Illustration of a sunlit Southern Lowcountry veranda restaurant with ceiling fans, wicker chairs and white tablecloths at breakfast (illustrative, not the actual restaurant)

Menu Guide · Charleston, SC

The Palmetto Cafe — Menu Guide

By Firoz Khan · FK Digital Media

The Palmetto Cafe is the all-day dining room of The Charleston Place at 205 Meeting Street — the hotel's sunny, veranda-style answer to Lowcountry cooking, serving breakfast, lunch, and Sunday brunch. It steps into the spotlight this year: the hotel's flagship restaurant, The Charleston Grill, served its final dinner in August 2025 after 36 years, and the Palmetto Cafe now carries the torch as the property's main restaurant (a new Charleston Grill replacement concept is planned but not yet open). The honest headline first: the restaurant publishes no itemized online price menu — official pages list dishes and hours, not prices — so this guide covers the menu shape, hours, and era-dated reported figures. Everything is written in our own words.

At a glance

Location
205 Meeting St, Charleston, SC 29401 (The Charleston Place)
Chef
Executive chef Steven Manall (per OpenTable profile; not on the official site)
Cuisine
Contemporary American / Southern Lowcountry
Price level
$$$ — OpenTable band $31–$50 per person; no official itemized prices published
Reservations
No confirmed online booking link; reserve by phone — 843-724-8131 (restaurant) or 1-800-611-5545
Recognition
AAA Four Diamond per the Charleston Area CVB (not claimed on the restaurant's own site); OpenTable "Top 100 Brunch Restaurants in America" list (2023 era)

Hours

Per the official Charleston Place page, fetched 2026-10-01: breakfast daily 7:00–11:00 AM; lunch daily 12:00–3:00 PM; Sunday à la carte brunch 10:00 AM–3:00 PM. Note that third-party listings (including OpenTable) show slightly different hours — treat those as stale and go with the hotel's own page.

Signature dishes

The dishes reviewers and third-party menus keep coming back to:

  • Lowcountry Shrimp and Grits: the house's signature Southern plate.
  • She Crab Soup: the classic Lowcountry soup, finished with sherry.
  • Seafood Club: lobster, shrimp, applewood-smoked bacon, smoked salmon, and tomato.
  • Palmetto Sampler: a tasting plate of crab cake, she crab soup, chicken salad, '21' burger, and fries.
  • Crab Cake Benedict: a reviewer favorite at breakfast.
  • '21' Burger: inspired by the '21' Club, the hotel's former sister property.

Third-party 2026-era menus also list eggs Benedict ($18), steak and eggs ($22), a Palmetto omelet with crab and lobster ($19), and a jumbo lump crab cake ($16) — all figures below are reported, not official.

What we'd order

If we had one meal here, this is how we'd play it:

  • Breakfast: the crab cake Benedict — it's the dish reviewers name most.
  • Lunch: the shrimp & grits for the Lowcountry experience, or the seafood club.
  • The sampler play: the Palmetto sampler ($29 reported) covers four signatures in one plate.
  • Soup first: start with the she crab soup ($12 reported) with its sherry pour.

Planning your visit

  • Call ahead: with no confirmed online booking, phone is the reliable path — 843-724-8131.
  • No public price list: the restaurant publishes no itemized prices, so ask about current pricing when you book if budget matters.
  • Sunday brunch (10 AM–3 PM) is the week's signature service — and landed the restaurant on OpenTable's national Top 100 brunch list.
  • Same-hotel note: the Charleston Grill closed in August 2025; don't follow outdated guides to a restaurant that no longer exists.

Official links

About these prices

The Palmetto Cafe publishes no itemized online price menu — said plainly, not guessed. The figures referenced here (shrimp & grits $18, she crab soup $12, seafood club $29, Palmetto sampler $29) are third-party reported prices from 2026-era menu aggregators, corroborated by 2023-era figures suggesting stable pricing — but they are not the restaurant's own numbers. Always verify with the restaurant before visiting.

More South Carolina guides

← Back to all guides