the best sandwiches on the peninsula, and at that time nearly half his store was devoted to wine. I grew to know Ted and his wine buyer Sue Mohle quite well, and as fate would have it they contacted me in the fall of 2006 when they needed front of the house help. It was perfect timing as the summer crowds left, and Folly/Woody’s became a bit desolate. Plus, I have to admit that one summer working on Folly proved quite enough – the heat, the crowds, the drinking… (more power to all the Folly food & bev lifers!).
Ted’s also seemed the perfect spot to spend some time while I continued to chase the entrepreneurial dream. Yes, I was still with my Emeril’s alumni significant other, Charles Vincent, and somewhat casually looking at commercial property in Charleston. Along the way we had picked up a third prospective partner, Chris Stewart, who worked with Charles at a relatively new downtown restaurant, FIG.
Yep, these two current day Charleston institutions – Ted’s and FIG – were both in their near infancy, and Charleston was a very different place than it is today. Of course, I was also in a very different place – having transitioned from slinging pizzas to discussing Wagyu beef and Kurobuta pork and even offering a wine suggestion to go with your steak or pork chop. My wine years were about to somewhat begin.
Honestly, I knew so little about wine when I started at Ted’s. Even though I had spent much time researching and thinking about food for various jobs and writing projects, I had spent just a smidge focused on wine. Thankfully, Ted’s wine buyer Sue passed no judgment on my lack of knowledge and invited me to taste with wine reps – giving me snippets of information as we went about our day. She also handed me an impressively thick paperback book – The Wine Bible – and I was intrigued.
I was truly loving my work at Ted’s. Once again I felt that sense of community that I had cherished at Elizabeth’s. We had devoted regulars who I knew by name, and our small team felt like family. I must mention that fate once again stepped in, and one of my co-workers at Ted’s happened to be Scott Shor (who would go on to open the Charleston Beer Exchange and Edmund’s Oast, where I still hang my non-writing hat). But at the time, Scott was just a young guy from New York who had recently moved to town and somehow fell into working the sandwich station at Ted’s. He was also a dreamer with big plans to open Charleston’s first craft beer store (at a time when craft beer was still mostly an anomaly here in the southeast). It was a vibrant time in Charleston; it felt like much was on the horizon.
And then just like that we actually found that magical piece of commercial property. Honestly, I was once again on the verge of giving up and moving back to New Orleans. I was feeling a need for a new chapter in my personal life, and the deeper we dove into the entrepreneurial adventure the more daunting it seemed. We had ultimately decided to forego the original gourmet market idea and open a full scale restaurant focused on seasonal, local ingredients but set in a casual atmosphere with reasonable prices. We had a cute name from a mostly forgotten Beatles song (The Glass Onion), and we had just enough money to squeak by. Yet, the property search continued to be daunting (even back then), and thus it felt like a miracle when a landlord agreed to an exterior upfit of a dilapidated building on Highway 17 in the older Charleston suburb of West Ashley. A miracle that I could not turn my back on…what could possibly go wrong? (Insert laughter here.)
To be continued…
Great memories! What ever happened to Sue? Her palate and mine always jived so I always trusted her recommendation.