TOWN Feb. 2018

The

Southern Culture OUR QUINTESSENTIAL PLACES, PEOPLE, AND EXPERIENCES

Issue

Good Catch: Fresh oysters feature on the menu at Hello, Sailor, on Lake Norman in Cornelius, NC; for more, turn to page 99.

FE B R UA RY 2 018 TOWNCAROLINA.COM

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ICONIC

LOVE GIVE ME ANINGFUL SYMBOL S AND SWEE T SENTIMENTS T H AT M A KE T HEIR HE A RT SKIP A B E AT.

VA L EN T I N E ’ S DAY 2018

AVAILABLE AT

H AY WO O D M A L L | 86 4 . 288 .97 52

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LEFT I LOVE YOU, SET OF THREE, Shiny Rose Gold Finish, $98 BE YOURSELF EXPANDABLE WIRE BANGLE, Shiny Rose Gold Finish, $3 8

RIGHT HEARTS CUFF, Shiny Silver Finish, $38 I LOVE YOU EXPANDABLE WIRE BANGLE, Shiny Silver Finish, $3 8 UNBREAKABLE LOVE EXPANDABLE WIRE BANGLE, RAFAELIAN SILVER® Finish, $28 HEART EXPANDABLE WIRE BANGLE, RAFAELIAN SILVER Finish, $3 8 KEY TO LOVE EXPANDABLE WIRE BANGLE, RAFAELIAN GOLD® Finish, $28 HEART EXPANDABLE WIRE BANGLE, RAFAELIAN GOLD Finish, $38

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K

TE STA E! E T ES TAT FIN UPS E TH THE IN

DOC G TIN VERED S I L / CO W NE LOT W R ATE PW

DEE

LAKE HARTWELL

ON CHANTICLEER GOLF COURSE

114 Keowee Club Road $2,950,689

100 Chapman Place $7,500,605

6 Bedrooms, 6 Bathrooms, 3 Half Bathrooms | 3.43 Acres

5 Bedrooms, 6 Bathrooms, 3 Half Bathrooms | Six Acres | Over 12,000 sq. ft.

Co-listed with Jody Lovell/Highlands Sotheby’s International Realty

Local Expertise, Global Reach

Featuring Fine Upstate Homes . . . Like Yours.

L IN-

AW

!

ITE

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LD

SO

CHANTICLEER SECTION IX

GCC AREA

12 Lawson Way $1,135,605

2513 Augusta St $2,150,605

5 Bedrooms, 5 Bathrooms, 1 Half Bathroom | 0.70 Acre | Inground Pool

5 Bedrooms, 4 Bathrooms, 1 Half Bathroom | 3 Acres

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When it’s Real Estate By the Numbers, It Always Adds Up…

.

25

Years Selling Real Estate

1981

Graduated from University of Virginia

$39.6MM

Sales Volume 2017*

1989

Moved to Greenville

4

Kids

1959

Born in Buckhead/Atlanta

$671,504

Personal Average Sales Price*

70

Average Resting Heart Rate

15

Company’s Current MLS Sales Rank*

5

Years Ranked Greenville’s Number One Realtor*

27

Words Typed Per Minute

11

Siblings

3

Adorable Grand Daughters

18

Realtors with Company

$495,150

Company’s Average Sales Price*

0

Top 50 Companies w/Higher Average Sales Price

00:12

Her 40 Yard Dash Record

80

Average # Hours in Her Work Week

24

Average Hours Per Week on Phone

8

Years of Catholic School Education

0

Years That It Did Any Good

35

Years Married (All Happy)

40

Total Years With Reason For Living

4.0

USTA Rating

29601

Company Zip

2

Minimum # Times You’ll Read This List

61

Transactions in 2017*

#1*

Joan, Again…and Again…

864-325-2112 | www.jha-sothebysrealty.com | Joan Herlong Owner, CEO *Source: Greenville MLS Sales Volume 2017. Each affiliate independently owned. Joan@JHA-SothebysRealty.com

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FIRST

Glance

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Quirk Book: Where: Maple & Pine at the Quirk Hotel, Richmond, Virginia What: The Quirk Hotel’s seasonally driven signature restaurant and bar. For more, see “Venture Capital,” page 58.

Photograph by Jivan Davé

Join Bon Secours St. Francis Health System for a

FREE HEART SCREENING February 15, 2018 • 7 am – 9 am (while supplies last)

Bon Secours Wellness Arena Complimentary parking in the VIP lot off of Church Street

The basic heart health screening includes: Full lipid profile

Blood pressure

Blood glucose

BMI

Fasting is recommended for accurate results.

Upstate Cardiology The Heart 2 Heart Foundation In case of inclement weather, we follow Greenville County School District’s inclement weather policy.

FEBRUARY 2018 / 5

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Luxury Service at Every Price Point UNDER CONTRACT

23 ACRE EQUESTRIAN ESTATE

365 Gano Drive, Woodruff $3,950,000 | MLS#1352921 Shannon Donahoo 864-329-7345

275 Montgomery Drive, Spartanburg $2,750,000 | MLS#1350714 Damian Hall Group 828-808-8305

136 High Rock Ridge Drive, Cliffs at Glassy $1,495,000 | MLS#1346118 John “Clark” Kent 864-784-9918

4 Grouse Drive, Cliffs at Glassy $1,195,000 | MLS#1346114 John “Clark” Kent 864-784-9918

1011 Mountain Summit Road, Cliffs Valley $1,159,000 | MLS#1356167 Spencer Ashby 864-344-0333

TO BE BUILT

16 Cedar Waxwing Way, Cliffs at Mountain Park $1,209,000 | MLS#1356223 Spencer Ashby 864-344-0333

UNDER CONTRACT

106 Fire Pink Way, Cliffs at Glassy $899,000 | MLS#1356127 Spencer Ashby 864-344-0333

UNDER CONTRACT

6 Chipping Court, Kellett Park $649,900 | MLS#1354930 Debra Owensby 864-404-8295

30 Tilley Road, Cleveland $749,000 | MLS#1355490 John “Clark” Kent 864-784-9918 Michael Mumma 864-238-2542

5 Autumn View Ridge, Natures Watch $699,000 | MLS#1346304 Lonnie Adamson 864-385-4659

UNDER CONTRACT

1551 Highway 56, Spartanburg $599,500 | MLS#1347108 John “Clark” Kent 864-784-9918 Cynthia Cole Jenkins 843-696-7891

203 Southview Ledge Road, Cliffs at Glassy $575,000 | MLS#1353158 John “Clark” Kent 864-784-9918 Cynthia Cole Jenkins 843-696-7891

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100 Walton Court, North Hills $449,500 | MLS#1357705 Holly May 864-640-1959

329 Harkins Bluff Drive, Dillard Creek Crossing $399,000 | MLS#1354586 Annell Bailey 864-346-0598

427 S. Pendernale Drive, Millbrook $299,900 | MLS#1353918 Debra Owensby 864-404-8295

105 Shefford Court, Silverleaf $298,500 | MLS#1356748 Erin Colman 864-940-9709

423 S. Pendernale Drive, Millbrook $259,900 | MLS#1353721 Debra Owensby 864-404-8295

202 Donnybrook Avenue, Greenville $242,000 | MLS#1358819 Kris Cawley 864-516-6580

SOLD

UNDER CONTRACT

2 Elletson Drive, Overbrook $219,900 | MLS#1354838 Michael Mumma 864-238-2542

LOT 1.87 ACRES

2 Ben Hurt Road, Lyman $190,000 | MLS#1356221 Spencer Ashby 864-344-0333

LOT 1.14 ACRES

LOT 1.27 ACRES

Æ

Æ 30 Ridley Piper Lane, PondiCherry $170,000 | MLS#1347672 Holly May 864-640-1959

6 Tropicana Court, City Lights $239,900 | MLS#1347805 Holly May 864-640-1959

8 Raven Road, Cliffs at Glassy $165,000 | MLS#1353163 John “Clark” Kent 864-784-9918

112 Roundtop Lane, Cliffs at Glassy $149,000 | MLS#1344834 Kris Cawley 864-516-6580

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FEATURED WITHIN THE CENTER Acropolis Restaurant and Oasis Bar Bacon Brothers Public House Chick-Fil-A Chicken Salad Chick Clean Eatz Earth Fare Joe’s Crab Shack Logan’s Roadhouse The Lost Cajun McDonald’s Menchie’s Yogurt On The Border Palmetto Restaurant and Alehouse Romano’s Macaroni Grill Shuckin’ Shack Sidewall Pizza Taziki’s Mediterranean Café Bank of America Bermuda Triangle Coldwell Banker Caine Emily Austin’s Fabulous Nails Home2 Suites Mariani’s Boutique Painting With A Twist Pinnacle Bank South State Bank Spinx The UPS Store COMING SOON: Pet Supermarket Red Bowl Sola Salons

* LIMITED SPACE AVAILABLE (shown in red)

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Destination = Expectations 864.235.6317 | crhrealestate.com

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Contents 12 EDITOR’S LETTER 21 THE LIST See, hear, read, react.

The month’s must-dos.

27 ON THE TOWN

6 8

Keiko Kamata designs lovely layered prints; The Old No. 77 Hotel showcases a new side of Nola; from Ralph Lauren to OOBE, local purveyor Bob Yearick sets the tone of a brand; fishing gear gets a facelift with Oyster Bamboo Fly Rods; G.P. McLeer keeps the arts thriving.

58 SIDEWAYS Richmond’s artistic hotels, trending boutiques, and refined cuisine earn the Southern city its moment in the style spotlight.

A crucial player in the sweeping success of rock band R.E.M., Athens attorney Bertis Downs takes us on tour in the small college town where it all began. / by Scott Gould // photography by Paul Mehaffey

Pics of the litter: Upcountry fêtes & festivities.

38 WEDDINGS 43 TOWNBUZZ

FINDING BERTIS DOWNS

2 9

MAN ON A MISSION

Like many Southern stories, cooking culture in the South comes with a complex history.

Meet John T. Edge, the Mississippi writer who’s not afraid to narrate it, putting pen and passion behind the progress of our region’s celebrated cuisine. / by Ashley Warlick, with sidebar by John T. Edge // illustrations by Timothy Banks

SPORT 63 TOWN Falconer Jason Hausman takes

hunting skyward with his red-tailed raptor; the PROSTAFF 7S Nikon binoculars are a sight for sore eyes.

69 STYLE CENTRAL

A modern take on classic Southern style; Tom Beckbe crafts rugged wears for the avid sportsman.

MAN ABOUT TOWN 78 Before there was The Man, there was

his father—a New York City transplant with a Southern-sized dream.

BEA WRIGHT 80 MS. Facing failure is never an easy feat,

but Ms. Bea argues admitting wrongs is the (w)right way to success.

99 EAT & DRINK

COVER: Fresh oysters, a succulent Southern staple, are a common item on Hello, Sailor’s dynamic menu, which changes based on seasonal availability. The Cornelius, North Carolina, concept is the latest from cuisine team Joe and Katy Kindred. For more, see “Anchors Away,” page 100.

By M. Linda Lee Photograph by Paul Mehaffey

THIS PAGE: Fly fisherman and master crafter of bamboo fly rods Bill Oyster works on one of his custom pieces. For more see “River’s Pearl,” page 50.

Photograph by Paul Mehaffey

Hello, Sailor serves up sublime sea fare on the shores of Lake Norman, NC; Asheville’s BimBeriBon is deliciously healthy; step out of bounds for the Super Bowl with a different take on cornbread.

107 DINING GUIDE 114 TOWNSCENE

Got plans? You do now.

124

SECOND GLANCE

Encounter Southern expressions of Impressionism at the Greenville County Museum of Art.

February

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Everything about the GLA is love at first sight.

2018 GLA 250 SUV

CARLTON MOTORCARS www.CarltonMB.com

(864) 213-8000 2446 Laurens Road | Greenville, SC 29607

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EDITOR’S

Letter February Highlights River’s Pearl

Oyster Bamboo’s handcrafted fly rods are a gallant gift for the avid angler in your life: page 50

Venture Capital

Richmond, Virginia, transforms into an East Coast style and design mecca: page 58

Bird Man

Discover the aerial art of falconry through Jason Hausman and his majestic birds of prey: page 64

Finding Bertis Downs Photograph by Chelsey A shford

The man who helped guide R.E.M.’s legendary journey talks to Scott Gould in a hallowed music town: page 86

Man on a Mission

Famed food writer John T. Edge presents a Southern food history in his new book The Potlikker Papers: page 92

Anchors Away

Sink into fish camp fare at kitschy-cool Hello, Sailor: page 99

What’s New

S

“

omething that used to be something else has evolved into something better than anyone could have possibly imagined,” Scott Gould writes in his feature story on Bertis Downs, lawyer and former manager for the band R.E.M. Gould is referring to an aspect of Athens, Georgia, where Bertis lives and where R.E.M. formed and took root in the city’s glorified music halls in the early 1980s. Gould’s sentence struck me in a broader way, too. The same could be said for the South as a whole—at least for its effort to renew itself while keeping intact its best traditions and cultural values.

For this issue, we set out to present exceptional Southern cities. But, as often happens during the process, we were led to new insights and more complex views. The stories we found tell a greater one about the experience of the places in which they are set, and, collectively, they exemplify the South’s quintessential ability: reinvention. The South does a lot of things well, but it may be best at transformation—not only becoming something different, but becoming something exceptional.

This happens when the right mix of talent and opportunity is in play. Former mills become luxury apartments; gas stations become hip restaurants. Sleepy college towns become the breeding ground for famous musicians. A Virginia capital becomes a mecca of style and design. A former seafood shack becomes, well, a better seafood shack. It’s a potent cocktail of chance, of being “at the right place at the right time,” and it just so happens that the South enjoys its fair share of strong drinks.

It is difficult to see what could be while you’re dealing with what is. But the South seems to have the gift of prophecy and a stubborn streak—and what has been is now better than ever before.

Scott Gould (right) interviews Bertis Downs at Downs’s office in Athens, Georgia, on January 6. For more, see “Finding Bertis Downs,” page 86.

@towncarolina

@towncarolina

facebook.com/towncarolina

Photograph by Paul Mehaffey

Blair Knobel, Editor-in-Chief blair@towncarolina.com

bit.ly // towniemail

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FLOWER POWER

APRIL 21 & 22 Welcome spring with the perfect pairing of fresh flowers and fine art at the GCMA. Twenty local floral designers and garden enthusiasts will interpret works of art, creating imaginative displays that celebrate the GCMA permanent collection!

Fine Art + Flora Weekend is free and open to the public on Saturday and Sunday. In addition to admiring the art and arrangements throughout the weekend, guests can enjoy an ikebana demonstration on Saturday afternoon, and, for a small charge, take part in Saturday’s “Bouquet to Go” workshop, using locally farmed flowers.

The weekend begins Friday, April 20, with a Preview Party ($50 per person) showcasing the flowers at their peak of freshness. To learn more or to purchase Preview Party tickets, visit gcma.org!

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Greenville County Museum of Art

420 College Street on Heritage Green 864.271.7570 gcma.org Wed - Sat 10 am - 5 pm Sun 1 pm - 5 pm

admission free

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INDOOR FIREWORKS F

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S FOR ART LOVERS Expressionism and the South ON VIEW THROUGH SEPTEMBER 16 Eight large-scale paintings comprise this intimate exhibition at the GCMA that includes works by Melville Price and Lynne Drexler. The Expressionist movement in art is often traced back to the work of Vincent Van Gogh. Intense colors, extreme angles, and distorted forms characterize Expressionist artwork that seeks to convey the emotion beyond appearances.

Greenville County Museum of Art

420 College Street on Heritage Green 864.271.7570 gcma.org Wed - Sat 10 am - 5 pm Sun 1pm - 5 pm

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admission free

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WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SOUTHERN PLACE, AND WHY?

MARK B. JOHNSTON PUBLISHER & CEO mark@towncarolina.com Top of Table Rock, way out on the ledge at the very top looking down onto the reservoir.

Spectacular!

Blair Knobel EDITOR-IN-CHIEF blair@towncarolina.com Paul Mehaffey ART DIRECTOR

My grandparents’ land in southeast Georgia. Flat farm fields, tall pines, dirt-like sand, and those old, mossbearded oaks. It’s a place that makes one stand taller.

Laura Linen STYLE EDITOR ABBY MOORE KEITH ASSISTANT EDITOR CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Ruta Fox M. Linda Lee Steven Tingle Jac Valitchka

My favorite Southern place is my old man’s screened-in porch.

Why? I can always find cold beer and good stories there.

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Mary Cathryn Armstrong, Stephanie Burnette, Kathryn Davé, John T. Edge, SCOTT GOULD, Libby McMillan Henson, Karen Luke Jackson, Stephanie Trotter & Ashley Warlick CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS & DESIGNERS TIMOTHY BANKS, Robin Batina-Lewis, David & Sarah Bonner, Brendan Cawood, Jack Connolly, Jivan Davé, Whitney Fincannon, Joel German, Peter Taylor & ELI WARREN My favorite Southern place is Forsyth Park in Savannah. I think it was one of the great open spaces in the country, and I also asked my wife to marry me at the fountain there.

Andrew Huang EDITOR-AT-L ARGE Holly Hardin VICE PRESIDENT, OPERATIONS

Anywhere in Pawleys Island that serves she-crab soup!

GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Kristy Adair Michael Allen EMILY YEPES SALES MANAGER MARKETING REPRESENTATIVES John Clark, Donna Johnston, Jonathan Maney, Leigh Miller, Heather Propp, Meredith Rice, Liz Tew & Caroline Spivey

Your wedding

New Orleans.

It’s warm, gooey, and boozy, just like that famous bread pudding.

Kristi Fortner EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT

modern & timeless

Lorraine Goldstein, Sue Priester & Hal Weiss CONSULTING MEMBERS Susan Schwartzkopf EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT Douglas J. Greenlaw CHAIRMAN

120 south main street, greenville, sc 29601 864.421.9700 | westinpoinsettgreenville.com

TOWN Magazine (Vol. 8, No. 2) is published monthly (12 times per year) by TOWN Greenville, LLC, 581 Perry Ave, Greenville, SC 29611, (864) 679-1200. If you would like to have TOWN delivered to you each month, you may purchase an annual subscription (12 issues) for $65. For subscription information or where to find, please visit www.towncarolina.com. Postmaster: Send address changes to TOWN, 581 Perry Ave, Greenville, SC 29611. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA.

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The

Team Covering Greater Greenville!

• FREE professional staging • FREE professional photography and video • Your home advertised in every issue of Greenville Journal and Town Magazine

Matt Crider 864.444.1689

239 WINDING OAKS DRIVE • LAKE KEOWEE • $1,487,672

Leah Grabo 864.901.4949

4 CROMWELL AVENUE • AUGUSTA ROAD/ALTA VISTA • $649,605

CT TRA N O ER C UND

107 SYLVAN WAY • GREENVILLE COUNTRY CLUB • $624,605

CT TRA N O ER C UND

7 GRIFFIN STREET • DOWNTOWN • $375,601

15 SYLVAN DRIVE • AUGUSTA ROAD GCC • $524,605

CT TRA N O ER C DAY UND IN 1

16 TOMASSEE AVENUE • AUGUSTA CIRCLE • $319,605

T RAC T N O ER C DAY UND IN 1

301 CYPRESS HILL COURT • SIMPSONVILLE • $259,681

113 SKIPPING STONE • SIMPSONVILLE • $224,681

www.jha-sothebysrealty.com Each office independently owned and operated.

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Your Home’s Best Friend.

W e help people like you sell your house and find a home .

Yes, we’re recognized for resources, innovation, and agents that go above and beyond... but what really matters is you.

A good friend listens.

Why? “Because dad wanted us to be our best... for you.”

CLIFFS VALLEY

– Danny Joyner, Son of our Founder, President & CEO

1115 Panther Park Trail—Majestic estate home at the base of Cliffs Valley.

This is a custom built 6 bedroom, 5 bath and 2 half bath home by Peery Construction. This home features over 7,000 sq ft and is nestled on almost 3 acres.

Truly one of the Cliffs Valley diamonds, this estate exudes warmth and privacy while showing off its spacious and inviting rooms throughout.

$1,475,000

MLS#1355697 Jeffrey Meister • 979-4633

SPAULDING FARM 204 Buckland Way—Breathtaking Grounds with Gunite Pool. Exquisite Gourmet Kitchen. Spa-Inspired Master Bathroom. These are just a sampling of the special features of 204 Buckland Way in one of Greenville’s most sought-after communities of Spaulding Farm. The owners have taken such pride of ownership and it speaks volumes!

$699,900

MLS#1354328 Melissa Morrell • 918-1734

GREER Industry-leading technologies

2353 Stanford Road—A lakefront estate nestled on 2.80 acres with over

A global referral network

300 feet of waterfront and a dock in place, this fabulous home is a must see retreat. A shared winding drive leads to this home perfectly placed to provide

Smart working and inventive agents

added privacy and a great view of Lake Robinson from most of the house. Relax

One of the nation’s most recognized and trusted brands

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by the pool in the afternoon as the day winds down.

$659,900

MLS#1348373 Paige Haney • 414-9937

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Featured Listings

Match up with an agent that’s right for you and find your new home at www.cdanjoyner.com.

February 2018

BRUCE FARM 241 Bruce Farm Road

•

FARRINGDON $535,000

19 Farringdon Drive

•

$439,000

RIVERWALK 341 Parkside Drive

•

$385,000

MLS# 1358613 Anthony Hackney • 884-5484

MLS#1354475 Robbie Haney • 270-4192

MLS#1348790 Jeffrey Meister • 979-4633

GREER

ASCOT

LAKE HARTWELL

2349 Stanford Road

•

$369,900

2 Treyburn Court • $321,500

702 Watermarke Lane

•

$319,950

MLS#1355624 Paige Haney • 414-9937

MLS#1356175 Jennifer Van Gieson • 590-4441

MLS#1356661 Jill Chapman • 918-9508

SHELLBROOK PLANTATION

AUGUSTA ROAD

DOWNTOWN

9 Star Fish Court

•

$319,900

36 Gurley Avenue

•

$299,900

101 W. Court Street

•

$295,000

MLS#1358053 Melissa Morrell • 918-1734

MLS#1358323 Jennifer Van Gieson • 590-4441

MLS#1356316 Bob Schmidt • 313-4474

DEL NORTE

AUGUSTA ROAD

PARKINS MILL AREA

16 S. Del Norte Road

•

$289,900

MLS#1355495 Robbie Haney • 270-4192

221 Grove Road • $275,000 MLS#1355680 Maggie Aiken • 616-4280

117 Landwood Avenue

•

$173,500

MLS#1358606 Bob Schmidt • 313-4474

© 2018 BHH Affiliates, LLC. An independently owned and operated franchisee of BHH Affiliates, LLC. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices and the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices symbol are registered service marks of HomeServices of America, Inc.® Equal Housing Opportunity. Information not verified or guaranteed. If your home is currently listed with a Broker, this is not intended as a solicitation.

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Welcoming guests morning, noon and night, Stella’s Brasserie blends French fare with Southern flair. Discover a uniquely fashioned menu of locally sourced, ingredient-driven dishes in a relaxing neighborhood café. Bonjour to flavorful cuisine and a friendly scene.

Delicious Coffee & Pastries Express & Dine-in Lunch Seasonal Menu Weekend Brunch Private Dining & Events 340 Rocky Slope Road • Greenville, SC 29607 Open Tuesday-Sunday, call (864) 626-6900 or visit stellasbrasserie.com for our daily schedule.

Reservations encouraged for evening & weekends.

Legacy Square is located on Rocky Slope Road at Legacy Park. New businesses are taking shape and land sales are underway. For Legacy Square sales and leasing info, call (864) 329-9292 • verdae.com

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1/16/2018 5:06:12 PM

List z

THE z

TOP OF THE

THE MONTH’S MUST- DOS

February 2018

List

Photograph by Anna Webber, courtesy of the Peace Center

A COMEDY SPECIAL TAPING OF STEVE MARTIN AND MARTIN SHORT: AN EVENING YOU WILL FORGET FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE With a combined track record of nearly 100 years on the comedy circuit, it’s safe to say that Martin Short and Steve Martin are the stuff of legends when it comes to delivering the laughs. From stage to screen and everywhere in between, the two funnymen have garnered their fair share of memorable moments and zany behind-the-scenes yarns—and now you get a firsthand retelling. Featuring musical guests Jeff Babko and the Steep Canyon Rangers, the live show, which will be taped, will include personal anecdotes and highlights from their illustrious careers.

The Peace Center, 300 S Main St, Greenville. Fri–Sat, Feb 23–24, 8pm. $100-$250.

(864) 467-3000, peacecenter.org

FEBRUARY 2018 / 21

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List z

No, it’s not the story of an airfilled latex vessel struggling with madness. Rather, this high-flying adventure is designed with the wee ones in mind, serving up a fun, interactive experience that relies on visuals rather than language. When faced with spending her birthday alone, an elderly woman learns about the power of friendship—and the many amazing forms it comes in.

South Carolina Children’s Theatre, 1200 Pendleton St, Greenville. Feb 10, 13, 27. Sat, Tues, 9:30am & 11:00am. $10.

(864) 235-2885, scchildrenstheatre.org

DIRECT EXPERIENCE: CANCER & ART The Metropolitan Arts Council will host an inhouse gallery exhibit that will give fourteen cancer survivors the opportunity to share their stories of strength and survival through art. The showcase features a collection of mixed media works— jewelry, watercolor, paper-making, wood-turning, collage, and acrylics—curated to reflect each artist’s experience with this nondiscriminatory disease, and, in effect, create healing and peace.

Metropolitan Arts Council, 16 Augusta St, Greenville.

Thru Feb 23. Mon–Fri, 9am–5pm. Free. (864) 467-3132, greenvillearts.com

Gunter Theatre at the Peace Center, 300 S Main St, Greenville. Thurs, Feb 22, 6:30pm.

Free. (864) 467-3000, peacecenter.org

SEAMLESS

by DESIGN

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Photograph courtesy of the Peace Center

BALLOONACY

The Peace Center’s Poet-in-Residence Glenis Redmond will take the spotlight at this installment of the performing arts center’s Poetic Conversation series. Redmond’s “The Tao of the Black Plastic Comb” is among the newest to receive the Motionpoems treatment, a unique, creative concept that brings written words to life through brief, visually stunning films. Post-screening, guests will have the chance to sit in on a discussion with Redmond, Motionpoems cofounder Todd Boss, and producer Irving Hillman.

Photograph courtesy of the Peace Center

POETIC CONVERSATION— PICTURES AND WORDS: MOTIONPOEMS HIGHLIGHTS BLACK POETRY Artwork by Carole Knudson Tinsley

THE

zWhat-Not-To-Miss / JONNY LANG WITH SPECIAL GUEST DOYLE BRAMHALL II

UPSTATE HEART BALL Taking top honors as the number one Heart Ball in South Carolina, the Upstate’s version raised more than $1,000,000 last year and saw some 950 guests come out in support of the American Heart Association. This year’s glam gala will include a variety of auction items valued at $160,000, not to mention a fantastic gourmet dinner, live music, and special segment honoring the survivors and families of those affected by heart disease.

Like many aspiring musicians, Jonny Lang got his start at a young age, playing guitar for friends and family when he was just 12 years old. Now at 36, his skill set may have undergone a few changes, but his passion is steadfast, propelling him to six Billboard 200 albums and a Grammy for Best Rock Gospel Album in 2007. The gifted blues artist will be joined by renowned musician and songwriter Doyle Bramhall II. The Peace Center, 300 S Main St, Greenville. Sun, Feb 25, 6:30pm. $35-$55. (864) 467-3000, peacecenter.org

TD Convention Center, 1 Exposition Dr, Greenville. Sat, Feb 17, 6–11pm. heart.org

MIKE EPPS Whether he’s tricking Alan into buying “floories” in The Hangover or trying to evade his baby mama in Next Friday, or on stage doing stand-up, comedian Mike Epps knows how to tickle your funny bone. Epps’s Platinum Comedy Tour is sure to be no exception, especially with guest host Sommore, and comics Earthquake and DeRay Davis stepping up to the mic. Warning: sidesplitting may ensue.

Bon Secours Wellness Arena, 650 N Academy St, Greenville. Wed, Feb 14, 7pm. $60-$135.

(864) 241-3800, bonsecoursarena.com

February 2018 Photograph courtesy of the Peace Center

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Experienced and Compassionate Care for Women at Every Stage of Life.

Dr. Kimberly Holloway

Dr. Tamela Keller

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Call today for more info and appointment 864.720.1299 • vidagyn.com • 274-A Commonwealth Drive • Menopause and Hormone Management • Adolescent Care • Abnormal Bleeding Treatment • In-House Ultrasound And Procedures FEBRUARY 2018 / 23

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List z

THE

Quick HITS A MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN

z Written as a sequel to Long Day’s Journey into Night, this Eugene O’Neill play sees the return of character James Tyrone, Jr., who finds himself at the center of a deceptive plot set in motion by his tenant farmer Phil Hogan. Persuaded by her father’s control, Hogan’s daughter Josie is instructed to seduce and blackmail Tyrone in order to save the family land. However, when emotions and guilt come into play, there may be more than a gleam of moonlight shining between these two.

Warehouse Theatre, 37 Augusta St, Greenville. Thru Feb 10. $30.

(864) 235-6948, warehousetheatre.com

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

z The Phantom of the Opera has become one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s timeless stories of romance and deception. When Christine becomes the object of the Phantom’s affection, he will stop at nothing to have the young soprano singer in his grasp. But will kindness, a gift he’s never known, finally set his dark soul free?

The Peace Center, 300 S Main St, Greenville. Thru Feb 11. Tues–Thurs, 7:30pm; Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2pm & 8pm; Sun, 1pm & 6:30pm. $65-$105.

(864) 467-3000, peacecenter.org

WINTER CHAUTAUQUA

Photograph courtesy of the Peace Center

z Because history never goes on holiday, Greenville’s Chautauqua festival presents its annual wintertime showcase, a cold-weather counterpart to tide you over until the main event in June. This year focuses on courage, and will star none other than that ol’ cherrytree-chopping U.S. forefather, George Washington. The inspirational, educational series of talks will be performed by Colonial Williamsburg interpreter Ron Carnegie, and are preceded by an opening night benefit at the S.C. Governor’s School of the Arts & Humanities.

S.C. Governor’s School of the Arts & Humanities & Wade Hampton High School. Feb 2–4. Fri, 7:30–9:30pm; Sat–Sun, 2–3:30pm. Opening night benefit, $30; other events, free. (864) 244-1499, greenvillechautauqua.org

24 HOUR PLAY FESTIVAL z Forget those New Year’s resolutions about weight loss and getting in a full eight hours of sleep—that is, if you haven’t already.

Instead, put all your focus on making it through the 24 Hour Play Festival. A staple of the Greenville Little Theatre’s alternative Studio 444 series, the event gives writers, actors, stage managers, techs, and directors a mere 24 hours to pull together a full-blown production. As fast as they are funny, you won’t want to miss these original works.

Greenville Little Theatre, 444 College St, Greenville. Sat, Feb 10, 8pm. $15.

(864) 233-6238, greenvillelittletheatre.org

PENLAND POST OFFICE AUCTION

z Your favorite mug might be the work of a potter who studied at the famed Penland School of Craft in Penland, NC, which has taught legions of artists in the crafts of painting, photography, ceramics, textiles, printmaking, book arts, and more. Join these artists and residents in an effort to restore their beloved Penland Post Office. Hundreds of pieces will be up for grabs, and famed NC chef Kyle McKnight will be teaming up with innkeeper Suzanne Ford of the beloved Chinquapin Inn to offer an exceptional meal and lodging for up to six guests.

The auction will run online, Feb 1–8. https://www.32auctions.com/PenlandPostOfficeProject

Mavis Staples Along with her three siblings, artist Mavis Staples rose to fame first as a member of the Staples Singers, a family outfit hammered together by patriarch Roebuck “Pops” Staples. But it was through her solo work that Staples was truly able to leave her mark on the music community, cementing herself as a maven of pop, gospel tunes, and emotionallycharged anthems that took aim at America’s divisive political and social climate. At 78, Staples remains a voice not only of her own generation, but of countless others to come.

The Peace Center, 300 S Main St, Greenville.

Wed, Feb 21, 7:30pm. $15-$55.

(864) 467-3000, peacecenter.org

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L I V E IN CON C ER T T HE L EG ENDA RY

M AV I S S TA P L E S W ITH SPEC I A L GUEST THE BROA DC A ST

FEBRUARY 21 Tickets start at $15!

“More than half a century of American social history is embodied in the warm, earthy voice of the great R&B gospel singer.”

–T H E N E W YO R K T I M E S

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo FEBRUARY 16

MARCH 13-18 JONNY LANG FEBRUARY 25

RODRIGUEZ FEBRUARY 27

DAUGHTRY MARCH 11

@peacecenter TOWN_blank page.indd 7

BRIAN REGAN APRIL 15

GROUPS 1/17/18 6:05 PM

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Town

ON THE

VGSC Holiday Breakfast

Jim Burns & Bouge Wallin

December 7, 2017

Mimi Mallory, Carolyn Bates & MaryAnn Medlin

Sima Patel, Victoria Iriel & Jackie Blackwell

Visit Greenville SC gave the holidays a warm welcome once again at its annual Holiday Breakfast. The Old Cigar Warehouse was done up in yuletide cheer for the festive fête, with a room full of twinkling Christmas trees, red and green trimmings, and a North Pole–themed photo op with Santa Claus. Two Chefs Café & Market was on deck to serve up the perfect omelet, and live musicians kept things bright on stage.

By Jack Robert Photography

Stephanie Thorn & Santa

Madison Turrentine, Eliza Hart & Murray Dorn

Michelle Stoudemire & Bill Hoban

Daniel Lock & David Montgomery Lucy Raheja & Jessica Kalbarczyk

Jamie Bryant & Caroline Glazebrooke

Molly Willingham, Amy Doyle & Edward Kinney Buller Mullins & John Moore

Andy Cajka & Dirk Bengle

Jenn Maness & Alrinthea Carter Meredith Siler, Jenny Morris, Madeline Fleming, Ryan Herron & Lauren Siddens

Debra & Josh Jones with Jonathan Brashier

Mary Douglas Hirsch & Ashley Clark

Hope Evans, Tammy Dankovich & Vee Daniel

Greg Cordell & Megan Byrd

Wilfredo Gonzalez, Kendra Getz & Amanda Phillips

Kenzie Wilton & Rachel Pitman FEBRUARY 2018 / 27

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TRUSTED. RESPECTED. CONNECTED. STAGING CONSULTATION • PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY • PROMPT FOLLOW UP • CREATIVE MARKETING TECHNIQUES • ALWAYS LOOKING OUT FOR YOUR BEST INTEREST FIRST...

Holiday Reception Honoring Members of the Wyche Society December 12, 2017 Roger and Marianna Habisreutinger opened their Spartanburg home to host Upstate Forever’s holiday reception. Some 100 guests attended the gathering for the organization, founded to recognize and continue the Wyche family’s conservation efforts while providing an open forum for members to discuss current environmental and land-use issues.

Executive Director Andrea Cooper gave opening remarks.

TOM MARCHANT, REALTOR

By Fourth Dimension Photography Pam Barber & Thomas Kester

Lot prices from $365,000 www.WoodlandParkGreenville.com Woodland Park at Cleveland Forest is a highly unique and sought-after property located in the heart of Alta Vista and Cleveland Forest near Downtown Greenville. This premier location is situated along the Swamp Rabbit Trail, across from Cleveland Park, one block from the Caine Halter Family YMCA and blocks from Downtown Greenville. Bordered by Woodland Way, Southland Ave and Newman Street (off of McDaniel Avenue), Woodland Park is considered to be one of the most prestigious “Downtown” neighborhoods in the city of Greenville.

CLEVELAND FOREST

Woodland Park

Aldon Knight, Ginger Goldsmith, Thomas Kester & Sally Boman

Ellen Gramling & Betty Camp

CLEVELAND FOREST

Joseph Bouren & Kim Buice

at

CLEVELAND FOREST

864.449.1658 Tom@TomMarchant.com CALL TOM FOR A PRIVATE SHOWING OR TO STRATEGICALLY MARKET YOUR PROPERTY.

Marianna & Roger Habisreutinger with Andrea Cooper

28 TOWN / towncarolina.com TomMarchant_hlfV_TOWN Jan18.indd 1 TOWN_FEB_OTT WF.indd 28

12/12/17 11:29 AM

1/22/18 4:00 PM

ON THE

Town Anita West

Sterling & Jason Draper with Meredith & Wade Lindsey

Jack Jeter, Russel Floyd & Peter Grzan

HOME BACKUP POWER…

COMFORT AND SECURITY FOR THE LIFE YOU LIVE.

Shelley Robbins with Karen & Georgia Keith

Tom Craig & Paula Baker

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• Professionally Installed • Financing Available • 24/7 Service

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ON THE

Town

Karen & Bob Barreto with Bobby Barreto & Sullivan Short

Famiglia Vaglio Launch Party December 4, 2017

Kristan Gillespie & Amanda Doran Tom & Ashley Bates

Brooke Smith & Benjamin Moore

The Greenville-based Famiglia Vaglio watch company toasted the beginning of a new family legacy at the Poinsett Club. Founded by Clemson graduate Bob Barreto, Famiglia Vaglio designs, manufactures, and sells luxury men’s timepieces that are handcrafted in Switzerland. Barreto named the company in honor of his Italian mother’s family, and plans to donate a portion of each watch purchase to organizations like the American Cancer Society and The Parkinson’s Foundation.

Photography by Bonfire Visuals

Bob Barreto & Karen Barreto Cindy Overgaard & Patrick Cox

Traci Newkirk & Jensen Webb W. Stanton Smith & Laryn Weaver

Leslie Cook, Karen Barreto, Sullivan Short & Morgan Cook Tyler Center & Savannah Humanik Tiffany Anderson & Amili Zelaya

Lauren Hein, Sandra Upton & Heather Cloy

Kevin Collins & Tom Marchant Sullivan Short & Bobby Barreto

Theresa & Bruce Johnson with Amanda Doran

Mike Giordano & Bradley Smith

Kellie Davis-Hall & Kim Keable

30 TOWN / towncarolina.com

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Not in love with your dentist?

Breaking up isn’t hard to do.

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864.214.4242 • 109 Augusta Street, Greenville, SC 29601 • bijoudentalspa.com BijouDental_fp_TOWN TOWN_blank page.inddfeb18.indd 7 2

1/19/18 1/19/18 12:09 4:42 PM

Eric & Judy Verhoeven with Erin Turner

“Light Language” Reception at Centre Stage Gallery December 1, 2017 The Metropolitan Arts Council debuted the latest installment of their partnership with Centre Stage with an opening reception at the theatre’s gallery. Around 50 guests came to receive the exhibit—titled “Light Language”—which includes works by Tim and Elizabeth Speaker, two artists who specialize in painting/ mixed media and printmaking/paper arts, respectively. “Light Language” closed January 7; however both artists are members of Artbomb Studios in the Village of West Greenville where their work is on display.

By Fourth Dimension Photography

THE ROWLEY

AT THE COTTAGES AT OVERBROOK

Michaela Staton, Jennifer Jefferson & Abigail Whigham Tara Sweeney & Josh Tremper

HIGH $200,000S - LOW $300,000S.

Bringing Maintenance - Free Living Downtown!

Three well appointed floor plans with many options and upgrades. Phase One is accepting contracts with scheduled completion dates of Spring 2018.

Excellent options to make this your own custom home.

Materials include hardiplank construction, architectural shingles, gas water heater, Trane HVAC. Open floor plan with excellent appointments. Fantastic location near downtown Greenville.

CALL TODAY FOR MORE INFORMATION!

Elizabeth & Tim Speaker

WE’RE EVERYWHERE Jack Riordan, Kate Lominack, Rebecca Batson & Alan Ethridge Jean Freeman & Elizabeth Speaker

NICK CARLSON

VICE PRESIDENT / BROKER ASSOCIATE

864-386-7704 NICK@WILSONASSOCIATES.NET Sara Baumann, Melanie Pretorius, Lauren Swathwood, Masha Nipatruk & Logan Chapman 32 TOWN / towncarolina.com

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ON THE

Town

Holiday at Peace December 15, 2017 The Peace Center’s popular holiday showcase once again enchanted audiences with a triple-threat of performances starring the International Ballet, Greenville Symphony Orchestra, and Broadway legend Rachel York. A family-friendly affair, the show included staples like the audience sing-along and, yes, even an appearance by Ol’ St. Nick.

By Jack Robert Photography

Jason Stanton, Lynn Tomaka & Carolyn Stanton

Elizabeth Wassynger & Hannah Wassynger

THE REYNOLDS

Scott, Susan & Megan Hunter

Kamisha & Travis Ladson with Santa Claus & Mrs. Claus

AT THE COTTAGES AT OVERBROOK HIGH $200,000S - LOW $300,000S.

Bringing Maintenance - Free Living Downtown!

Three well appointed floor plans with many options and upgrades. Phase One is accepting contracts with scheduled completion dates of Spring 2018.

Kristin Horvath & John Horvath

Ellie Farish & Pam McAlister Krystal & Jason Anderson

Kyndal Chapman & Josh Ryder

Excellent options to make this your own custom home.

Materials include hardiplank construction, architectural shingles, gas water heater, Trane HVAC. Open floor plan with excellent appointments. Fantastic location near downtown Greenville.

CALL TODAY FOR MORE INFORMATION!

WE’RE EVERYWHERE Greg & Julie Cook Lila Kilby, Sydnie Taylor & Tom Kilby

SHARON WILSON

PRESIDENT / BROKER IN CHARGE

864-918-1140 SHARON@WILSONASSOCIATES.NET Abbie Luther & Austin Monroe FEBRUARY 2018 / 33

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What are you waiting for?

Discover

LAKE KEOWEE

Saleeby Jean Interiors Grand Opening

Your

November 30, 2017

VACATION HOME

is closer than you think...

Ben, Crystal & Louise Galloway Alexis Moore, Jordan Beasley & Becky Hoddy

Only 36 miles from Greenville!

• Outdoor Adventure • Hiking • Waterfalls

Saleeby Jean Interiors cut the ribbon on its Cleveland Street location this past November, opening the doors for around 80 guests to get a first glimpse at the home furnishings boutique.

Invitees viewed the contemporary studio space while noshing on fare catered by Concierge on Call and listening to tunes by Brooks Dixon.

Stop by the Saleeby Jean showroom Tuesday through Thursday or set up a one-on-one consultation to a do a little personal shopping.

Photography by Bonfire Visuals

• State Parks • Boating & Fishing • Scuba Diving • Golf • Gated communities with luxury amenities Bill & Vicki Williams

“I have known and/or worked with Diane since 2010. As a client I have bought properties with Diane’s assistance in Hendersonville, NC, Charleston, SC, and Seneca, SC. As an experienced real estate buyer I highly value RE Agent competency and honestly can only work with the best of the best – Diane is that person in the Upstate. Both my wife and I think she is a gem – she works all the time and is a skilled negotiator. AAA+++ in our book.”

Sara Aiken & Maggie Aiken Dixie Dulin & Crystal Galloway

– K. M., OCTOBER 2017

DIANE BOSTROM

864.280.5844 | Diane@DianeBostrom.com DianeBostrom.com

Lauren Newton & Lindsay Powers

Marian Pouch & Katie Evans

Serving the Lake Keowee area including The Reserve at Lake Keowee, The Cliffs Communities, Keowee Key and other beautiful lake front areas, as well as Clemson.

Taylor Newsom, Patti Newsom & Dixie Dulin

Bentley Mitchell & Kerry Glenn

Tucker Dulin, Georgetta Dulin, Thad Dulin & Dottie Dulin

34 TOWN / towncarolina.com

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ON THE

Town

A Child’s Haven Holiday Breakfast December 1, 2017 Twenty-five years of steadfast commitment to youth behavioral health are in the books for A Child’s Haven, who commemorated its silver anniversary with the 2017 Holiday Breakfast. Held at the Embassy Suites Verdae, the breakfast featured a special performance of participating children from the Child’s Haven program, as well as a presentation in line with the morning’s theme—“Lifting Lives: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.”

Proceeds from the event will provide continued support directly to children and families in need.

Amy Barnette, Melissa Patterson & Gabi Garcia

Latrice Williams & Rosario Quinonez

Photography by Bonfire Visuals

Charlene Comer with Nathan & Sugie Einstein Jennifer McGuffee & Tom Coker

...IS EMPOWERING

Sam Nadler, Jennifer McGuffee, Brooks Manley & Kory Radford Hal Shaw & Jane Pressly

Carrie Edwards & Cindy McGrath

The YMCA of Greenville is made up of people of all ages and from every walk of life working side by side to strengthen communities. Together we work to ensure everyone – regardless of gender,

Sallie Alexander with Madeline & Allen Freeman

income, faith, sexual orientation or cultural background – has the opportunity to live life to its fullest. We share the values of caring,

Claudia Carpenter & Camilla Bellows

honesty, respect and responsibility – everything we do stems from it.

Get involved for a better us. ymcagreenville.org Zack Eikenberry & Kirk Bevan

Annie Maertens & David Field FEBRUARY 2018 / 35

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GREENVILLE 535 Woodruff Road 864.288.6290

GREENVILLE 7 Task Industrial Court 864.297.1496

ANDERSON 1718 Pearman Dairy Road 864.225.0884

Photo courtesy of Artistic Tile

The Upstate’s leading tile company for over fifty-five years

SPARTANBURG 530 S. Blackstock Road 864.587.9732

ClaytonTileCo.com ClaytonTile_fp_TOWN TOWN_blank page.inddFeb18.indd 6 1

1/11/18 6:07 1/17/18 7:21 PM

SALE

*SALE ENDS FEBRUARY 28.

COMPLIMENTARY ASID DESIGN SERVICES (IN-STORE OR IN-HOME)

our collections online oldcolonyfurniture.com | 3411 Augusta Road Road | Greenville, SC 29605 SC | 864-277-5330 BrowseBrowse our collections online atatoldcolonyfurniture.com | 3411 Augusta | Greenville, 29605 | 864-277-5

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TOWN

Weddings

Lauren Rubio & Justin Yon October 7, 2017

/ by Abby Moore Keith

E

ver been on a double date, only to realize you’ve been paired with the wrong person? Lauren Rubio had a picture-perfect July evening with Justin Yon, romantic baseball fireworks included— except for the minor issue of her dating his friend, and he being there with another girl. Won over by his genuine personality and winning smile, Lauren wondered if Justin felt the chemistry, too, and a month later (after he’d asked Lauren’s original date for her number) they went out again, this time as each other’s dates. Justin proposed to

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Lauren two years later at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, fittingly under a sky exploding with New Year’s fireworks.

The two were married at The Cliffs at Glassy Chapel, which held special significance for the bride. Lauren’s father, Gus Rubio of Gabriel Builders, built the chapel when she was 14 years old. Since the mountaintop church was completed, Lauren knew if she was going to get married,

Goin’ to the Chapel: Lauren and Justin performed their wedding vows at The Cliffs at Glassy Chapel, which was built by the bride’s father, Gus Rubio of Gabriel Builders. Their reception took place at The Cliffs at Mountain Park.

it would be there, surrounded by its breathtaking sky and hillside scenes. The reception was held at the Cliffs at Mountain Park. Though both from the Upstate, Lauren and Justin now live in the Myers Park area in Charlotte, North Carolina. Lauren works in political development for Independent Women’s Voice, and Justin is a medical device sales representative at Universal Hospital Services.

GETZCREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY

FEBRUARY 2018 / 39

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Weddings Marielena Santos & Alex Holsonback September 9, 2017 Food fights, real fights, unamused lunch ladies—school cafeterias are rarely the setting for a budding romance. But these two North Greenville Crusaders are the happy exception. Marielena Santos and Alex Holsonback met at a lunch table while studying at the Upstate university. Already a senior, Marielena assumed Alex, a freshman, wasn’t interested in dating up, but after a second encounter during a basketball game, their lunchroom love story was sealed. Four years later, Alex presented Marielena with the best birthday present a girl could ask for—a sparkling engagement ring after a date night of fine dining. She said yes, and the two were married at Champion Hills Club in Hendersonville, North Carolina. Marielena wore a WTOO dress from The White Magnolia, and Gateaux Cakes and Pastries designed the cake.

Marielena and Alex now live in Mauldin, where she is a relocation coordinator at Coldwell Banker Caine, and Alex is a medical scribe.

JEN BURRELL PHOTOGRAPHY

Chase Holbrooks & Rebecca Kelley September 30, 2017 The friend zone is tricky territory no potential suitor wants to dwell. It’s no man’s land, a frozen wilderness with few survivors, and only the very brave (or very hopeful) exit victorious. Chase Holbrooks camped out in Rebecca Kelley’s friend zone for a grand total of six years. The two had been close pals since early high school, and although Chase made his feelings known before they left school, Rebecca sidelined the relationship to sporadic coffee catch-ups. Content to wait for the icicles to thaw, Chase seized the opportune moment when Rebecca, a performer, headed to Cedar Point, Ohio, for the summer. Before she could protest, Chase had booked a flight to visit, and his bold barrage convinced the bride-to-be that best friends make even better life partners. Four months later, Chase left the friend zone forever when Rebecca said yes to his theatrical on stage engagement proposal. The two were married at Fred Symmes Chapel at the YMCA’s Camp Greenville. They live in Anderson; Rebecca is a performer at Centre Stage and Chase is a State Farm sales associate.

TAYLOR CASH PHOTOGRAPHY

Brooks Whitted & Eric Groetzinger October 14, 2017 A planned trip to Australia is certainly one way to win over your brideto-be, but the Land Down Under wasn’t quite over-the-top enough for Eric Groetzinger. No, this resolved Romeo not only whisked his girlfriend away to Sydney, but he surprised Brooks Whitted with a seaplane flight to a private island outside Rose Bay, where he proposed during a picnic lunch. The couple had met during their time at The Vanguard Group in Charlotte, and after two years of dating, Eric won Brooks’s heart forever with his elaborate Australian romancing. The wedding took place on the bride’s family plantation in Ninety Six, South Carolina. Brooks wore her maternal grandmother’s wedding gown, and her childhood minister performed the ceremony on the front porch of the family home. An afternoon reception followed on the front lawn.

The couple now lives in Dallas, Texas; Brooks is a wealth strategy associate at UBS private wealth management, and Eric is a senior financial analyst at American Airlines.

JUAN CARLOS GARCIA HEARING WEDDING BELLS? TOWN Magazine wants to publish your wedding announcement. If you currently live or grew up in the Upstate and were recently married, please write to us at TOWN Magazine, Attn: Weddings, 581 Perry Ave, Greenville, SC 29611, or e-mail weddings@towncarolina.com. Due to space constraints, inclusion is not guaranteed.

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M Y L A G O S M Y W AY

C AV I A R C O L L E C T I O N S

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To be built in Acadia by Arthur Rutenberg Homes

Historical photo courtesy of Greenville County Historical Society & Photographs from the Coxe Collection.

The importance of having a plan could not be more clear.

150 Fathers Dr., Piedmont, SC 29673 • $549,000 150 FATHERS DRIVE, PIEDMONT, SC 29673 | $549,000 A beautiful custom home to be built by Arthur Rutenberg Homes in the wonderful Acadia community! You may choose from a variety of plans and elevations available.

The pool in the floor plan is an optional upgrade. The lot can accommodate a rear load or front load garage. The neighborhood features miles of frontage on the Saluda River and wonderful natural amenities such as green spaces, walking trails, the river for kayaking and canoeing and lots of wildlife. Acadia also offers an athletic field, pool, tennis courts, fitness center, covered pavilion with gas grills, and a neighborhood garden. Not to mention the “River House” for large entertaining. This is a great corner lot in The Village, walking distance to all amenities! Only 10 minutes to GHS hospital!

We offer our clients concierge quality advisory and planning services customized for their individual needs and goals. Our approach is to centralize our clients’ diverse financial strategies and life-plans to provide a coordinated, efficient and effective roadmap for financial security.

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42 TOWN / towncarolina.com Val_hlfV_TOWN Feb18.indd 1 TOWN_blank page.indd 2

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Artwork courtesy of Keiko Kamata; photograph by Eli Warren

TOWN

Buzz

INTERESTING PEOPLE, PLACES & THINGS

Good Shape Keiko Kamata’s layered prints are colorful meditations FEBRUARY 2018 / 43

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OUTSIDE THE

Box

Light Room: Keiko Kamata’s prints express lightness and the beauty of impermanence, concepts she hopes to translate onto the broader scale of wallpaper design.

Kamata’s work is on display at Art and Light Gallery and will feature in a show from April 6–28.

Prints of Peace Japanese-born artist Keiko Kamata arranges simple shapes into delicate designs / by M. Linda Lee

// photography by Eli Warren

T

he soothing rhythm of repetition, the play of light and color, the smoothness of crisp, white paper: these are some of the things that Keiko Kamata loves most about making prints. Her simple shapes, which play on repeating patterns and layers of transparent color, exude lightness and joy.

As a girl, Kamata always wanted to go to art school, but pursued a B.A. in education in Tokyo instead. It wasn’t until she was 22 that she took her first formal art class. One taste of screen printing, a year later, was all she needed to fall in love with the medium.

That led her back to school, where she earned an M.F.A. from the University of Hawaii, with a concentration in printmaking.

The Japanese-born artist and mother of two moved here from Hawaii in 2008 when her husband, Eiho Baba, took a job teaching philosophy and Asian studies at Furman University. At her home studio near downtown Greenville, Kamata handcuts a limited amount of stencils and repeats the designs, regarding the stencil like a painter would a brush.

She relishes what she calls “the detachment of printmaking,” the fact that she doesn’t paint directly on the paper. “That detachment is similar to the mental distance you get in Japanese painting,” explains Kamata. “In the process of layering colors, you remove yourself from the subject. By the end, the image becomes distilled and there’s a silence to it. And I love that.”

While patterns from Kamata’s childhood became the models for her early prints, these days she finds inspiration in the fleeting designs of nature all around her. “I strive to convey in my images the sense of impermanence and the beauty of the transitory nature of things,” she says. A repetition of geometric shapes in gradations of black and white, for instance, becomes a fragmented image of the sky.

This subtle ambiguity lies at the core of all of Kamata’s work.

“I don’t want to dictate the entire impression to my viewers,” admits the artist. “Suggesting is enough. I want the viewer to experience a moment of uncertainty. Being able to sit with uncertainty and accept it is very important to me.”

Kamata turned to fiber when she needed a larger canvas, which she now finds in her recent experiments with wallpaper.

“Like a scoop of the ocean,” as she puts it, the details in her prints awaken Kamata’s ideas for digitally illustrated wall patterns (she creates the original design, which is then repeated by computer). She would like to see her wallpaper cheer patients in hospitals some day. “Walls are the biggest unconscious image that surrounds us,” Kamata notes. “So wallpaper can have a big effect on people.” She hopes people will feel lighter when they see her work.

Kamata, who took piano as a child, claims she never appreciated Bach until recently. Now she relates her artistic process to his music. “My images are like overlying melodies,” she clarifies. “There’s a pattern to them, but the variations create the melody. There’s no beginning and no end.”

You can see Keiko Kamata’s prints in Art and Light Gallery in the Village of West Greenville. The gallery will feature a new show of her work from April 6–28. 16 Aiken St, artandlightgallery.com

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LUXURY LISTINGS FROM T H E M A RC H A N T C O M PA N Y

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Bunk Seventy-Seventh Heaven: The Old No. 77’s Compère Lapin (left) is considered one of Nola’s top restaurants, with Caribbean-inspired plates from Top Chef contestant Nina Compton. The hotel lobby (below) and its 165 rooms include elements of the original structure—built in 1854—such as the restored wood-plank floors.

LA Nights Revel in Louisiana luxury at New Orleans boutique hotel The Old No. 77

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hough New Orleans—or Nola—has sprouted up and out in its post-Katrina chapter, travelers often limit Louisiana’s legendary city to the 13 blocks of the French Quarter. Sure, Frenchmen Street might have lured some adventurers across Esplanade, but in years past, little more than Commander’s Palace could woo tourists south of Canal Street. All this to say, I felt a touch hesitant about staying in the Central Business District (CBD), but with a laundry list of must-try restaurants, high concept bars, galleries, and hotels, I was drawn to the downtown neighborhood’s resurgence.

The original warehouse district for the Port of New Orleans, the area and plenty of its nineteenth century buildings survived to experience this recent incarnation. The Old No. 77 Hotel & Chandlery is one such structure. Built in 1854, it stored coffee but later became a chandlery for E.J. Hart & Company, a large wholesaler of shipped goods. Today the reimagined boutique hotel exudes an easy funk with its antique brick interiors, original wood-plank floors, adorable Tout La coffee counter, and hopping restaurant Compère Lapin, whose energy spills warmly into the lobby.

Like each of Provenance Hotels’ ten concepts, art is central at The Old No. 77.

A partnership with the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts keeps original work in public spaces as well as in every room. A rotating exhibit located in the hotel’s gallery space showcases local artists and is curated seasonally by the Marigny’s Where Y’Art Gallery.

The hotel’s 165 rooms are distinctly Nola and cleverly described. Only in New Orleans would a windowless room be dubbed a “Sleep Late Retreat,” marketed to night owls with no desire to see the light of day. Premium rooms boast multi-pane, original casement windows, many overlooking the electrified Old No. 77 signage. But for an incredibly posh stay, book an Artist Loft Suite with a massive footprint, mid-mod furnishings, deep leather sofas, exposed brick, stocked bars, and beautiful, everrotating paintings and sculpture.

With so much just steps outside the hotel door, it was difficult to imagine dining in, but Chef Nina Compton and her team at Compère Lapin are a force majeure on the CBD dining scene. The Top Chef superstar produces beautiful plates featuring local Gulf ingredients influenced by her Caribbean upbringing—like a seafood pepper pot that you’ll not soon forget and Brussels topped with Caesar crumb.

Compton was deemed one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs of 2017, and her aptitude is apparent, with locals clambering for reservations, especially for a rather flawless cocktail brunch.

The Old No.77 Hotel & Chandlery, 535 Tchoupitoulas St, New Orleans, Louisiana. (504) 527 5271, old77hotel.com

Photography courtesty of the Old No. 77 Hotel & Chandlery

/ by Stephanie Burnette

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Profile

Keeper of Cool For decades, Greenville native Bob Yearick has crafted experiences that define the style of a brand / by Steven Tingle

// photograph by Paul Mehaffey

“L

ife is too short not to enjoy the little things,” says Bob Yearick, when asked to describe the philosophy behind his store We Took to the Woods on Stone Avenue. The store is a collection of items both old and new, and stepping through the door is like walking into a friend’s house, albeit a friend with amazingly good taste.

The store changes every six months—new paint, new furnishings, new items—but the underlying aesthetic of a cozy cabin filled with candles, cookbooks, and vintage tableware, clothing, and accessories is unwavering. “The best compliment I get from people is when they walk in and say ‘Oh, I’d like to live here,’” Bob says. “That’s when I know the store is right.”

We Took to the Woods opened six years ago as a temporary solution to a simple problem: Bob had too much stuff. An avid and longtime collector of vintage clothing, jewelry, blankets, watches, and antiques, Bob had acquired enough items to fill several warehouses. When one of the warehouses was broken into and robbed, Bob decided he might as well sell off the remaining items. “We got a permit to do a ninety-day pop-up store in the space we are in now,” he says. “But people really responded to it and ninety days turned into six years. I’m still getting rid of some of that stuff. Some of the things in the store I may have bought over twenty years ago.”

We Took to the Woods is not Bob’s first foray into retail. For more than twenty years, in two separate stints, Bob worked for Ralph Lauren, commuting each week from his home in Greenville to New York City. During his first hiatus from Ralph Lauren, Bob opened three distinctively different clothing stores in the shortlived Greenville Mall on Woodruff Road. “When Williams Sonoma and Chick-fil-A couldn’t make it in that mall, we knew there was a problem,” Bob says. “We thought it was a new opportunity, but it was the wrong move. When our stores went south, that’s when I called Mr. Lauren and said I need to come back to work.”

Bob parted ways with Ralph Lauren two years ago and is now back in Greenville working full time as brand manager for local clothing brand OOBE. “When I left Ralph Lauren, I had the We Took to the Woods store but it was during an off-season, and I called the owners of OOBE and told them I’d like to help,” Bob says.

“I’ve known them for a long time. We’ve been friends through the years.” Bob’s first assignment was to design an OOBE store on King Street in Charleston. “I spent about six months putting that store together,” he says. “We made it very comfortable and want it to feel like something that has been there for a long time. That was a dream job.”

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Genuine Article: Bob Yearick, owner of the Greenville specialty goods boutique We Took to the Woods, has put his creative stamp on companies from Ralph Lauren to OOBE, directing the visual presentation and messaging of their brands. Shop his wares at 106 E Stone Ave, Greenville. wetooktothewoods.com

Leaning against an antique table in the middle of We Took to the Woods, Bob reflects on what has been most important in his life as husband, father, collector, retailer, and creative force. “It’s taking the time to enjoy the little things,” he says.

“I guess that’s just part of my upbringing. My father was a minister and we never had much money, but I remember my mother always trying to make sure we didn’t eat off paper plates. I remember her cooking spam and putting it on a nice piece of china that may have come from a flea market. It doesn’t take a lot of money to live well and enjoy the little things in life. It’s just important to savor the moment.”

“It doesn’t take a lot of money to live well and enjoy the little things in life. It’s just important to savor the moment.”

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Design

River’s Pearl Bill Oyster crafts heirloom bamboo fly rods at his Blue Ridge, Georgia, workshop / by Libby McMillan Henson // photography by Brandon Cawood

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he best thing about fly-fishing is that it gives you a reason to get out and explore, according to master fly rod craftsman Bill Oyster. “There’s no fly-fishing in ugly places,” he says, with a knowing smile. This multifaceted angler divides his time between gorgeous fish habitat and his workshop in tiny Blue Ridge, Georgia, where he designs and creates highly coveted custom fly rods.

“From a purely craftsmanship standpoint, fly rod making is part of the American craftsman heritage, alongside woven baskets and pottery,” Oyster explains, from the comfort of the workspace he’s had more than 20 years. His small but booming business, Oyster Bamboo Fly Rods, has elevated a practical American tradition to a thrilling marriage of art, science, and nature. Oyster’s clients have included President Jimmy Carter, professional athletes, famous writers, and billionaires, whose identity he fiercely protects. But it’s the water, rather than the movers and shakers, to which this Blue Ridge maker feels most connected.

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Southern Accents: Oyster Bamboo Fly Rods are carefully crafted for the expert fisherman, and include intricate nickel silver engravings, a process Bill Oyster learned to further customize his work. His rods can include gold inlay, specific sculpting, and artistic scenes.

Oyster—who studied art, philosophy, and engineering before weaving them into a career based on his love of fly-fishing— makes rods, but not reels. “The rod is the most important part,” he explains. “It’s what transforms and transitions the energy from the fisherman’s hand to the fly. These days, fly rods are typically made of carbon fiber and graphite,” he explains, of the industry’s mid-century move to synthetic materials. “They’re manufactured en masse, mostly overseas, by relatively unskilled labor. The rods we make are bamboo, the worldwide standard from the mid-1800s until the move to synthetic materials.

Bamboo really takes some serious handcraft,” he says. “There’s no way around the time or skill involved, which means we have the higher price tags.” Today, Oyster’s custom fly rods include (but are not limited to) the most expensive fly rods in America, if not the world: a custom rod can fetch nearly $20,000 (although the average is $6,000–$8,000).

In essence, Oyster is creating beloved family heirlooms.

Bamboo rods “are all about beauty, tradition, and remembering,” says Oyster. “In today’s throw-away mentality, people don’t

expect things to last anymore, but if you don’t put these bamboo rods back in the tube wet, and you keep them out of extreme weather, you pass them on for generations,” says Oyster, “especially if they’re customized.”

The bamboo of Oyster’s fly rods is harvested from a small 20–30 square mile river valley in southern China. “That particular bamboo has just the right properties, the perfect fiber densities,” he explains. Each of his rods is made of 24 individual pieces of bamboo: hollow, and about three inches in diameter.

“We’re cracking and splitting the shell into strips, planed down into triangles,” explains Oyster of his process. Those triangular strips are tapered fat to thin, then glued together lengthwise to form a hexagon. Even basic rods still take him over 30 hours of work, before he begins the engraving process. The more complex rods can each take hundreds of hours each. Oyster’s are precisionplaned within 1/1000 of an inch.

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Design

Captionhead: text here

Reel Man: Bill Oyster crafts his fly rods out of bamboo shipped from a small river valley in southern China. Each rod contains 24 individual bamboo pieces and can take more than 30 hours to create, and that’s before he begins engraving. Oyster’s customers have included professional athletes and authors, as well as President Jimmy Carter.

The many lengths and weights of rods are for specific performance situations, but he also has to customize the action of the rod, which a devout fly fisherman like Oyster understands and translates into his work. Any change will make a change to the action of the rod. The line guides make the fly line take the shape of the bending rod. “The different bands of color you see near the line guides are silk thread,” Oyster explains, “wound round and round, and then varnished over the top. We also do a thing called ‘inserts’: twelve additional strips, inlaid above the grip, to give an alternate, tapered accent of color . . . wispy streaks of color like you’d see on a pool cue.”

Many of Oyster’s commissions have been executive retirement gifts. “When a man’s retiring from 40 years on the job, he doesn’t want a Rolex,” laughs the rod-maker, fully understanding the desire to flee clocks and simply unplug on the water. Oyster’s customized fly rods also incorporate intricate hand-engraved nickel silver accents, a process he learned so he could further customize his work, without relying on an engraver who didn’t know anything about rods. Oyster can also incorporate gold inlay, sculpting, even artistic scenes. He gets some specific requests, but most clients—after seeing the dazzling rods he’s already created— give very little input, typically only dates of retirement, or perhaps a name or event to commemorate.

Visit this passionate angler’s Blue Ridge headquarters and you’ll discover large observation windows for seeing firsthand the many steps of Oyster’s well-honed craft. As he engraves, a nearby camera affords the opportunity to see—on a monitor in the showroom—exactly what he’s seeing on his workbench.

You can also discuss upcoming fishing trips led by Oyster

himself; past destinations have included Patagonia for trout, Andros Island for bonefish, Paraguay for golden dorado, and Belize for tarpon.

Oyster’s business evolved with the construction of a building that houses his retail shop, studio, and upstairs, The Oyster Cast & Blast Inn. Guests of the four-room inn are a combination of tourists, devout anglers, or students of Oyster’s fly-rod-making classes, where 60 hours lead to one’s own handmade rod. Close to 150 people, from around the globe, come through Oyster’s school each year.

The quaint village shop and studio regularly gets Main Street walk-ins who assume a business named “Oyster” must sell seafood. In fact, the man behind the name hasn’t kept a fish in 15 years or more. Most fly fishermen eventually develop a strong catch-and-release philosophy, and he’s no different. “There’s so much beauty to the experience,” he admits, “that there’s a real feeling of satisfaction to watch that fish swim away, and knowing it’s still there. You never know what 12-year-old kid is going to hook it the very next day for a memory of a lifetime.”

Oyster Bamboo Fly Rods, 494 E Main St, Blue Ridge, GA. (706) 374-4239, oysterbamboo.com

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UP

The Good Fight As the executive director of the S.C. Arts Alliance, G.P. McLeer forges a path for the arts / by Stephanie Trotter // photograph by Eli Warren

G

Man Behind the Curtain: As executive director of the S.C. Arts Alliance, G.P. McLeer, photographed at the Greenville Center for Creative Arts, champions the progress of creative ventures and arts education in our state communities.

eorge Patrick McLeer’s DNA is wired for art. Bright colors, mournful melodies, a pithy phrase. No matter the medium, he loves to lose himself in an artist’s interpretation and presentation of ideas. The 29-yearold dove into theatre and music as a child—he even played the trombone at St. Joseph’s Catholic School in Greenville. But over time, G.P. realized he was better at managing art than making it. So, the self-described “policy wonk” studied arts management at the College of Charleston, and returned to the Upstate to create environments and infrastructure for artists to thrive.

Eighteen months ago, the direct and well-spoken patron took the helm of the South Carolina Arts Alliance, which is poised to enter its most important February yet.

February 5–9 is Arts Advocacy Week. What’s planned? >> This is the first time we’ve expanded our Advocacy Day to an entire week. We’re trying to empower people to raise their voices for art across the state. So, if you can’t come to Columbia February 6th, you can do it from your own home all week long.

It’s planned in Columbia? >> We’re starting with 300 chorale students on the State House steps. More than 200 advocates will show up to greet legislators as they arrive and tell them about the importance of the arts, and then a luncheon is following that.

What’s your biggest challenge? >> Every year, for the last 6–7 years, the arts have faced cuts or proposed cuts to funding at the state level by different governors.

We’ve had to help coordinate advocates to talk to their representatives, and work with politicians of all parties on making sure the arts stay supported at the state level. We’ve been successful at that, but we need to make sure it happens every year.

Does it matter who’s in office? >> No. Whoever is elected to any office, we work with them. We’ll work with any politician on any side of the aisle. Everyone’s impacted by the arts. No matter if you walk into a gallery or theatre, your community is impacted by them.

“Everyone’s impacted by the arts. No matter if you walk into a gallery or theatre, your community is impacted by them.”

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Can you demonstrate that? >> The creative sector, which is artists and art organizations, has a $9.7 billion impact on our state. It also represents a workforce of 115,000.

That’s a pretty big number in South Carolina and a pretty substantial piece of our tapestry.

What are your favorite stops on the art scene? >> I always try to go to First Fridays whenever I can, whether it’s in The Village, Taylors Mill, or downtown Greenville. Very close to that, I have a bunch of good music friends in this area, and wherever they’re playing, I try to see them.

Tipsy Music Pub, Smiley’s, Chicora Alley.

Greenville’s come a long way. >> I grew up in Anderson.

We never came to Greenville except to go to the mall.

Now it’s a 180-degree difference. There’s so much to do.

My fiancé and I will browse through Facebook events, and there are so many bands we want to see, art shows we want to go to, author talks at M. Judson. I like to call Greenville a creatively corporate town. Everything is based off of a creative energy, from the burgeoning arts district, to communities outside the city limits.

AA If Unique is what you seek

You split your week working with artists, artist groups, and lawmakers. Have you discovered an overall theme? >> The arts are engrained in every facet of our community. The arts are always good for the community. People want to have a vibrant life day in and day out, and the general public understands that the arts are a crucial part of that.

This year includes a fiftieth celebration of the South Carolina Arts Commission, and 30 years of Arts in Basic Curriculum project (ABC)? >> Yes. ABC reaches 167,000 students across the state, including those in Greenville County. In the world of arts education, South Carolina has been on the forefront of a lot of different things. We have to make sure we have the capacity to grow them for longevity.

You’ve visited Nashville, Portland, San Francisco, Chicago, and Atlanta for the job. How does Greenville compare? >> The common thread with Greenville is that art is valued. But all of these cities are huge by nature, and you can lose the connection. What Greenville brings to the table, and makes it a really enjoyable experience, is it’s a community rooted in the arts. If you live here, you probably know someone in a show at the Children’s Theatre or a musician downtown. That gives ownership to everyone and brings us all closer to the arts community and gives us a bigger foothold.

Visit SCArtsAlliance.net to explore ways to support the arts during Arts Advocacy Week, February 5–9, and all year long. ))) READ MORE UPTOWNER INTERVIEWS AT TOWNCAROLINA.COM

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864-707-2725 | ameliashome.com | FEBRUARY 2018 / 55

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WHERE EXCELLENCE LIVES THE GLOBAL LUXURY DIFFERENCE

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SIDE

Couture Queen: While Richmond’s Quirk Hotel (above left) blushes with chic design and original artwork, the city’s style resurgence shines on the curated shelves of its posh boutiques, like Need Supply Co. (above center), and Ledbury (above left and opposite, above right).

Venture Capital Richmond, Virginia, is reborn as the style leader of the South / by Kathryn Davé // photography by J ivan Davé

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he Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is free to the public and open 365 days a year.

The policy hints at Richmond’s priorities. Art and design are not luxuries here; they are essential.

You’ll likely figure this out for yourself soon after you arrive in the River City.

Vibrant, expansive murals and bold graffiti transform old brick walls. A surprising amount of indie boutiques and shops line the streets. Art students at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) scurry around the downtown campus. And when you check in to Quirk Hotel, the stylish boutique hotel-cum-art gallery, you’re greeted by curated original art in almost every corner.

Richmond, the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia since 1780, has traditionally been a hotspot for history and genteel Southern culture. But the once-staid Southern city is stepping along at a much livelier pace these days, thanks to its visionary voices in art, fashion, food, and culture. Together with the eternal tide of VCU students who pour new creative energy into the city, they have helped Richmond emerge as a premier style leader in the South.

Katie Ukrop, the co-founder of Quirk, is one of those voices. After curating one of the city’s most distinctive art galleries for a decade, she and her husband, Ted, decided it was time to expand their vision. The result, Quirk Hotel, is a hip, rosy-hued, artfilled, nuanced experience where every effortless detail bears evidence of a thoughtful curator’s hand. Case in point: by the bed, a cult-favorite Dohm sound machine (prized by light sleepers and parents of infants alike) customized in perfect, Quirk brand pink. Take a few moments to enjoy your room—the art, the vast window, the original hardwood floors dating back to the hotel’s historic days as a 1916 luxury department store—before heading out to explore.

A fortifying cocktail makes a good first stop. The Rogue Gentlemen serves up a concept-forward cocktail program, anchored to a core idea that changes each season. If you’re lucky, the bartender will let you peruse previous menus (a magazine styled after National Geographic, a music festival poster, a baseball card collection) while he mixes up “Huck Your Feelings.”

Next up? Dinner at Saison, a neighborhood favorite.

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Sweet Virginia: (left to right) Bespoke shirts and luxury menswear are highlights at Ledbury; Evin Dogu, baker and coowner of the Church Hill district’s wood-fired bakery Sub Rosa; at Brenner Pass, Chef Brittanny Anderson’s cuisine pays homage to the Alpine region.

EAT Can Can Brasserie Zinc bar, Thonet chairs, red leather banquettes—this charming spot checks all the Francophile boxes, so settle in and order mussels with frites or the salad niçoise, both perfectly executed.13120 W Cary St, (804) 358-7274, cancanbrasserie.com

Sub Rosa Bakery Even the New York Times has taken notice of this artisan, wood-fired bakery turning out breads and pastries made with stone-milled, heirloom grains. 620 N 25th St, (804) 788-7672, subrosabakery.com

Restaurants this tiny are oft described as “intimate,” but take the jammed-full tables and busy bar as a sign of good things to come.

In the morning, fuel up at the hotel’s well-regarded restaurant, Maple & Pine. Soft light filters in through the windows, bounces off the high, groin vault ceilings—and diffuses back down for the perfect Instagram snap of the hotel’s pink-accented lobby. Got it? It’s time for a quick trip to the VMFA, one of the largest art museums in North America. The art institution boasts an impressive collection, but the postwar American art from the Sydney and Frances Lewis Collection is a definite highlight. Feeling sufficiently inspired, continue to Carytown, a retail district home to many of the independent boutiques and shops that have made Richmond a style destination.

The genesis of the city’s thriving indie fashion community is Need Supply Co., the tiny denim shop turned trendsetting global retailer. In 1996, Need Supply was selling vintage Levi’s, introducing Richmond to a look the city couldn’t get before. Two decades later, the brand’s international success stems largely from the same strategy. Need Supply’s Carytown flagship is a bit like a baptism into the low-key, ultra-cool aesthetic the brand meticulously curates. The store’s sleek metal and wood interior curves around to control your experience of the space, directing you with smooth walls and spotlights to garments arranged just so.

You might notice a few wares from other Richmond makers on the tightly edited shelves, and that’s no accident. Need Supply has long been supportive of Richmond’s local fashion

Brenner Pass Helmed by the same team behind Richmond’s renowned Metzger Bar and Butchery, modern Brenner Pass offers an innovative, nuanced exploration of Alpine cuisine. Don’t miss the beverage program— a careful selection of European amari, sherries, ciders, and wines from mountainous regions.

3200 Rockbridge St. #100, (804) 658-9868, brennerpassrva.com

SHOP Need Supply Co. Enjoy the minimal vibes of this cool-kid headquarters, where you’ll find everything from cultfavorite Common Projects sneakers to Calvin Klein comebacks—along with a well-edited selection of denim, of course. 3100

W Cary St, (804) 355-4383, needsupply.com

Ledbury Ledbury made its name by bringing men’s bespoke shirtmaking to Richmond, but the brand’s luxurious, readyto-wear options share the same commitment to quality. The warm, layered flagship shop pays homage to the craft and tradition of tailoring.

315 W Broad St, (804) 7938569, ledbury.com

Dear Neighbor Founded by the makers behind trendy jewelry line Drift/ Riot, this tiny shop in Richmond’s Church Hill neighborhood gathers together covetable goods from some of their favorite artisans and designers. 2415 Jefferson Ave, (804) 819-1729, shopdearneighbor.com

STAY Quirk Hotel If you’ve ever wished you could move your bed into an art gallery, this charming, stylish boutique hotel is for you. Located in the heart of Richmond’s dynamic art and design district, the pink-hued hotel offers an eyeful, where every detail is carefully considered.

201 W Broad St, (804) 3406040, quirkhotel.com. Rates start at $170.

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Creative Arts: (clockwise from left) Need Supply Co., flagship of Richmond’s fashion transformation; Quirk Hotel rooms feature original hardwoods and vast windows; pain au chocolat is a fast favorite at artisan bakery Sub Rosa.

and start-up industries, paving the way for other success stories. Ledbury, a luxury menswear brand famous for its bespoke shirts, is one. Other shopping standouts include Rosewood Clothing Co., Na Nin, and Dear Neighbor. But that’s the story of Richmond: big-time or small, independent brands thrive in this hothouse for creative vision.

Locals say you can’t leave Carytown without lunching at Can Can, an excellent French brasserie. The only clue that you’re not in Paris is the wait staff’s uniform: crisp, white shirts and stiff, shape-hiding Dickies utility pants (which have, inexplicably, been reborn as the cool pant right now). The Dickies are a secret handshake for those who get it, a sly wink to the young, buzzy energy of Richmond’s fashion scene.

There’s plenty more browsing to do, but if you’ve ventured over to the Church Hill district to check out Dear Neighbor, it’s probably time for an afternoon pick-me-up. Head ’round the corner until you catch sight of Sub Rosa’s steamed-up windows. While you enjoy the buttery shatter of blissful pain au chocolat from the artisan bakery, you can watch coowner Evin Dogu unload hot loaves from the wood-fired oven.

No one will blame you if you decide on a brief interlude back in your hotel room. The calm, quiet space—with its comfortable, understated bed fashioned from century-old walnut beams—invites reflection . . . or a nap. Later, on the way out to dinner, pop into Quirk Gallery. Connected to the hotel, the ever-changing gallery space offers a highly curated mix of original art and stylish wares.

Richmond doesn’t only set trends in the fashion arena. The latest concept from James Beard Award semi-finalist Chef Brittanny Anderson offers proof of the city’s forward-looking perspective. Brenner Pass focuses on food and drink of the Alpine region—and as the world’s obsession with Nordic cuisine fades, the sturdy, mountainous cuisine of the Alps seems a likely candidate for the next culinary craze. Sculptural chairs, graywashed wood, and a palette of creamy winter whites are reminiscent of a modern mountain chalet. Dinner opens with a creative drink list, showcasing European amari and sherries. Trout quenelles, in a beautiful pool of crème fraîche, dill, and trout roe, arrive shortly after a remarkable negroni, made with Brenner’s house amaro. Both prove to be the night’s standouts, although everything is delicious and quietly surprising.

It’s a fitting way to close a weekend in a capital city that continues to impress—balancing centuries of history with a bold commitment to the pursuit of art and style.

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SPORT THE BEST RECREATION ON LAND & WATER

Photograph by Peter Taylor

Fowl Play: Zen is a three-pound red-tailed hawk who hunts with falconer Jason Hausman. Redtailed hawks are the most prevalent birds of prey in South Carolina— one of several raptor types Hausman has trained in falconry.

Prey Tell

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Sport Flight School: During his years as a falconer, Jason Hausman has trained various birds of prey to hunt with him. Zen (below) is a red-tailed hawk that has been flying with Hausman for three seasons. Lola (opposite center) is a half gyrfalcon, half aplomado.

Bird Man Carolina falconer Jason Hausman trains birds of prey in the art of the hunt—developing deep connections to the skies’ most majestic flier / by Stephanie Trot ter // photography by Peter Taylor

H

o, ho, ho! Ho, ho, ho!” Jason Hausman’s deep in the Carolina woods, alerting his hunting partner to a squirrel high in a tree. Only his partner is not a human, but a red-tailed hawk crisscrossing the canopy above. “Here she goes! Here she goes!

Come on girl! Get it girl!” Zen dives down in a blur and seizes the squirrel with her razor-sharp talons. The three-pound raptor abruptly breaks right, then helicopters down to land at Jason’s feet, clutching her 17th kill of the season. “She’s probably one of the best hawks I’ve ever had in my life,” shares the avid adventurer. “I can take one look at her and know if she wants to hunt or not, just by the way she looks at me. We have this understanding. She’s just that bird for me.”

Hausman’s love for birds of prey took flight as a young boy, growing up in Terre Haute, Indiana. After caring for a pet caiman, dozens of snakes, a turn of turtles, and flock of finches, his mom took him to a house full of hippies to see a hawk. “It was a quintessential moment,” the 50-year-old recalls. “I was a 10-year-old boy, starring at a hawk perched inside an attic dormer window. It captivated me. Like if somebody told me I could have a

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IN THE WINGS The Avian Conservation Center in Awendaw, SC, houses three divisions: the Center for Birds of Prey, the Avian Medical Center, and the South Carolina Oil Spill Treatment Facility. The public is encouraged to visit and view 120 birds of prey from around the world. The center’s medical staff has treated and released 100 Bald Eagles, more than half of South Carolina’s breeding population. thecenterforbirdsofprey.org

tiger and ride it, or a cheetah and hunt with it. It was like having a dragon.

It was magical and wonderful and cool.” Then and there, he knew someday that he, too, would own a winged huntress.

Not long after, his interests shifted from biology to Beatles, and Hausman enrolled at UNC Greensboro to study music. By 2004, he’d settled in Charlotte and was scoring everything from films and commercials, to video games and children’s toys, out of his sound boutique. He’d labor in front of monitors and mixers for hours, surrounded by his Telly and Emmy awards.

Yet his schedule now included the freedom to explore his childhood dream.

“The thing is for me, it’s not whether you want to do it or not,” he says, describing his passion. “It’s that you have to do it. It’s like my music. Once I went to that workshop, no one was going to stop me.”

A steely attitude is needed to practice falconry; it’s not as simple as buying a bird. Laws vary from state to state, but all include years of apprenticeship, licensing, and monitoring, including aviary inspections by game officials. “I try to discourage people from taking it up,” explains the dedicated outdoorsman.

“There’s a lot more to it. It’s not going to the Renaissance fair and showing

people how a hawk flies. Falconry is a hunting sport; it’s killing and taking game. Training a wild animal to take game with you.”

And, oh, the majestic birds he’s trained. Nero. Seven. Arshia. X-ray. Strong names for strong birds, red-tailed and Harris’s hawks, aplomado and hybrid falcons. More than a dozen over time. Some purchased, others trapped, all trained to follow him and stalk prey from the sky. “The whole connection between me and that hawk . . . and me and nature, and understanding that these moments are gifts, is the most spectacular thing. That’s what falconry does for me on a daily basis. It reminds me of what matters.” What matters most is Hausman’s wife and sons. His youngest, Eli, earned his falconry license at age 12. “He’s been in the woods with me since he could keep up, about three,” reveals the proud dad. “He’s learned the power of nature.

There’s this moment when I’m completely connected to these two animals, the squirrel and the hawk, and one of them is dying. There’s nothing like that. It’s not to be taken lightly. My son has grown up with the understanding that it’s a divine moment.”

Father, son, and friends travel as far as North Dakota to hunt with Zen, and Lola, who is half gyrfalcon, half aplomado falcon. “Every time I fly my bird for the last time out there, I know I’m going home the next day, and I’m gonna start tearing up,” confesses the master falconer. “It’s become more than just a bond with the animal, obviously that’s incredible. But it’s become this reset button. My body changes. All the tension of modern life just falls away.”

Emotions also run deep when he releases a bird for good at the end of the hunting season. “It’s pretty rough. You have this bond with them. Nature is so brutal and so unforgiving. The smallest thing can kill these animals in the wild. It’s hard when I realize I’m no longer able to protect this creature.

No longer in a relationship with this magnificent animal.” Hausman’s partnered with his beloved Zen for three seasons now. The longest he’s kept a bird is five. Whether Zen, or another, the animal-lover knows a raptor will always hunt above his head. “I will never stop. I will never stop striving to be the best falconer I can be. I’ll die with a bird in the air.”

Follow Zen’s flight on Instagram @americanfalconer. For more on Jason, his adventures and music, visit hotsake.tv.

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Sport Seeing Is Believing : Designed for sharp focus and extended comfort, these NIKON PROSTAFF 7S ’nocs are not only water and fog proof, but their compact nature makes them an easy carry— guaranteeing you’ll spot whatever high flier you happen to be following.

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// photography by Paul Mehaf fey

Nikon PROSTAFF 7S 8x42 binoculars from REI Greenville, 1140 Woodruff Rd, Ste 400, Greenville. (864) 2970588, rei.com/stores/ greenville.html

66 TOWN / towncarolina.com

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Introducing the Junior League of Greenville’s inaugural Shop for Greenville Fundraiser.

March

9th-18th ENJOY 10 DAYS OF PURE SHOPPING PLEASURE at Greenville’s finest retail locations, businesses and restaurants.

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STYLE CENTRAL ALL THINGS STYLISH / UNIQUE / EXTRAORDINARY / EDITED BY LAURA LINEN

Photograph by Paul Mehaffey

SWEET TEE: Rickie Freeman for Teri Jon dress from Coleman Collection; circle drop earrings with navy leather inlay & leather and gold cuff bracelet from Fink’s & Co by Alice Finkelstein Allen: Greenville, SC, finksco.com

Timeless Appeal Elegant styles of the New South FEBRUARY 2018 / 69

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THE LOOK

Steel Magnolia Sophisticated glam for the modern belle / styled by Laura Linen // photography by Paul Mehaffey

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SOUTHERN ACCENTS:

Red Louis Vuitton wallet & Loren Hope rose quartz earrings from Monkee’s of the Westend; Magnolia Persley Ponte dress from Draper James by Reese Witherspoon: 3400 Around Lenox Dr. Suite 214, Atlanta, GA, draperjames.com

(opposite) Amanda Uprichard lavender open shoulder blouse & Kristin Hayes pavé rectangular drop earrings from Monkee’s of the Westend; Superpower geo cuff from Fink’s & Co

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THE LOOK LADY IN WAITING:

Heart field cloister top from Draper James; Milly Trapunto trousers from Monkee’s of the West End; zebra wood inlay circle earrings & blue leather inlay cuff ring from Fink’s & Co; Pour la victoire heels from Blossom Shoes & Such; crystal clutch from Coleman Collection ON LOCATION :

Special thanks to model Anna Choiniere / Marilyn’s Agency; hair & make-up by Isabelle Schreier / Belle Maquillage; and Jianna / Modern Italian & Oyster Bar

Many thanks to Jianna: Modern Italian & Oyster Bar, for hosting our February fashion shoot. This month Chef Michael Kramer, along with chefs Jason Scholz of Stella’s Southern Brasserie and Nick Graves of Restaurant 17, will combine culinary talents for an evening of fine dining on Monday, February 26, 6:30pm. The meal will feature a multicourse menu with wine pairings, all to benefit the Southern Foodways Alliance. For tickets, call (864)720-2200.

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1/22/18 1:30 PM

Bee A BETTER P R E S E N T S

GREENVILLE A D U L T

A spelling competition among corporate teams of 4 featuring emcee JDew. Bring your enthusiasm!

Create team costumes/themes to help your spellers stand out!

Prizes to the first place team.

S P E L L I N G

THREE WAYS TO ATTEND:

Thursday, March 22 from 6-9 pm at Larkin’s Sawmill

Details & Registration Information: GreenvilleLiteracy.org/bee

B E E

• BEE a corporate sponsor • BEE an individual fundraiser • BEE an audience member ($25/person) To BEE involved, contact Eleanor Vaughn at (864) 467-3458 or vaughn@greenvilleliteracy.org.

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Coming October 2018

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FEBRUARY 2018 / 73

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THE GOODS

Wild Days Tom Beckbe’s handsome designs function in field and city // photography provided by Tom Beckbe

ALL TERRAIN (clockwise from top left): Field hat, $125; leather weekender, $1,399; Kinsman vest, $395; Tensaw jacket, $495. Birmingham-based Tom Beckbe designs functional, stately apparel for the versatile sportsman. From waxed shelter cloth to Horween derby leather, Beckbe crafts with intentional materials steeped in tradition—like the Tensaw jacket’s interior cloth, dyed with clay from Alabama’s rolling red hills—built to withstand time’s strongest tests.

Find Tom Beckbe at tombeckbe.com, or at the Southeastern Wildlife Exhibition (SEWE) in Charleston, Feb 16–18, sewe.com.

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Create more Time, Space and Peace in your every day.

Grand Opening of our Legacy Square at Verdae Showroom and Design Center 3 GENERATIONS OF CLOSETEERS

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So many Services, All in One Location!

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MAN

About TOWN

Each month, the Man About TOWN will share his Upstate rendezvous, which may or may not involve cocktails.

Adopted Son

I

n the late 1960s, a couple of years before I was born, my father moved from Manhattan to a small town in the mountains of western North Carolina. A business he’d co-owned in New York had sold, and he’d used the proceeds to purchase some land forty miles southwest of Asheville with the dream of building a golf course.

He was in his midforties, recently divorced, and had some cash in his pocket. The conditions were perfect for an exceptionally elaborate midlife crisis.

I’m now the age my father was when he uprooted his city life and moved to North Carolina. Looking back, I wonder if I would’ve taken the kinds of chances he took all those years ago. My dad knew nothing about the golf business. In New York he’d been involved in publishing and fashion and spent his days in boardrooms dealing with executives from Condé Nast and Vogue. Suddenly he was in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains working alongside guys with names like Junebug and Cooter. It must have been a sight to see this New York dandy in a tailored suit try to operate heavy machinery in hopes of shaping a piece of old farmland into a series of par threes, fours, and fives. Some of the locals said it was like watching an episode of Green Acres.

By 1972, my father had built his dream, eighteen holes that

snaked across the rolling hills that sit in the shadow of Cold Mountain.

He’d also fallen in love with a local woman thirteen years his junior, married her, and adopted her two-year-old son. What started as a midlife crisis had now become just life, and he enjoyed every minute of it until he died thirty-three years later. During those years, my father taught me more about being a Southerner than any born and bred North Carolinian ever did. He loved his family, loved his land, and embraced the Southern values of respect, hospitality, and the relaxed pace that allows plenty of time to while away an afternoon with a rocking chair and a tumbler of bourbon.

For a few years after his death, my mom kept my dad’s ashes in a filing cabinet that sat in the back of the golf course’s pro shop. “It’s where he’d want to be,” she’d tell me whenever I would suggest a more suitable final resting place. But one day my mom grew anxious about those ashes, and we put them in a golf cart and drove up to the end of a long par four where a small creek flowed past the green. My mom couldn’t bring herself to do it, so I poured the ashes into that cold water and watched the dust settle on the surface and then disappear in the current. I like to think my father is still flowing through that stream, past the fairways and bunkers he built on a piece of land in the South. The place where he felt most at home.

Illustration by Timothy Banks

The Man reflects on his father’s legacy—an uprooted New Yorker who took a chance on a Carolina golfing dream

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MS. BEA

Wright “We all fall down, either because we have stumbled or because we were tripped. But for most of us, our mistakes are not the end of the world.”

Face the Facts: A hefty dose of humility can be just the fuel needed to propel you through failure and into finding a solution.

Admit It

T

he other day I saw a sign posted in someone’s office that said, “Don’t Find Fault—Find a Solution.” That’s pretty good advice. And I think it is that attitude that separates winners from losers, in business, in relationships, and in life. Add a dose of humility and the ability to to laugh at yourself, and you will not only survive setbacks—you will thrive.

When loss, heartbreak, or mistakes happen, the only thing to do is fight on. Sometimes we get tangled up in someone else’s blunder through no fault of our own. A willingness to admit an error has been made or that a plan is not working is not a sign of weakness, but rather a display of wisdom and strength and the first step to repointing your direction toward success.

Those who are really good at this never miss a beat, correcting their steps quickly as they ascend the ladder or move on to a new, happier relationship. Others get stuck, searching for someone to blame or reliving the error over and over again with an unhealthy dose of self-pity. To the “others” of us, let’s agree to adopt a new approach—use the mistakes as building blocks to foster contentment in ourselves and encourage more fulfilling relationships.

While I am hesitant to admit it, as a self-acknowledged perfectionist, the struggle to make peace and move forward was not instinctive and required conscientious effort to cultivate. I must have been born this way, because even back in the second grade, Mrs. Beehler (my favorite teacher ever) wrote this comment on my report card: “Bea should not become so upset when she makes an error. I’ve tried to explain that we

all make errors occasionally, and that we can often learn from these errors.” (Yes, I still have my report cards from kindergarten through high school and a few postgraduate scores, as well. These may come in handy should I ever write my memoirs or need proof of my academic prowess.)

Wise Mrs. Beehler! Her observances of me as a sevenyear-old over-achiever were spot on. Thankfully, since that time, I matured and have made enough mistakes, landing on my feet and then succeeding, that I can embrace her philosophy wholeheartedly and testify to its accuracy.

To those who are prone to getting stuck in a relationship or find themselves often playing the blame game, ease up. No more wallowing around being miserable or beating yourself up over every little thing that doesn’t go your way. We all fall down, either because we stumbled or because we were tripped. You will drop the ball, and it will happen more than once.

But for most of us, our mistakes are not the end of the world. Keep things in perspective so you can learn your lesson, push the reset button and move on, wiser and smarter than you were before.

I’m here if you need me. Until then, y’all behave.

Illustration by Bethany Williams

Ms. Bea argues that owning up to our mistakes is far better in the long run

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Essay

Bull’s Eye View A writer and her family get stuck in a south Georgia swelter while facing a cantankerous bovine / by Karen Luke Jackson // illustration by Timothy Banks

S

weat trickled from hairlines to eyebrows as Mama loaded poles into Ty Ty’s 1950 cream-colored Ford. I’d given my aunt the nickname when I was first learning to talk. The two syllables were a cottonmouth rendition of her given name Vashti, one she shared with the wicked queen in the Book of Esther. The women salivated over thoughts of catching big mouth bass and red-breasted bream at their sister Ruth’s pond.

Janis and I loved our aunts but hated fishing. We were particularly dismayed whenever it was Ty Ty’s turn to chauffeur like she did on that day. She never drove more than

forty miles per hour and slowed to twenty when she reached over the steering wheel to squish bothersome gnats against the windshield.

Aunt Ruth’s pond was out of sight and just beyond hollering distance of her white clapboard farmhouse. To get to it, one had to drive through a series of fenced-in pastures. My job was to open and close the gates—a task that required being on the lookout for Buster, Uncle Roger’s infamous bull.

That Saturday, when we pulled into the yard, Aunt Ruth was waiting outside, tackle box in hand. She threaded a reel through the back window, already rolled half-way down to accommodate gear we’d brought, and slid into the front seat. Ty Ty missed most of the holes in the rutted path that

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Holy Cow: Joining their mother and aunts on an innocent fishing expedition, the writer and her sister face a double threat—a rambunctious bull named Buster and the south Georgia heat.

led past the barn and through several fields where cows grazed. My aunt stopped at each gate for me to hop out, unlatch the metal hook securing it in place, and swing it open for the car to pass. A few times, as I closed a gate, I jumped on to catch a ride.

The minute we were at the pond, the three sisters scouted its perimeter.

Searching for spawning fish beds, Mama said. She swore you could smell them, but I never could identify the distinctive odor that signaled where to sink one’s line.

Janis and I raced for the spillway below the dam—our escape from the sweltering south Georgia heat. There, wading in cool water and chasing minnows, we would soon be forgotten because, for these women, fishing was a form of Zen. The sisters fanned out until each found her special spot on the bank. Then, with little conversation because talk scared away fish, they would cast, reel in black worms, and watch corks bob until sunset.

That afternoon, however, before Janis and I could get our toes wet, we heard Aunt Ruth warn in a clipped voice just loud enough for everyone to hear. “Buster’s coming. Head for the car but don’t scream or run. You’ll excite him.”

I looked at Janis and held a finger to my lips before reaching for my sandals.

She grabbed her tennis shoes, and we scrambled barefoot back up the bank. Across the dam stood Aunt Ruth, her eyes glued on a 1,500-pound Hereford that Uncle Roger said was the meanest bull he’d ever owned. She knew better than to turn her

back on that bovine. As the animal meandered toward the water, Mama dropped her favorite Zebco reel and cut a path to meet us. She clutched an arm on either side and power walked us to the car. When Aunt Ruth saw we were safe, she joined us.

“Where’s Vashti?” she asked.

Mama gulped and pointed toward a willow at the pond’s edge. We all turned to see Ty Ty, in front of the tree suspended in motion. Her eyes wide as targets.

Her cane pole grasped like a javelin as if she planned to hurl it. The bull, pawing the ground, snorting, blocking her route to safety.

We jumped into the car, locked the doors, and began blowing the horn to divert Buster’s attention. Spying a way out for her sister, Aunt Ruth hollered, “The boat.

The boat’s tied to the tree, Vashti. For God’s sake, get in the boat and push off.”

Like a freeze frame restarted, Ty Ty jettisoned the pole and leaped into the vessel floating a few feet away.

She grabbed a paddle under the front seat and propelled herself, with the car keys in her pocket, to the middle of the pond. Thwarted, the bull circled our prison, peering into the now-closed windows as we crouched on the floorboard. When the bull moved away from the car to graze, Aunt Ruth straightened her glasses and rolled the front window down an inch.

“Vashti,” she called with calmness none of us felt.

“Are you okay?”

“I am, but my pants are wet,” Ty Ty replied. “How long do you think Buster’ll stay?”

“He’ll get bored pretty soon,” Aunt Ruth assured her.

The bull, however, was in no hurry to leave. With the temperature in the nineties, the car baked us like an oven. Within an hour, our shorts and halter tops were wringing wet. Each time we cracked a window for air or Ty Ty edged the boat closer to shore, Buster would lift his head and stare in our direction. Mid-afternoon, after sniffing the bait Aunt Ruth had abandoned, he lay down in front of the vehicle and took a short nap.

Around dusk, hunger got the best of our captor.

Buster lumbered off to his dinner of hay. After he left, Ty Ty paddled to the bank, picked up the tackle and pole she’d dropped, and hurried over to the car. There Janis and I sat with all four doors open wide, fanning ourselves, while Aunt Ruth retrieved her cricket box and Mama rescued her reel.

The sisters returned to the car with their salvaged items and deposited them in the trunk.

“Here, Eloise,” Ty Ty said slamming the lid and tossing Mama the keys. “I’ve had enough excitement for one afternoon. You can drive us home.”

“I wish I had a picture of you jumping in that boat, Vashti,” Aunt Ruth teased as she climbed into the back seat beside Janis and me.

“What about our locking the car doors, Ruth?” Mama reminded her, “to make sure Buster couldn’t get in. That was pretty foolish.”

“I’m just glad Karen and I weren’t skinny dipping,” Janis chimed as Mama cranked the car and shifted it into drive.

As we rode back to Aunt Ruth’s house to dine on leftovers and celebrate our reprieve, we began to laugh about the afternoon’s adventure. Each had her own version of a fish story that featured a bull, and no one pointed a finger at me.

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FINDING ATHENS, GEORGIA, IS FAMOUS FOR A FEW THINGS:

BERTIS THE BULLDOGS, THE NATIONAL, AND A MUSICAL LEGACY THAT HAS TRANSFORMED THE CITY

by SC O T T G OU L D

DOWNS FROM A SLEEPY COLLEGE TOWN TO A CULTURAL MECCA.

AND THIS MAN IS AT THE RIGHT PLACE, AT THE RIGHT TIME.

portraits by PAU L M E H A F F E Y

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by SCOTT GOULD photography by PAUL M E H A FFEY

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INSIDE HIS VOLVO STATION WAGON

YOU TOOL AROUND ATHENS, GEORGIA, WITH BERTIS DOWNS AT THE WHEEL, AND YOU QUICKLY UNDERSTAND HE IS A DETAIL GUY, A MAN WHO KEEPS HIS EYES WIDE OPEN. FOR INSTANCE, HE FINDS IT ODD AND INTERESTING THAT MOST OF THE CHURCHES DOWNTOWN DON’T HAVE STEEPLES.

(“A LITTLE STRANGE FOR THE SOUTH, DON’T YOU THINK?”)

He points out the twists and turns of his morning jogging route. (He does this as he maneuvers the Volvo down a one-way street. The wrong way. You tighten your grip on the door handle.) On the corner of College and Broad streets, he nods toward the second-story windows of a nondescript building, right above the Starbucks awnings. “Up there is where the 40 Watt Club used to be years and years ago. The 40 Watt’s had a few locations,” he tells you, “but I don’t think the guys ever played in this one.”

The guys? That would be Bill Berry and Peter Buck and Mike Mills and Michael Stipe, the four founding members of the band R.E.M. If you were even semi-conscious and had an ear glued to your stereo speakers or your FM radio in the eighties and nineties, then you remember the time back then when R.E.M. was arguably the biggest band in the world. The guys planted a rock and roll flag in a sleepy college town more known for football and pools halls. Was innovative, genre-tweaking music coming out of Athens before R.E.M? No doubt. (Think B-52s. Think Pylon.) But Athens, Georgia, didn’t get its official pin on the world music map until the guys broke out with a string of albums that redefined the rock landscape: Murmur, Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, Lifes Rich Pageant, Document, Green, Out of Time, Automatic for the People, Monster.

But this isn’t a story about R.E.M. You’re pretty sure that tale’s been told so much, it’s all but coalesced into rock mythology. No, this is about Bertis Downs and his town. Because Bertis was there at the beginning in Athens, at R.E.M.’s conception. He became an integral force behind the scenes for the guys during their entire thirtyplus-year run, until their breakup in 2011. He was an advisor, a manager, a navigator for R.E.M. In 2018, he’s still joined at the hip with the band . . . and his town.

That Downs was a principal player in the saga of Athens and R.E.M. is proof of providence and timing, of luck and gut-level decision-making.

And it’s a story that still hasn’t ended. But here’s where the story starts: Downs graduated from Davidson College (where he helped organize and promote concerts for a student organization) and headed to law school at UGA. Since he had experience in managing music shows—and he wanted-slash-needed a break from tort law and brief-writing classes—he volunteered to do the same for the concert committee at the University of Georgia. Funny thing. Another member of that student organization was Bill Berry, and they became acquaintances through their mutual love of live music.

In breaks from law school classes, Downs would head to a local, indie record store, Wuxtry Records, where he would feed his vinyl and CD habit. Downs was in the process of diving down the maze-like Neil Young rabbit hole, and his guide to the Young catalogue was a friendly, music-fanatic employee, one Peter Buck. They bonded over their love of Neil Young. “Peter was my Neil Young mentor,” Bertis says. So there he was, newly minted law student Mr. Bertis Downs, rubbing shoulders with half of what would become R.E.M., living in a town that was about to explode.

Bertis spies a parking place on the other side of the street and whips the Volvo in the opposite direction. You wait for the sound of crunching metal or police sirens. “It’s legal to make a U-turn here, right in the middle of the street,” he says.

“Imagine that.” Okay, you trust him; he’s a lawyer.

But you don’t relax your grip on the door.

THE LYCEUM ON PRINCE STREET You see the big word plastered tastefully, right on the front façade of the shotgun-style building: LYCEUM. Bertis named the building, which serves as his office and R.E.M. headquarters, after the mid-nineteenth-century movement that sent wellknown lecturers and academics and readers and entertainers around the country on the “lyceum circuit.” You wonder if this is Downs’s lecture hall, if this is where he holds court.

“We think this place was built around the 1880s. It was a grocery store at one time, and a cleaners, then a frame shop. It was probably a pool hall, too. It seems like every place in Athens used to be a pool hall at one time or the other,” he says, leading you inside. And there, between the walls, you see more evidence of Bertis Downs, detail guy. Everything has its place. The shelves

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are lined with neatly arranged books on music, on golf. There are framed New Yorker covers. There is a custom-made stand-up desk in the back, near the barn doors that separate the kitchenette from the office. But the walls, those are what you notice. One wall is reserved for family: photographs and mementos depicting Downs’s wife of thirty-one years, Katherine, and their two daughters. The opposite one is all about music. owns drops into a chair in front of the music wall. Behind him are photographs that trace the emergence of R.E.M.—the young, almost-baby faced rockers; the older, scowling, more experienced musicians. (“They didn’t much like getting their picture taken,” he says.) Sprinkled among the R.E.M. photos and memorabilia are photographs of Springsteen and U2, acts that R.E.M. encountered (and shared bills with) during their ’80s and ’90s run. And there are Neil Young pics, an echo of Downs’s early days in Athens, when Peter Buck would advise him which Young LPs to purchase.

Downs settles in his seat and into his story.

“When I finished law school, I got a job teaching research and writing at the law school here.

I was helping out the band as a volunteer. I taught for two years, then spent a year in D.C. I came back to Athens in ’84 to teach and was still helping out the band with things like taxes and insurance and contracts and accounting.

They were earnest, intelligent guys. I thought they should make plans for a career in the music business. I started helping them do that. I learned pretty quickly. I had some mentors. Went to lots of conferences. Did lots of reading.” He pauses and glances at the wall. “Me and the band, we kind of grew up together.”

And Athens was growing as a musical nexus at the same time. Downs took note of it during those early years when he was pulling double duty, working with the band and teaching at the UGA law school. “I REMEMBER I

D

one with the band: Bertis Downs, longtime friend, advisor, and manager of the band R.E.M., sits in his office on Prince Street in Athens, Georgia. The walls are devoted to photographs of his wife, Katherine, and two daughters, as well as pictures and memorabilia detailing the evolution of the band’s legacy.

HAD A COUPLE OF STUDENTS WHO HAD COME TO LAW SCHOOL IN ATHENS BECAUSE OF R.E.M. THEY JUST FIGURED, HEY, IF WE’RE GOING TO GO TO LAW SCHOOL, WE CAN GO TO A PLACE WHERE WE LOVE THE MUSIC. ONE GUY CAME FROM KANSAS. ONE CAME FROM MARYLAND.” DOWNS SAYS THAT WAS THE MOMENT HE REALIZED ATHENS HAD BECOME A TRUE SOUTHERN MECCA, A DESTINATION FOR R.E.M. FANS ON THEIR PILGRIMAGE.

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(You confess: you suddenly remember pilgrimages of your own during your college years—Spartanburg to Athens, usually to the 40 Watt Club—trips that took a toll on your ’68 Mustang and your GPA.) Lyceum. Yes, you believe Bertis Downs named his building well. You’ve just received a rock and roll history lecture from one of the learned.

Bertis Downs feeds quarters into the meter in front of The National restaurant. He says with the price tag of a parking ticket hitting double digits, he has to keep loose change in the Volvo at all times. The National is one of his favorite hangouts.

“I think I’ve eaten lunch here three times this week,” he says, walking through the door toward a table near the windows. “The chicken burgers are new. They’re great.”

When you find out The National is housed in a former tire-recapping plant (repurposed, as the kids say these days), you think you may have discovered an apt metaphor for Athens: something that used to be something else has evolved into something better than anyone could have possibly imagined.

THE ATHENS MUSIC WAS JUST SUCH AN EVOLUTION, AND THE TOWN BENEFITTED FROM IT. BACK IN THE EARLY ’80S AND THROUGH THE ’90S, “THERE WAS A CRITICAL MASS HERE,”

Downs says. “I think it’s still true today. You travel anywhere in the world, people tend to know two things about Athens: University of Georgia football and R.E.M.” Fortunately, says Downs, a decade ago some farsighted folks realized that “with this critical mass that continues, with this demand, there’s going to be a need for infrastructure. It’s not

radio song : (above, left to right) R.E.M. band members bassist Mike Mills, guitarist Peter Buck, drummer Bill Berry, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, photographed in 1982; (right) Bertis Downs and his wife, Katherine. Bertis was a law student and concert manager in Athens when R.E.M. formed in the early ‘80s.

Photographs (this page, left and above) by Laura Levine

THE NATIONAL ON WEST HANCOCK

just bands. There’s agencies, there’s promotions, there’s marketing. So there may as well be something at the university that responds to those things.”

Hence, the birth of the Music Business Program at UGA’s Terry College of Business.

“That’s the next phase of the evolution of Athens as a music destination,” Downs says. “There are kids going to Georgia now just to get their certificate in music business.” In the Music Business Program, students hear straight from the mouths of music industry experts (like one Bertis Downs), and they obtain practical experience coordinating and marketing events, producing content, managing artists, and operating labels. And they’re getting it all in the mecca, right here in Athens. o you begin to get it; you understand. Things in Athens changed when R.E.M. set out on their musical path. They (along with Downs) stayed in Athens during the evolution. As Downs says, “The guys had an inertia here.

They had family here. There was nowhere else they could live and do what they wanted to do at such a high level.” And things haven’t stopped changing. Bands still haunt the music venues in Athens and make musical waves nationally, like Drive-By Truckers and of Montreal. An old pool hall transforms into a “Lyceum” where stories are told and memories are housed. A sun-blasted building on Hancock Street trades recaps for chicken burgers. And a new, young wave of music industry leaders earns their chops in one of rock’s legendary destinations.

S

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A G R A S S Y P L A C E , NO R T H C A M P U S , U G A Downs wants you to see this particular place, this lawn that yawns open into the north end of the university campus. This time of year, the grass has dulled, and the trees are winter-bare, but you can imagine what it looks like in the spring. Lots of blossoming. Lots of Frisbees. He wants you to see it, because Bertis Downs is always the detail guy. He points toward a metal archway a hundred yards to his left. “That,” he says, “is where the first black students at UGA entered the campus, under guard.” He lets that bit of history hang in the cold air.

There’s another reason he feels this place is important. It’s roughly the borderline between city of Athens proper and the university. Downs feels that’s a necessary demarcation.

WITHOUT THE UNIVERSITY, R.E.M. PROBABLY WOULDN’T HAVE EXISTED. STIPE WAS AN ART STUDENT AT THE SCHOOL. BERRY WAS A STUDENT. BUCK WAS A STUDENT AT ONE TIME. SO WAS MILLS. IT WAS, AS DOWNS SAYS, “THIS PERFECT LITTLE STORM,” AND UGA WAS RIGHT IN THE EYE OF THAT PARTICULAR HURRICANE. But the university shared the eye with the town that sits right across the street. Without Athens—and those late ’80s/’90s vibes it fostered—there might be no R.E.M., no mecca.

(Ironically or perhaps providentially, from where the two of you stand on the grass of UGA, you can see the windows of that early incarnation of the 40 Watt Club.)

Downs shrugs his shoulders and adjusts his ubiquitous baseball cap. “You know, I realized just the other day, I moved to Athens forty years ago. Forty years. It’s hard to believe.”

Forty years, and there have been two constants in Bertis Downs’s life throughout those four decades: R.E.M. and Athens, Georgia. “The pieces all fell together,” he says. And for forty years, those pieces haven’t faded a bit.

You and Downs climb back into the Volvo. He backs into Saturday afternoon traffic on the street that separates the UGA campus from Athens. You think you hear somebody honk at you, but you notice you aren’t gripping the console anymore. Because you aren’t worried. This is Bertis Downs’s town. He’s a detail guy. He knows how to handle things.

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A N O MAN

N O I S S MI

IN HIS LATEST BOOK, THE POTLIKKER PAPERS, MISSISSIPPI WRITER JOHN T. EDGE SHOWS HOW FOOD HAS SUSTAINED, SHAPED, AND ULTIMATELY TRANSFORMED OUR SOUTHERN EXPERIENCE

By ASHLEY WARLICK Illustrations by TIMOTHY BANKS

WHEN I WAS A KID, THERE WERE STILL LUNCH COUNTERS. Around the corner from

the movie theater, an Eckerd’s Drugstore sold the most perfect grilled cheese sandwiches: Sunbeam Bread and American cheese, slathered in butter and pressed flat on a hot grilltop, flipped between the pinch of two very expert, impossibly callused bare fingers by a woman who worked there for as long as I remember. It’s a strong memory, because we ate those grilled cheese sandwiches often, and because we watched the rows of sandwiches line up from our perch on the swivel stools, watched her pink fingertips and dark hands, the flick of her wrist when she knew, from years of practice, it was time to turn.

B Y JOHN JETER

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

CLINT DAVIS

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R

What’s Cookin’:

John T. Edge will be discussing The Potlikker Papers on February 11 at M. Judson Booksellers and Storytellers as part of its Sunday Sit-Down Supper series. Chef Shawn Kelly, of Fork and Plough, has crafted a menu inspired by the book. Tickets and more information are available at mjudsonbooks.com.

Reading John T. Edge’s recent book, The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South, I realize there is context to this memory that makes it even more powerful. Lunch counters were once places of protest. Women, especially black women, had worked over Southern stoves for generation upon generation, all the way back to the plantations. And kitchens had always been theaters, where our cultural inequities played out against our real human need to eat.

It’s a rare book that gives you a fresh perspective on what you already know.

With a curious, associative intelligence, The Potlikker Papers gathers the details of our complex Southern history, from the Montgomery Bus Boycotts through the Civil Rights Era, the farm-to-table movement, and the influence of multicultural chefs and restaurateurs on our collard greens and cornbread. In doing that, it illuminates the power of the choices we’ve made and the ones we’re still making every day when we feed ourselves.

For those of us familiar with Mr. Edge and his work with the Southern Foodways Alliance, this should come as no surprise. Based out of the University of Mississippi, SFA is a narrative-focused media non-profit organization. It produces a dozen films, a podcast, and a quarterly journal called Gravy, a couple of books a year, and four different food symposia, “all of it to tell a new story of this place using food as a leverage point,” says Mr. Edge. He puts emphasis on new. “We’re not preserving anything,” he says. “The South needs to change, has needed to change, is changing.

We don’t attempt to preserve some version of the South in amber.” But The Potlikker Papers suggests you might want to understand the past in order to see the future.

The book begins with an author’s note to the late John Egerton, a Southern writer and friend at the table who once stated, “the more messed up a place is, the more inventive and free-wheeling its creative voices.” For Edge, which culinary voice speaks above the rest?

Georgia Gilmore was a cook, midwife, and mother of six who raised money selling baked goods, feeding the protesters in the Montgomery Bus Boycott from her home, and it’s her story that opens the book. “She took her talent in the kitchen, frying chicken and baking cakes and pies, and took the talent she honed in white kitchens and flipped the script, in essence,” Edge says. “She took this seemingly mundane knowledge, that every African-American woman had garnered, and did something very individualistic.”

It was a piece he wrote on Georgia Gilmore in 2000 for The Oxford American magazine that gave rise to what would become The Potlikker Papers. “I realized when I wrote this book that she was a far more important character than I’d initially thought,” Edge says. The way she recognized and galvanized her own economic power was revolutionary. And her life felt real. In writing Gilmore’s story, Edge went back to those early notebooks where he’d paced out the length of the counter in her home, imagining what it was like when Martin Luther King, Jr. walked through the door.

“My best source was that notebook that had been sitting in a pasteboard box for 15 years,” he says.

Gilmore was famous for her pork chops and potato salad, her low growling voice, and habit of calling people humbling names regardless of their stature.

Edge says, “If you were someone like MLK at that time, someone who was deified in the popular culture, to be truly welcomed, to be called a heifer, is a greater a gift in some ways than the food.”

This same drive against sentimentality seems to light all corners of The Potlikker Papers, from profiles of larger-than-life figures like Colonel Sanders to the sometimes precious elevation of Southern foods to white-tablecloth status. “We often valorize the wealth of the land,” Edge says. “We tend to describe our relationships to food and agriculture in these kind of simplistic, virtuous terms. The truth is uglier, and more honest.”

Recent news reveals how truth is still a battleground in kitchens across the country, as well as kitchens in the South. Edge even-handedly discusses Paula Deen and the rift that formed between her and her cook at The Lady and Sons Dora Charles over Deen’s use of racially insensitive language. “Kitchens have long been places of inequity where women, and women of color, have been exploited,” Edge says. The #metoo movement included accusations of sexual harassment against New Orleans chef John Besh, which call to mind the stories in The Potlikker

“THE SOUTH NEEDS TO CHANGE, HAS NEEDED TO CHANGE, IS CHANGING.” Papers about plantation-era kitchen rape. “Beyond that kitchen door, out of sight, we Southerners allowed our worst impulses to play out,” Edge says.

Kitchens are still private, unprotected spaces.

“Literally, you think about those prototypical metal kitchen doors, with the little peepholes at the top, and what you see is clouded with smoke from the brazier . . . ” He drops the metaphor, but there’s a lot of truth in it.

But there is also progress: “brisk progress in the South, but fitful progress.” Edge welcomes it, always with an eye toward Georgia Gilmore–style evolution, innovation over preservation, shown most fully in the rich sensory realm of food. The final chapters of The Potlikker Papers explore the way immigration is changing our physical picture, and the culinary picture alongside it. Fried okra with fish sauce and peanuts. Crawfish boiled with lemongrass. Edge says, “When the next generation of chefs take their exploratory trips through the South and they’re looking for the best dim sum in Upstate SC,” Edge says, “We will have made our point.”

In so many inclusive, generous, delicious ways, it’s a good point to make.

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MISSISSIPPI

CALLING

Eat, shop, and read like JOHN T. EDGE in his beloved hometown ot long after I moved from Atlanta to Oxford in 1995, I got a chance to peek into the kitchen at Rowan Oak, novelist William Faulkner’s home. The spice cabinet yielded a bottle of Escoffier brand Sauce Diable, two tins of sage, two bottles of filé, a thimble of red food coloring, and enough cloves to choke a horse.

Beyond stood the scuppernong arbor, and the smokehouse, where he cured and hung hams.

N

It would be a stretch to say that, until recently, culinary travelers to Oxford could do little better than root through Faulkner’s pantry. But the last decade has been truly dynamic. Oxford is now a bona fide food town, worthy of a weekend long ramble. If you make the trip, and I hope you do, here’s a quick primer.

PROVISIONS & SOUVENIRS

Breakfast

lunch

Chicory Market, owned by the husband-and-wife team Kate Bishop and John Martin, is the place to score farmstead milk in glass bottles, produced by Billy Ray Brown, son of late local writer Larry Brown. Look for cold brew, bottled

by Heartbreak Coffee in nearby Water Valley. Come summer, they stack rattlesnake and yellow meat watermelons by the front door.

Bottletree Bakery proprietor Cynthia Gerlach earned her master’s degree in Southern Studies. When she opened a bakery, Gerlach decorated the walls with art she collected when researching and writing about folk artist B.F. Perkins of Alabama. Start with a cream cheese pastry, smeared with local honey.

Neon Pig focuses on whole animal butchery. Working with farmers across the mid-South, Mitch McCamey and his crew break down cows and pigs and sheep and display their best in a glassfronted case. Burgers, ground from that beef, are their claim to fame. I like mine medium-rare on a house-baked brioche bun with refrigerator pickles, mustard, and pickled onions.

City Grocery is the city’s flagship restaurant. Our family prefers lunch to dinner. Snag a table by the front windows, drink a bloody, and savor a roast beef po-boy. On Sunday, eggs Sardou, garnished with perfectly fried shrimp, is the money order. Come late afternoon, City Grocery Bar, overlooking the Square, is an ideal cocktail perch.

Big Bad Breakfast takes its name from Larry Brown’s book of short stories, Big Bad Love. Post in the front window and you can see the spot, now a park, where Brown began writing when he worked at a city fire station.

To dunk your biscuit, ask for a saucer of tomato gravy.

Square Books is one of the best bookstores in the nation. Full stop. Proprietor Richard Howorth has shepherded the literary careers of many locals, including current residents like novelist Ace Atkins and poet Beth Ann Fennelly. Off Square Books, his second space, stocks a wealth of signed food and cooking books and hosts the weekly Thacker Mountain Radio Hour.

Canteen, housed in a former filling station, is a mod space in a town that tends toward columns and porticos. Corbin Evans, who made his name in New Orleans, does right by sandwiches, noodles, and allday-breakfasts. The breakfast torta, stacked with a sort of chorizo quiche, is my go-to.

Mama Jo’s is the city’s steam table soul hub, attracting college students and working class folk. Jo Braselton fries pork chops, skillet cooks creamed corn, and stews turnip greens down with hunks of sidemeat.

Look for her hot water cornbread. Creamy at the core, crisp at the edges, it’s bliss.

Dinner Taylor Grocery, eight miles south of Oxford in Taylor, is deservedly the most famous catfish joint in the South. Bring your own bottle of wine or whiskey to Lynn and Debbie Hewlett’s graffitiscrawled, porch-fronted, tinroofed restaurant. And bring a sleeve of foam cups, too. Local decorum requires that your beverage go incognito.

Grit, owned by the husbandand-wife team of Nick Reppond and Angie Sicurezza, around the corner from Taylor Grocery, in a new urbanist development called Plein Air, presents like an atelier. Try Reppond’s smoked corn pudding. Or the beef short ribs with peach-braised collards.

Saint Leo opened in 2016.

Before Emily Blount introduced this Italian-inflected restaurant, just off the Square, she studied hospitality with Danny Meyer in New York City and pizza-making with artisans across Italy. Start with a Chartreuse tonic from bartender Joe Stinchcomb, and an order of farinata, which translates as rosemary-dusted chickpea crepes.

Snack Bar, like Big Bad Breakfast and City Grocery, is owned by John Currence, the city’s chef ambassador. But this is really Vish Bhatt’s restaurant. A native of Guajarat, India, Bhatt serves collard paneer, black-eyed pea daal, and cumin-scented boiled peanut salads. To drink, ask for the Lurleen, a bourbon cocktail kissed with ginger and named after our family dog.

John T. Edge, author of The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South, directs the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi: southernfoodways.org

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Surf’s Up: Hello, Sailor’s off-beat cocktails feature kitschy barware and playful accents.

Turn the page for more about this new concept by Katy and Joe Kindred..

Captain’s Delight Southern spirits get a Tiki upgrade at Lake Norman’s Hello, Sailor FEBRUARY 2018 / 99

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Stop By the Boat: Hello, Sailor offers creative takes on fish-camp fare, like Jimmy Red cornmeal hushpuppies with yuzu kosho honey butter (below) and fried bologna sandwiches (right). Chef de Cuisine Craig Deihl (opposite, far right) comes to Hello, Sailor from Charleston’s Cypress and Artisan Meat Share.

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I Anchors Away

f a North Carolina fish camp and a 1950s-era California steak-and-seafood restaurant had an offspring, it might look like Hello, Sailor, Joe and Katy Kindred’s new lakeside eatery in Cornelius, North Carolina. Like this project, by the owners of Kindred restaurant in nearby Davidson, it might show off a chartreuse freestanding fireplace, a wood-paneled ceiling, and terrazzo and slate floors for a mid-century modern look. And it might even fashion a Palm Springs vibe with cactus-print wallpaper and a wood screen wall by the entrance.

This is how Katy envisioned the couple’s redesign of the former Rusty Rudder space, a Lake Norman institution for the past 15 years. In addition to the vaulted ceiling, stackedstone wall, and U-shaped custom-made bar, she called for a window wall to frame the lake view. Outside, a three-

The team behind showstopper Kindred restaurant executes a charming seafood spot in Cornelius, North Carolina / by M. Linda Lee // photography by Paul Mehaffey 100 TOWN / towncarolina.com

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HOOK ’EM

Try these must-eat dishes at Hello, Sailor

Hamachi Poke / In this lovely light starter, cubes of buttery raw Hamachi play off the crunch of shaved radishes, benne seeds, and macadamia nuts, while uni mayonnaise adds an umami note.

Oysters Rockefeller / Smoky, spicy collard greens replace the traditional spinach in Hello, Sailor’s updated version of this classic dish.

level deck with a thatched-roof Tiki bar will be the place to hang out come warm weather. Boaters can tie up at the 20 dedicated slips on the adjacent dock.

Before the Rusty Rudder was built, this site was occupied by a fish camp called Harbor Lights (long ago torn down), which holds cherished childhood memories for Joe. “We used to live a couple of coves over, and my parents would take me every Friday night to eat at Harbor Lights,” recalls the chef. “I remember eating fried bologna sandwiches and hush puppies and popcorn shrimp, and going down to the lake after dinner and feeding the fish.”

That nostalgia now infuses his menu, which features fish-camp fare such as Calabash shrimp, whole fried flounder, and fried bologna sandwiches—all executed with Joe’s signature finesse. He may make hushpuppies, but Joe elevates his version with Jimmy Red cornmeal from Geechee Boy Mill on Edisto Island, and serves them with yuzu kosho (fermented lime) honey butter. For dessert, more nostalgia: soft-serve ice cream in vanilla and chocolate, as well as seasonal swirls like pomegranate and winter citrus.

Salt and Pepper Catfish / Fried cornmeal-crusted catfish, a North Carolina fish-camp standard, is made here from local farm-raised catfish that are fed a vegetarian diet.

Tart house-made sauce gribiche comes alongside.

Hand Pies / Dusted with sugar, the ethereally light and flaky layers of Joe Kindred’s divine Southern hand pies enfold seasonal combinations such as bourbon pear and cranberry ginger.

With Craig Deihl, the celebrated former chef of Cypress and Artisan Meat Share in Charleston, as chef de cuisine, Hello, Sailor equally accommodates casually dressed boaters who come for a quick nosh and date-night couples who want to feast on King crab legs and smoked beef ribeye. “We do that with a chef-driven, ingredient-focused concept, knowing where everything is sourced from,” Joe declares. “This is always going to be our philosophy for any project we do.” A slushie machine behind the bar adds to the fun, churning up icy cherry lemon Sundrop Negronis. Aperol spritzes on tap and other craft cocktails are whimsically embellished with bright knotted bendy straws and little paper umbrellas.

Christened with a cheeky name, recalling a midcentury sailor’s tattoo that Katy found while flipping through nautical images to trigger ideas for the décor, Hello, Sailor aims to be an oasis year-round.

Undoubtedly it will. Who could resist a waterfront restaurant where you can forget the world for a while—one with craveable food and a light-hearted ambience that Katy sums up as “a little bit classic, a little bit Tiki, a little bit North Carolina”?

Hello, Sailor, 20210 Henderson Rd, Cornelius, NC. (704) 997-5365, hellosailornc.com. Open Mon, 5pm– close; Tue–Sun, 11am–close; reservations not accepted.

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Dish B Good: Chef Reza Setayesh, formerly of the popular Asheville restaurant Rezaz, has opened a new spot in West Asheville with his business partner Mitch Orland. The result is BimBeriBon, a wholefoods concept that serves breakfast, lunch, dinner, and cocktails, along with baked goods and desserts that are also gluten-free.

Captionhead: text here text here

Free Style Asheville’s BimBeriBon presents fine food and drink without gluten or refined sugar / by Steven Tingle // photography by Paul Mehaffey

A

s restaurants go, BimBeriBon is difficult to categorize. It’s not a health food restaurant, but the food is amazingly healthy. It’s not a fast casual restaurant, but the service and experience can be both fast and casual. It’s not a vegan restaurant, but it serves some of the most inventive and satisfying vegan offerings in the Southeast. It’s not a gluten-free restaurant, yet the menu is entirely gluten-free. BimBeriBon is a myriad of contradictions, and a restaurant that refuses to be pigeonholed.

The inspiration for BimBeriBon came to chef/owner Reza Setayesh not long after he sold his flagship restaurant Rezaz, an Asheville mainstay for more than a decade that is still going strong under new ownership.

Thirty years behind the line at various kitchens had left Reza with high blood pressure, arthritis, and a spare tire around his waist. He spent his newfound downtime wondering if a change in diet, along with a more active lifestyle, could cure his ails. “I decided to make a change and cut out all refined sugars and processed foods,” Reza says. “When I did that all my aches and pains went away, and I lost the weight I didn’t need to be carrying around. I have more energy now than I had in my twenties.”

The change was so significant that Reza decided his next venture would focus on clean food and conscious eating. He partnered with Mitch Orland, who studied at the Natural Gourmet Institute, and in the fall of 2017 BimBeriBon opened in West Asheville.

“We are about transparency,” Reza says. “Ingredients and restaurant processes have always been pretty ambiguous to customers. But here, we are open about all of our ingredients and processes. Everything is sourced properly, cooked properly, and we are clear about what happened from the time an ingredient came into our kitchen until the time it hit your plate.”

The standards Reza and Mitch have adopted at BimBeriBon are exceedingly high: No refined sugars, no processed foods (except for tofu and tempeh), no unhealthy oils, and a focus on fresh, seasonal, sustainable ingredients. “We are making conscious food for conscious consumers,” Reza says. “It’s food that’s nutritional and very flavorful. Whether you are a vegan, vegetarian, or carnivore, you are going to leave here happy. And if you eat with us often, you are going to feel better. I can guarantee that.”

BimBeriBon, 697 Haywood Rd, Asheville, NC. (828) 505-0328, bimberibon.com

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B A S I L T H A I

C U I S I N E Family-owned

EXOTIC FLAVOURS

LIVELY ATMOSPHERE

AWARD-WINNING DINING EXPERIENCE

REFINED THAI

OPEN FOR DINNER EVERYDAY: 5 pm - 10 pm LUNCH: Monday - Friday 11:30 AM - 2:30 PM

9 North Laurens Street Greenville, SC 29601 864-609-4120 • EatAtBasil.com

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Slice of Heaven: This version of our favorite bread amps up the heat and smoky flavor with jalapeños and bacon; it translates well as a gluten-free option, too.

Hot Skillet Savory add-ins put a new spin on classic Southern cornbread / by Kathryn Davé // photograph by Jivan Davé

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et ready for some blasphemy: occasionally, I put sugar in the cornbread. I know, I know.

Am I even a Southerner? I’ve split most of my life between Mississippi and South Carolina, but I was born to a Cuban mother and a Texan father and thus grew up without the gospel of cornbread.

Don’t get me wrong. I revere the Southern classic as generations have made it—outer crackly-crunchy crust from hot oil and a cast-iron skillet, heritage cornmeal from the farm downstate, and no sugar to be seen— but I also know there’s more than one way to bake a cake. The new South is one that is slowly making room at the table for new voices and ideas. As we pull up more chairs and listen, we remember that this wide welcome, this generosity toward others, must be the true definition of the hospitality we so proudly claim.

Clear a little space on your sideboard, then, for this party-in-a-skillet—a slightly sweet cornbread, like our Northern friends might make. Once you’ve stirred crisp, smoky bacon, fresh cheddar, scallions, jalapeños, and, yes, a bit of sugar into the batter, the cornbread cooks just like your grandma’s does: in a hot cast-iron skillet until golden brown. It comes out sweet and savory with just a hint of heat, and tends to disappear quickly at any gathering. Church potluck. Super Bowl party. Family dinner. But, then, if anything can bring people together, it’s probably bacon, cheese, and cornbread.

BLASPHEMY CORNBREAD (*OR SAVORY-SWEET CORNBREAD) Serves 8, can be made gluten-free

INGREDIENTS:

6 slices applewood bacon, cut into lardons 1 cup yellow cornmeal 1 cup all-purpose (or gluten-free all-purpose) flour ½ cup sugar 2 tsp. baking powder ½ tsp. kosher salt ½ tsp. baking soda ¾ cup sour cream ½ cup buttermilk 2 eggs 3 Tbs. melted butter, cooled slightly 6 ounces freshly grated cheddar cheese ½ cup scallions, thinly sliced ½ cup jalapeños (seeded and cored), thinly sliced into rings

INSTRUCTIONS: 1. Preheat oven to 425°F. Cook bacon in a 10-inch cast-iron skillet over mediumhigh heat until fat renders and bacon crisps, about 10 minutes. Transfer bacon to a paper-towel-lined plate. Pour bacon fat out into a small bowl. Return 2 tablespoons to skillet and place skillet in oven to heat. Reserve an additional 2 tablespoons fat and discard any remainder.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. In a separate bowl, whisk together sour cream, buttermilk, eggs, melted butter, and 2 tablespoons reserved bacon fat. Pour wet ingredients into bowl with dry ingredients and stir until well combined. Stir in bacon, cheese, jalapeños, and scallions.

3. With potholders, carefully remove hot skillet from oven.

Pour cornbread batter into the hot skillet and place in oven. Bake until skewer inserted into middle of cornbread comes out clean, about 18–20 minutes. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes before slicing and serving. Serve warm. ))) FOR MORE RECIPES TOWNCAROLINA.COM

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A S O U T H E R N R E M E D Y: COMFORT FOOD

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get y o u r t i c k e t s n o w a t

when : th u rs d a y , f e b ru a r y

22, 7-10 p m

BOOZE

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TUNES

euphoriagreenville.com

l o c a ti o n : r e v el e v e n t c e nter

price :

$50

all inclusive

p a r t i ci p a t i n g r e st a u r a n t s : Wu's Cajun Sea Food, Farm Fresh Fast, Stewart Penick's Terrace, Basil Thai Cuisine, Hare & Field, Rocket Surgery, Monkey Wrench Smokehouse presented by

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DINING

Guide BARS, CAFÉS & RESTAURANTS

AMERICAN THE ANCHORAGE

With a menu focused on hyper-local produce, Chef Greg McPhee’s globally influenced menu changes almost weekly. Sample dishes include Grass Fed Beef Tartare, White Sweet Potato Gnocchi, and Fraylick Farm Ossabaw Pork Belly. The “For the Table” option offers housemade charcuterie, Blue Ridge Creamery cheese, Bake Room bread, and more. Don’t miss the outstanding cocktail program at the gorgeous bar upstairs, or brunch, which is now served on Sunday. $-$$$, D, SBR. Closed Monday.

586 Perry Ave. (864) 219-3082, theanchoragerestaurant.com AUGUSTA GRILL

The unassuming Augusta Grill is home to upscale comfort food. From cozy booths to the intimate dining room, patrons can enjoy dishes such as the breaded artichoke and leekstuffed chicken breast. The lineup of entrées and appetizers changes daily, but regulars can always get Chef Bob Hackl’s highly soughtafter blackberry cobbler. $$$-$$$$, D. Closed Sunday & Monday. 1818 Augusta St. (864) 242-0316, augustagrill.com

display, there’s no shortage of mouthwatering selections. The menu’s flavor profiles extend to cocktails, which heavily feature whiskeys, bourbons, bacon-infused liquors, and even smoked sorghum syrup. $$-$$$, L, D. Closed Sunday. 3620 Pelham Rd. (864) 297-6000, baconbrospublichouse.com BRICK STREET CAFÉ

You’ll likely have to loosen your belt after chowing down at this Augusta Street mainstay that serves all the comforts of home. Try Mom’s Spaghetti, Miss Sara’s Crab Cakes, or the signature fried shrimp with sweet potato fries.

But do save room for made-from-scratch sweets like the sweet potato cake, peanut butter cake, and apple pie (available for special-order, too). $$-$$$, L, D. 315 Augusta St. (864) 421-0111, brickstreetcafe.com GB&D

The restaurant’s description itself—Golden Brown & Delicious—tells you all you need to know about this West Greenville joint. Locally sourced dishes of American favorites, such as well-crafted salads and sandwiches—like the killer burger on a housemade brioche bun— fill the menu. Don’t miss Noodle Nights on Thursdays, complete with housemade ramen.

Kuka Juice If you're hard pressed for a fresh fix—Kuka Juice has just the ticket. Created by nutrition gurus Abigail Mitchell and Samantha Shaw, Kuka doles out cold-pressed craft (and a range of fresh-focused menu items) with health-minded passion from its new doors in the Village of West Greenville. Need an immune boost? Grab the Ginger Binger juice, with ginger, green apple, black pepper, and turmeric, or dig into a salad bowl like the Taco 'Bout It (below left) with romaine, walnut meat, salsa fresca, black beans, avocado, and pepitas with cilantro lime vinaigrette. Paninis, bowls, smoothies, and toasts also available.

$, B, L. 580 Perry Ave, Greenville. (864) 9051214, kukajuice.com

$$, L, D, SBR. Closed Monday. 1269 Pendleton St. (864) 230-9455, eatgbnd.com

BACON BROS. PUBLIC HOUSE

Photograph by Andrew Huang

You might think you know what meat lover’s heaven looks like, but if you show up at Chef Anthony Gray’s gastropub, you’ll know for sure. From a board of house-cured, smoked, and dried meats, to a glass-walled curing room

KEY: Average price of a dinner entrée (lunch if dinner isn’t served): Under $10 = $, $10-$15 = $$, $16-$25 = $$$, $25+ = $$$$ Breakfast = B Lunch = L Dinner = D Sat or Sun Brunch = SBR F E BM RA U RA C RH Y 2017 8 / 105 7

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DINING

Guide

HALLS CHOPHOUSE

PRESENTS

ForeverGreen

A N N U A L AWA R D S L U N C H E O N

Tuesday, February 27, 2018 Embassy Suites, 670 Verdae Boulevard Registration & Beer Tasting: 11:00 am Luncheon & Awards: 11:30 am - 1:00 pm

The renowned Charleston steakhouse puts down roots in the former High Cotton space on the Reedy River. Indulge in a selection of wet- or dry-aged steaks (USDA Prime beef, flown in from Chicago’s Allen Brothers), or try a Durham Ranch elk loin with root vegetable hash and pine nut relish. Don’t miss the lavender French toast at brunch. $$$$, D, SBR. 550 S Main St. (864) 335-4200, hallschophousegreenville.com HENRY’S SMOKEHOUSE

Though this barbecue joint has since branched out, Henry’s original location has long set the standard. A Greenville institution, the smokehouse specializes in slow-cooking meat in open pits over hickory logs. Sure, there’s more on the menu, but their succulent ribs with beans and slaw will transport you to hog heaven. $, L, D. 240 Wade Hampton Blvd.

(864) 232-7774, henryssmokehouse.com HUSK GREENVILLE

Keynote Speaker: Cheri Chastain Sustainability Manager at Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.

Purchase tickets online at forevergreenluncheon.eventbrite.com

Settle down Sean Brock devotees, Husk Greenville has arrived, delivering legendary farm-to-table concepts under Chef de Cuisine Jon Buck. Devoted to fresh and local goods, Brock and Buck champion Southern fare, resurrecting dishes reminiscent of greatgrandma’s kitchen. The ever-evolving menu offers starters—like the crispy pig ear wraps with gourd sweet and sour sauce—then dives into heftier plates like the cornmeal dusted catfish, collard greens and potlikker, and a Carolina runner peanut-satsuma salad. $$-$$$, L, D, SBR. 722 S. Main St, Greenville.

(864) 627-0404, huskgreenville.com INK N IVY

Located in the space formerly occupied

by Corner Pocket, Ink N Ivy boasts a menu of American fare with an emphasis on fresh seafood. Lunch features staples like the charred salmon salad, and the evening menu tacks on entrées like the grilled scallops, topped with lime cilantro butter, and served on wilted chives, baby spinach, and roasted peppers. $$, L, D (Mon–Sun), SBR (Sat–Sun).

21 E Coffee St. (864) 438-4698, greenville.inkanivy.com JIANNA

With stellar views of Falls Park from its wrap-around terrace, this modern Italian osteria offers patrons daily house-made pastas, the region’s freshest seasonal ingredients, and, of course, oysters. Grab a cocktail or a glass of wine from the 40-foot bar, and nosh on potato gnocchi, radiatori, and ricotta with truffle honey. $$-$$$, L, D. 207 S Main St. (864) 720-2200, jiannagreenville.com KITCHEN SYNC

Tommy was once a successful business owner in

Alabama, but he moved to Greenville to be closer to his family. After his wife died and his health started to decline, Tommy began receiving a hot meal and friendly visit every weekday from Meals on Wheels.

Help us care for neighbors like Tommy for years to come by getting involved today.

www.MealsonWheelsGreenville.org meals@mowgvl.org | 864.233.6565 A friend to the homebound since 1968.

A straight farm-to-table concept and a certified-green restaurant, Kitchen Sync’s eco-focus extends to its menu, sourced by local farms. Start with the Gritz Fritz, with Hurricane Creek fried grits, collards, and pepper jam. The Banh Mi salad comes loaded with fresh veg and rice noodles, topped with pulled pork or tofu, or try the local rib pork chop. Don’t miss the pizza! $$, L, D. Closed Sunday & Monday.

1609 Laurens Rd, Greenville. (864) 5688115, kitchensyncgreenville.com

LARKIN’S ON THE RIVER

Located between the Peace Center and the Reedy River, Larkin’s balances upscale dining with comfort. Start with the she-crab soup, then select an entrée from the day’s offerings—or opt for an aged filet mignon with mashed potatoes and asparagus. Enjoy the river view on the enclosed outdoor patio and the extensive wine list. $$$-$$$$,

L (Mon–Fri), D (daily), SBR. 318 S Main St. (864) 467-9777, larkinsontheriver.com

LIMONCELLO

The latest addition to the Larkin’s line-up, this ristorante serves up Italian cuisine out of the former Playwright space on River and Broad streets. The menu ranges from pesto pizzas to chicken marsala to classics like spaghetti and meatballs—but the real winner is the all-Italian wine list, curated from award-winning vineyards from across the region. After you’ve had your glass, don’t miss out on a bite of the housemade limoncello gelato. $$-$$$, L, D. 401 River St.

(864) 263-7000, limoncellogvl.com LTO BURGER BAR

Chef Brian Coller has crafted a menu that steers the beefy American staple into unconventional (but totally delicious) territory. Take the “Piedmont Mullet ’85,” with sloppy joe chili, bomb mustard, American cheese, and “phat” onion rings.

For you Elvis enthusiasts, the “King of Memphis” is a hunk of burnin’ love concocted with banana jam, peanut butter, and bacon. $$, L, D. 2451 N Pleasantburg Dr, Greenville. (864) 214-1483, ltoburgerbargvl.com NORTHAMPTON WINE & DINE

Linger in the relaxed atmosphere of Northampton’s wine bar. Choose a bottle from the thousands for sale, open it for a corkage fee, and enjoy with a selection of cheese or small plate. Or, stay for dinner and select from an ever-changing menu, which includes seafood, beef, and wild game. The outdoor patio is a decidedly relaxing location for a meal or a glass of wine. $$-$$$$. L, D. 211-A E Broad St. (864)

271-3919, northamptonwineanddine.com

THE NOSE DIVE

The Nose Dive is city bar meets corner bistro. Beer, wine, and cocktails at its upstairs bar CRAFTED complement an ambitious menu of “urban comfort food” from fried chicken and waffles to a customized grits bar at brunch. Located on Main Street between ONE City Plaza and the Peace Center, this gastropub is a downtown hotspot. $-$$, L, D, SBR. 116 S

Main St. (864) 373-7300, thenosedive.com OJ’S DINER

OJ’s is not a restaurant. It’s an Upstate institution. The old-school meat-andthree dishes up homestyle favorites on a daily basis, but every weekday comes with specials: lasagna and porkchops on Mondays, turkey and meatloaf Tuesdays, and more. Don’t forget to dig into a mess of sides: the mac ‘n’ cheese tastes the way mama made it and God intended.

$, B, L. Closed Saturday & Sunday. 907 Pendleton St. (864) 235-2539, ojs-diner.com RESTAURANT 17

Tucked away in Travelers Rest, Restaurant 17 blends contemporary European bistro with Blue Ridge bliss. The menu changes seasonally, but expect dishes from Executive Chef Nick Graves like smoked scallop crudo with crème fraîche, grapefruit, hot sauce pearls, and Meyer lemon oil, and pork belly agnolotti with chestnuts, rapini, and saffron cream. $$$-$$$$, D. Closed Sun & Mon. 10 Road of Vines, Travelers Rest. (864) 516-1254, restaurant17.com RICK ERWIN’S NANTUCKET SEAFOOD

Greenville may be landlocked, but Rick Erwin’s restaurant takes us seaside. The day’s fresh catch comes grilled, seared, broiled, blackened, or in chef-designed specialties.

Try the fried lobster bites with a drink at the elegant bar. Ideal for group dinners or quiet date nights, Nantucket offers both an intimate and entertaining atmosphere. $$-$$$$, D, SBR. 40 W Broad St. (864) 546-3535, nantucketseafoodgrill.com

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RICK ERWIN’S WEST END GRILLE

Traditional surf-and-turf meets upscale dining at Rick Erwin’s. The dining room is decorated in rich, dark woods that, along with low lighting, create an intimate, stylish atmosphere. Entrées range from sashimigrade tuna and pan-seared sea bass, to certified Angus beef. $$-$$$$, D. Closed Sunday. 648 S Main St. (864) 232-8999, rickerwins.com ROCKET SURGERY

From the folks who bring you the heavenly pies at Sidewall Pizza comes a new craft concept. Trading slices for sliders, Rocket Surgery’s low-key bill of fare features snackable burgers with variations like lamb topped with feta, spinach, and tangy harissa, and the fried soft-shell crab with creamy paprika aioli and pickled red cabbage. If you plan to drink your dinner, go for the coconut and pineapple-infused “Painkiller” or “The Prospector” with bourbon and house-made bitters. $$, D (Mon, Thurs–Sat), SBR. 164-D S Main St, Travelers Rest. (864) 610, 0901.

ROOST

This nod to the enterprising farm-to-table trend lends a modern, tasty addition to North Main. With a promise to provide food with a limited distance from producer to consumer, Roost’s ingredients are sourced from nearby areas in South and North Carolina.

In good weather, try to snag a spot on the patio overlooking NoMa Square. $$-$$$,

B,L, D, SBR. 220 N Main St. (864) 298-2424, roostrestaurant.com SMOKE ON THE WATER

Located in the West End Market, Smoke on the Water has a homey feel, with separate street-side dining and covered patio tables overlooking Pedrick’s Garden. Choose something from the smoker (beer-butt chicken), or pick from sandwiches, burgers, or salads. $-$$$, L, D. 1 Augusta St, Ste 202.

BIRDS FLY SOUTH ALE PROJECT

With a focus on farmhouse saisons and sour beers, Birds Fly South Ale Project has come home to roost in Hampton Station.

Though closed for production Monday through Wednesday, the open-air taproom is the perfect end-of-week place to drain a cold glass while noshing on local food truck fare. Expect to find flavor-filled concoctions, such as the Biggie Mango, Eldorado Saison, or the 2Hop Session IPA. Thurs–Sun. 1320 Hampton Ave Ext. (864) 412-8825, bfsbeer.com

BREWERY 85

Named for Greenville’s favorite freeway, this microbrew is attracting outsized attention with their eclectic collection of craft brews.

From the crisp GVL IPA to the malty Howdy Dunkel, Brewery 85 combines Southern style with the best of German brew techniques.

Trek to the taproom for their latest lagers; well-mannered kids and canines welcome.

6 Whitlee Ct. (864) 558-0104, brewery85.com THE COMMUNITY TAP

Convenience, expertise, and great atmosphere collide at The Community Tap, Greenville’s neighborhood craft beer and wine shop.

Choose from their extensive selection—more than 180 local, national, and international brews—or have a glass from one of their ever-rotating beer and wine taps.

217 Wade Hampton Blvd. (864) 631-2525, thecommunitytap.com GROWLER HAUS

The franchise’s West Greenville addition is its newest, rounding out the total to four Upstate watering holes. Growler Haus’s drafts rotate seasonally to bring you the best in local and national brews, so whether you’re a fan of IPAs, pilsners, ciders, pale ales, or wheats, they’ve got a cold one waiting for you. Just remember to pepper in a homemade pretzel with beer cheese or a pork belly bao bun in between pints. $-$$,

(864) 232-9091, saucytavern.com

L (Fri–Sat), D (Mon–Sat). Closed Sunday.

12 Lois Ave. (864) 373-9347, growlerhaus.com

SOBY’S

LIBERTY TAP ROOM BAR & GRILL

Local flavor shines here in entrées like crab cakes with remoulade, sweet corn maque choux, mashed potatoes, and haricot verts.

Their selection of 700 wines guarantees the perfect meal complement. Featuring different selections every week, the Sunday brunch buffet showcases the chefs’ creativity. $$$$$$$, D, SBR. 207 S Main St. (864) 232-7007, sobys.com

TERRACE

The Charlotte-based eatery brings a spread of flavors that embody the very definition of “Southern” cuisine—albeit with a little extra flair. Indulge in a crispy-fried chicken breast plated atop a warm Belgian (or red velvet) waffle with country ham steak for dinner, then head back the next morning to tuck into Terrace’s specialty breakfast casserole, a cheesy confection of sausage, eggs, and onions. $$-$$$, L (Mon–Sat), D, SBR (Mon–Sun). 654 S Main St. (864) 844-8024, terracerestaurants.com

BARS & BREWERIES 13 STRIPES BREWERY

Providing patrons and patriots alike with a wide porch area and spacious interior bar, 13 Stripes rotates a loaded arsenal of aptlytitled suds—including the Nathan Hale Pale Ale and Machias Liberty Nitro Milk Stout— and rolls out session beers, IPAs, porters, and other seasonal kegs that pair perfectly with one of 13 Stripes’ “ration plates,” laden with fresh-cut meats and cheeses.

Taylors Mill, 250 Mill St, Ste PW 3101, Taylors.

(864) 349-1430, 13stripesbrewery.com

Located next to Fluor Field, Liberty Tap Room Bar & Grill is both pre-game watering hole and after-work hangout. Dinner choices range from classic burgers and juicy steaks to spinach pizza. Gather with friends at the long bar to enjoy one of 72 brews on tap. $-$$$, L, D, SBR. 941 S Main St. (864) 770-7777, libertytaproom.com MAC’S SPEED SHOP

Across from Liberty Tap Room, Mac’s is for the Harley-set as well as the Greenville Drive crowd, with plenty of brisket, ribs, and beer-can chicken. Try a plate of Tabascofried pickles, washed down with one of the 50 craft beers on tap. With outdoor seating, you’ll likely want to lay some rubber on the road to grab your spot. $-$$$, L, D.

The Greenville Steakhouse LIVE MUSIC

930 S Main St. (864) 239-0286, macspeedshop.com

HAPPY HOUR NIGHTLY

QUEST BREWING CO.

Committed to producing premium brews while minimizing their environmental impact, Quest guarantees to satisfy your beer cravings and sustainability enthusiasm in a single sip. Grab a pint of QBC’s signature brews; the West Coast–style Ellida IPA packs a punch of flavor, or venture to the dark side with the Kaldi imperial coffee stout (crafted with locally roasted beans). Stop by for an afternoon brewery tour, then follow up with an evening full of food truck fare and live music. 55 Airview Dr, Greenville. (864) 2726232, questbrewing.com

Sunday Brunch 10:00am - 2:00pm Dinner Sun - Tues 5:00pm - 10:00pm Wed - Thur 5:00pm - 11:00pm Fri - Sat 5:00pm - 12:00am 550 S. Main St., Greenville, SC 29601 864.335.4200

SIP WHISKEY & WINE

True to its namesake, this rooftop tasting room is all about liquid refreshment. While the full-service bar offers an array of fine wine and whiskey, there’s no better way to end your evening than with an easy-drinking

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glass of sangria (or a signature cocktail) in hand. SIP’s open-air patio complete with cushioned couches accentuates the laidback atmosphere, and a curated collection of small plates guarantees a quick answer to an alcohol-induced appetite.

yet refined, providing just enough bite so as not to overpower the intimate establishment’s true star—the cocktail list. The thoughtful menu includes both signature and traditional libations; your only task is picking your poison. $$, D (Tues–Sat), Closed Sun–Mon.

$-$$, D. 103 N Main St #400, (864) 552-1916, sipgvl.com

655 S Main St, Ste 100, Greenville.

(864) 603-1881, vaultandvator.com

SWAMP RABBIT BREWERY & TAPROOM

THE VELO FELLOW

Located off of Main Street in Travelers Rest, this local brewhouse gives you one more reason to cruise (responsibly!) down the Swamp Rabbit. With a taproom offering classics (try the easy-drinking American pale ale) and fresh brews (the Belgianstyle farm ale is a golden dream) as well as frequent food truck visits, this brewery is sure to become your favorite place to cap off a Saturday afternoon. 26 S Main St,

Travelers Rest. theswamprabbitbrewery.com TASTING ROOM TR

Wind down on the weekends at this combination gourmet wine shop, beer tap, and sampling space. With nearly 200 wines and 150 craft beers for sale in-house, there’s something to satisfy every palate. Not sure what kind of vino revs your engine? Taste-test a few by the glass and pick up a new favorite from the weekly featured wines or happy hours hosted Wednesday through Friday.

And, yes—there is cheese. $$, L (Sat–Sun), D (Wed–Sat), Closed Mon–Tues.

164 S Main St, Ste C, Travelers Rest.

(864) 610-2020, tastingroomtr.com

THOMAS CREEK BREWERY

The Thomas Creek brand has been a familiar feature on the Greenville libation lineup for more than ten years, but a visit to the home of the River Falls Red Ale or Trifecta IPA is well worth the trip. Fill up on your favorite Thomas Creek brew in the tasting room, or soak up some sun (and hops!) on the brewery’s patio. Tours available by appointment. 2054 Piedmont Hwy.

(864) 605-1166, thomascreekbeer.com UP ON THE ROOF

We all know a well-crafted cocktail can make your spirits soar, but a glass at this dignified drinkery will leave you nine stories high, literally. With it’s classic cocktails, local craft brews, and unique wine varieties, this rooftop bar brings a heightened experience to downtown’s Embassy Suites. Graze on small plates and soak in some of the Upstate’s most scenic vistas. $-$$, L, D. 250 RiverPlace. (864) 242-4000, eatupdrinkup.net

UPSTATE CRAFT BEER CO.

Housed in the old Claussen Bakery on Augusta, Upstate Craft Beer Co. is hoppy hour heaven. Not only do they feature the best local and national brews on tap, this beer joint offers home brewsters all the gear and ’gredients needed to craft their own ale-inspired inventions. Make sure to try a naan pizza from the in-house kitchen.

400 Augusta St. (864) 609-4590, upstatecraftbeer.com UNIVERSAL JOINT

Everyone needs a neighborhood bar.

Where better to cheer (or heckle mercilessly) with your friends? This hangout is within walking distance of North Main, featuring a covered outdoor patio and rollup garage doors. Rotating bottle and draft selections and plenty of outdoor seating keep things fresh. $-$$, L, D. 300 E Stone

Ave. (864) 252-4055, ujgreenville.com VAULT & VATOR

Named for a former vault elevator that once took up residence in the underground expanse, this hip downtown joint puts a twenty-first-century spin on the fashionable speakeasies of yore. The small plates of charcuterie, hummus, and cheese are simple

Cozy in a funky way, this hip pub is right under the Mellow Mushroom. The menu has burgers, sandwiches, fish and chips, shepherd’s pie, falafels, and more. In addition to craft brews on tap, the Velo Fellow offers traditional absinthe service, complete with a silver-plated brouilleur. $-$$$, L, D, SBR.

1 Augusta St, Ste 126. (864) 242-9296, thevelofellow.com

BREAKFAST/LUNCH BISCUIT HEAD

The queen bee of all things fluffy, floury, and delicious, Asheville-based Biscuit Head has set up shop in Greenville with its wide array of home-cooked biscuits.

Whether you like ’em slathered in gravy or smothered in sweetness—the jam bar is slammed with fruity preserves—you can’t go wrong with the Greenvillian topped with fried pork steak, jalapeño cream cheese, bacon gravy, a sunny side egg, and pickled jalapeños. $-$$. B, L. 823 S Church St, Greenville. (864) 248-0371, biscuitheads.com/menu-greenville THE BOHEMIAN CAFÉ

Treat taste buds and ears at the Bohemian Café, side-by-side with the legendary Horizon Records. This eclectic café serves a wide-range of globally inspired dishes for lunch and dinner. For Sunday brunch, try the Bloody Mary bar, or indulge your sweet tooth with a slice of homemade rum cake. $$, L, D, SBR. Closed Monday. 2 W Stone Ave. (864) 233-0006, thebohemiancafe.com CHICORA ALLEY

Chicora Alley’s Caribbean riff on traditional Mexican and Southern fare offers signature crab cakes or mountain-high nachos, shrimp and chicken burritos, quesadillas, and more.

Be sure to drop by on Sundays for brunch. $-$$$, L, D, SBR. Closed Monday.

608-B S Main St. (864) 232-4100, chicoraalley.com EGGS UP GRILL

Mega Breakfast for a hearty menu sampling.

For something later in the day, Mary Beth’s also has lunch and dinner menus that include sandwiches, rack of lamb, and salmon. $$-$$$, B, L, D (Thurs–Sat). 500 E McBee Ave. (864) 242-2535, marybethsatmcbee.com MARY’S AT FALLS COTTAGE

Located in historic Falls Cottage, Mary’s offers brunch and lunch with a charm perfect for leisurely weekends. The menu includes the ultimate Reuben and quiches, as well as Southern comfort favorites like the Fountain Inn salad and hot chicken salad.

$-$$, L, SBR. Closed Monday. 615 S Main St. (864) 298-0005, fallscottage.com TANDEM CREPERIE & COFFEEHOUSE

Tandem lures Swamp Rabbit cyclists with aromas of Counter Culture Coffee and a happy stomach guarantee. Try the lumberjack (cornmeal crepe, ham, bacon, eggs, cheese, bechamel, and maple syrup) or the tasty banana nut crepe. Stuck between savory and sweet? Split one of each with a friend in the Tandem spirit: “Together is best.” $, B, L, SBR. 2 S Main St, Travelers Rest. (864) 610-2245, tandemcc.com

TUPELO HONEY CAFÉ

Big Southern charm comes in forms of steaming hot biscuits at Tupelo Honey.

Indulge in sweet potato pancakes (topped with pecans and peach butter of course), available all day, or try a mouthwatering sandwich like the Southern fried chicken BLT with maple-peppered bacon. $$, B, L, D. 1 N Main St, Ste T. (864) 451-6200, tupelohoneycafe.com

CAFÉS BARISTA ALLEY

Looking for that midday pick-me-up? Pop on over to Barista Alley, where exposed brick walls and wide wooden tables create the perfect ambience to converse with a warm mug in hand. Sure, you can satisfy your caffeine cravings with a fresh espresso, cold brew, or chai tea. But you’d be cheating yourself by missing out on Barista Alley’s colorful array of green, berry, peanut butter and chocolate, and pineapple punch smoothies. $, B (Mon–Sat), L,D (Mon–Sun).

125 E Poinsett St, Greer. (864) 655-5180, baristaalley.com BEX CAFÉ AND JUICE BAR

Healthy and hearty join forces at this West End juice bar. Find fresh fare in their organic salads, as well as their fruit and veggierich juice varieties; or sink your teeth into something a little more solid. Their sausage, egg, and cheese bagel will not disappoint, with gluten-free options available, of course.

If your name has “eggs” in it, you’d better know your eggs. Eggs Up Grill doesn’t disappoint. From classic over-easy eggs to Patty-o-Sullivan omelets (grilled corned beef hash with melted swiss cheese), this breakfast joint has you covered. Not a fan of eggs? Try classic diner fare like pancakes, waffles, burgers, and French toast.

$, B, L. 820 S Main St #104. (864) 552-1509, bex.cafe

$-$$. B, L. 31 Augusta St. (864) 520-2005, eggsupgrill.com

COFFEE UNDERGROUND

HAPPY+HALE

Based out of Raleigh, the healthy eatery’s first SC location offers diners a diverse menu of made-to-order salads, bowls, smoothies, juices, and breakfast items crafted from wholesome, all-natural ingredients. Try the “Incredibowl” packed with pumpkin seeds, black beans, avocado, golden quinoa, dino kale, and lemon tahini dressing, paired with an Almond Brothers smoothie. $, B, L, D. 600 S Main St. happyandhale.com MARY BETH’S

Breakfast is an essential meal, and Mary Beth’s treats it accordingly. Take your pick: biscuits, omelets, eggs Benedict, waffles, crepes, and pancakes populate the breakfast menu. Or don’t pick—get the

Coffee Underground boasts a wide selection of specialty coffees, adult libations, and dreamy desserts like the peanut butter pie with graham cracker crust and a peanut butter and vanilla mousse. If you’re craving more substantial fare, choose from a splendid breakfast-anytime option, sandwiches, soups, salads, and more.

and wine. $$, B, L, D (Tues–Sun). 20 S Main St, Greenville. (864) 520-2882 METHODICAL COFFEE

Whether it’s the white marble countertops or the gleaming chrome Slayer espresso machine, Methodical is a coffee bar built for taste. Coffee guru Will Shurtz, designer Marco Suarez, and hotelier David Baker ensure there’s plenty of substance to go with style.

With single-origin espressos, house-made shrub sodas, wine varieites, and homemade treats, there’s plenty to rave about. $-$$, B, L.

101 N Main St, Ste D. methodicalcoffee.com O-CHA TEA BAR

A trip to O-CHA will have you considering tea in an entirely new light. This sleek space, located right on the river in Falls Park, specializes in bubble tea—flavored teas with chewy tapioca pearls. For a more intense cooling experience, try the mochi ice cream.

The dessert combines the chewy Japanese confection (a soft, pounded sticky rice cake) with ice cream fillings in fun flavors: tiramisu, green tea chocolate, mango, and more. $, B, L, D. 300 River St, Ste 122.

(864) 283-6702, ochateabaronline.com SOUTHERN PRESSED JUICERY

A healthy-eaters haven, Southern Pressed Juicery offers super-food fans organic smoothies, bowls, juices, and more. Try the power-packed energy bowl like the Dragon Blood. This hot-pink concoction is based with a creamy mixture of dragon fruit, almond milk, and banana, then layered with buckwheat granola, raw honey, coconut chips, kiwi, and bee pollen. $-$$, B, L. 2 W. Washington St.

(864) 729-8626, southernpressedjuicery.com SWAMP RABBIT CAFÉ AND GROCERY

Grocery store, neighborhood café. Local produce, delicious food. These intersections are what make the Swamp Rabbit Café a staple. But new to the operation? Woodfired pizza, of course. Sourcing every ingredient from local vendors, the ever-changing toppings feature local cheeses and fresh-fromthe-farm produce. $, B, L, D. 205 Cedar Lane Rd. (864) 255-3385, swamprabbitcafe.com THE VILLAGE GRIND

Tucked between art galleries in the heart of Pendleton Street, the Village Grind is essential for Greenville coffee lovers. Emphasizing community, the coffeehouse uses all things local—from milk and syrups to beans from Due South Coffee. Enjoy drinks with friends on the Mid-Century couch or solo at the pallet-inspired window bar. $, B, L. 1263 Pendleton St. (864) 915-8600

DELIS & SANDWICHES CAVIAR & BANANAS

A Charleston-based fresh-food fantasy, Caviar & Bananas has answered Greenville’s gourmet prayers with a whopping selection of salads, sandwiches, and baked goods galore, not to mention a fine selection of beer and wine. But don’t miss weekend brunch! We suggest the B.E.L.T.: bacon duo, fried egg, arugula, tomato, and black pepper aioli, on grilled sourdough bread. $-$$, B,

$-$$, B, L, D, SBR. 1 E Coffee St. (864) 298-0494, coffeeunderground.info

L, D, SBR. 1 N Laurens St. (864) 235-0404, caviarandbananas.com

CRÊPE DU JOUR

RICK’S DELI & MARKET

Much more than offering “really thin pancakes,” this downtown establishment brings a taste of Europe to the Upstate with delicate, delicious French fare. The diverse menu includes breakfast options like the bacon, egg, and potato, and for lunch and dinner, the tomato pesto. Crêpe du Jour also serves up specialty cocktails, coffee beverages,

For a filling, gourmet lunch on the go, the artisanal sandwiches and salads at this West End deli hit the spot. Try the Classic Reuben, with corned beef piled high on toasted marbled rye with sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, and Russian dressing, or the Rick’s Chopped Salad, with turkey, bacon, and ham. For dinner, fish and chips, herb-crusted salmon,

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and chicken piccata make the cut.

$-$$, L, D. Closed Sunday. 101 Falls Park Dr. (864) 312-9060, rickerwins.com SOBY’S ON THE SIDE

Located around the corner from Carl Sobocinski’s restaurant, Soby’s on the Side adds speed and efficiency to high-quality food. From BBQ Monday to Grilled Cheese Wednesday, add a spontaneous element to your lunch, or enjoy a hot breakfast.

$-$$, B, L. Closed Sunday. 22 E Court St. (864) 271-8431, sobysontheside.com SULLY’S STEAMERS

When considering the perfect sandwich, steam isn’t the first (or even last) thing to come to mind. For Robert Sullivan, hot air is the key to handheld nirvana. With a smorgasbord of ingredients like cut meats, veggies, and homemade cream cheeses, Sully’s serves bagel sandwiches piping hot and always fresh. $, B, L, D (closed Sunday

evenings). Open until 3am on Friday & Saturday. 6 E Washington St. (864) 5096061, sullyssteamers.com TWO CHEFS CAFÉ & MARKET

Count on this deli for fast, high-quality food, from homemade soups to a traditional grinder and a turkey melt. Grab “crafted carryout” entrées and sides, or impress last-minute guests with roasted turkey and Parmesan potatoes. Choose from the daily menu, or check back for daily specials. $-$$, B, L, D. Closed Sunday.

644 N Main St, Ste 107. (864) 370-9336, twochefscafeandmarket.com UPCOUNTRY PROVISIONS

Serving up gourmet sandwiches on fresh made stecca bread, Upcountry Provisions is well worth a trip to Travelers Rest for an extended lunch break. Snack on the shop’s daily crafted cookies, scones, and muffins, or bite into a Devil Dog BLT with hormonefree meat on just-baked white focaccia bread. Don't miss The Grove on Friday nights—live music, a rotating tapas menu, and a selection of craft beer and wine. $, B, L, D. Closed Sundays. 6809 State Park Rd, Travelers Rest. (864) 834-8433, upcountryprovisions.com

ETHNIC ASADA

Vibrant Latin culture comes to Greenville by way of ASADA. Grab a bite of Latin flavor with the chayote rellenos de camarones (a Nicaraguan dish of chayotes stuffed with sautéed shrimp in creamy spicy Chipotle-Guajillo suace); or see a trans-Pacific collaboration at work with the chicken karaage taco, which features Japanese-style fried chicken and a Latin-Asian slaw. $-$$. Closed Sunday

& Monday. 903 Wade Hampton Blvd.

(864) 770-3450, asadarestaurant.com BANGKOK THAI CUISINE

Bangkok Thai makes a standout version of pad Thai, everyone’s favorite noodles. The curries are a surefire hit, though the green curry is the only one made from fresh chilies. For a different dining experience, take a seat on the floor pillows in the back room. $$, L, D. Closed Sunday.

605 Haywood Rd. (864) 458-7866, bangkokgreenville.com BASIL THAI CUISINE

Elegant comfort is hard to come by, but the Eang brothers have created an empire out of the unconventional concept which Basil Thai adds in the Aloft building downtown.Try the Chicken Coconut Tureen to start: a simple dish of chicken, mushrooms, and galanga roots in coconut

milk packed with herbaceous flavors.

You’ll probably have enough for leftovers, but the best comfort meals usually do. $$-$$$, D. 9 N Laurens St. (864) 609-4120, eatatbasil.com/greenville HANDI INDIAN CUISINE

At lunch, sample items from a reasonably priced buffet with choices that change daily. Try the Handi Special: a sampler of tandoori chicken, lamb kabobs, lamb or chicken curry, and vegetable korma, served with basmati rice, naan, and dessert. For dinner, try one of the thali specials. $$-$$$, L, D. 18 N Main St. (864)

241-7999, handiindiancuisine.net IRASHIAI SUSHI PUB & JAPANESE RESTAURANT

Splashes of red and lime green play off the blend of traditional and modern influences at this sushi restaurant. Chef and owner Keichi Shimizu exhibits mastery over his domain at the bar, but also playfully blends modern-American elements into his menu. Soleil Moon Frye fans should give the Punky Brewster roll a try: tuna, mango, hot sauce, and Panko topped with spicy crab salad and unagi sauce. $$, L, D. 115 Pelham Rd. (864) 271-0900, irashiai.com KANNIKA’S THAI KITCHEN

The family-owned restaurant serves up exotic recipes direct from owner Kannika Jaemjaroen-Walsh’s native Thai province, boasting plenty of traditional dishes like green and yellow curries, pad Thai, and the spicy/sour Tom Yum soup. But don’t miss out on Kannika’s specialty items, like the pla pad khun chai, a lightly fried red snapper filet doused with white wine and soy bean sauce, and the savory honey duck paired with carrots, cilantro, snow peas, onions, and fried shallots. $$$, L, D. 430 Haywood Rd, Ste B, Greenville.

(864) 297-4557, kannikaskitchen.com JI-ROZ

The delicacy of Mediterranean cuisine greets Greenville at Main + Stone’s latest food joint, Ji-roz (YEE-ros). With its abundance of natural light, ocean blue decor, and authentic Grecian pottery, this farm-to-table concept transports patrons straight to the Santorini seaside. Do dinner tapas-style with a variety of small plates, or go straight for the gyro, complete with a fluffy pita wrap, tzatziki, tomatoes, onions, fries, and your meat of preference. $$, L, D, SBR. 644 N. Main St #100, Greenville.

(864) 373-9445, jirozgreenvillesc.com

KIMCHEE KOREAN RESTAURANT

Kimchee’s kimchi keeps locals coming back. Try the Kalbi short ribs (marinated in soy sauce, onions, and sesame seeds) or bibimbap (served in a hot stone bowl for crispy rice). All dishes come with ban chan, side dishes that include kimchi, japchae (glass noodles), marinated tofu, and more. $$-$$$, L, D. Closed Sunday.

1939 Woodruff Rd Ste B. (864) 534-1061, kimcheekoreanrestaurant.com

SHOES HANDBAGS

ACCESSORIES

MEKONG

Chef Huy Tran delivers the nuances of fine Vietnamese cuisine at Mekong. Favorites include the grilled pork vermicelli: marinated pork, lettuce, cucumber, bean sprouts, mint, cilantro, peanuts, crispy shallots, and sauce. Try the Vietnamese crepes or the Pho, which is flavored with fresh herbs from their home grown herb garden. $, L, D. Closed Monday. 2013 Wade Hampton Blvd. (864) 244-1314, mekongrestaurantgreenville.com

MENKOI RAMEN HOUSE

Can you say umami? Located on Woodruff Road with a second shop now on North Main, this Japanese noodle house offers an exquisite ramen experience that will

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have you wondering why you ever settled for the dorm room packet version. Start with the rice balls or edamame, then dive into the Shoyu ramen—marinated pork, bean sprouts, spinach, green onions, nori, and a boiled egg bathe in a soy-based broth. $, L, D. 1860 Woodruff Rd, Ste C, and 243 N Main St, Greenville. (864) 288-5659 YELLOW GINGER ASIAN KITCHEN

Here, Chef Alex Wong and wife Dorothy Lee have managed to reinvent the conventional.

Start off with the homemade pot stickers, or dive right into the soul-satisfying mee goreng, with fresh lo mein noodles, tofu, bean sprouts, green onions, and shrimp with an unctuous soy tomato chili sauce then topped with a fried egg. $ - $$, L, D. Closed Monday. 2100 Poinsett Hwy, Ste J. (864) 605-7551, yellowgingerasian.com

EUROPEAN ARYANA

The enticing aroma of Afghan cuisine delivers savory satisfaction at this local lunch spot.s Chef Nelo Mayar brings her favorite fare from hometown Kabul to Greenville eaters—think succulent lamb kabobs and meat-filled steamed dumplings, sweet potato burhani and root-veggie rich soups. To spice things up, the menu changes daily, but expect to find two plates of rice, meat, and veggies offered. $, L. 210 E Coffee St. (864) 236-7410, aryanagreenville.com DAVANI’S RESTAURANT

Heaping portions and a menu that mixes inventive flavors with customer favorites make Davani’s a Greenville mainstay.

The friendly staff doesn’t hurt, either.

Try the Muscovy duck, pan-seared with port wine and a sundried cherry demiglacé, or the veal Oscar, topped with crab meat, asparagus, and hollandaise. $$$-$$$$, D. Closed Sunday. 1922 Augusta St, Ste 111A. (864) 373-9013, davanisrestaurant.com THE LAZY GOAT

The Lazy Goat’s tapas-style menu is distinctly Mediterranean. Sample from the Graze and Nibble dishes, such as the crispy Brussels sprouts with Manchego shavings and sherry glacé. For a unique entrée, try the duck confit pizza with a sour cherry vinaigrette and a farm egg. An extensive variety of wines is available in addition to a full bar. $$-$$$, L, D. Closed Sunday. 170 River Pl. (864) 679-5299, thelazygoat.com PASSERELLE BISTRO

Gaze over the lush Falls Park scenery while enjoying French-inspired cuisine. Make a lunch date to enjoy the arugula salad or bistro burger with caramelized leeks and mushrooms, arugula, Gruyere, and garlic aioli. At night, the bistro serves up romance à la Paris, with items like escargot and mussels. Don’t miss brunch on the weekend. $$-$$$, L (Mon–Fri), D (Mon– Sun), SBR (Sat–Sun). 601 S Main St. (864) 509-0142, passerelleinthepark.com

PITA HOUSE

1607 Laurens Road McAlister Court Shopping Center Wednesday-Friday 10-5 | Saturday 10-3

The Pita House has been family-operated since 1989. Inside, it’s bare bones, but the cognoscenti come here for tasty Middle Eastern fare such as hummus, falafel, kibbeh, and shwarma. And save room for baklava and other Mediterranean sweets for dessert. Also, check out the little grocery in the back of the restaurant for some homemade inspiration. $, L, D. Closed

Sunday. 495 S Pleasantburg Dr, #B. (864) 271-9895, pitahousesc.com

POMEGRANATE ON MAIN

Pomegranate serves traditional Persian cuisine in an eclectic Eastern ambience.

Attentive service, reasonable prices, and a flavorful variety, such as the slow-cooked lamb shank or the charbroiled Cornish hen kabobs, make this an excellent spot for lunch or dinner. Be sure to sample from the martini menu at the aquamarine-tiled bar, or head outside to the street-side patio facing Main. $$-$$$, L, D. Closed Sunday.

618 S Main St. (864) 241-3012, pomegranateonmain.com

RISTORANTE BERGAMO

Ristorante Bergamo, open since 1986, focuses on fresh produce and Northern Italian cuisine: fresh mussels sautéed in olive oil, garlic, and white wine, veal with homegrown organic herbs, and pasta creations such as linguine with shrimp and mussels. The bar fronts 14-foot windows along Main Street, making it a prime location for enjoying a glass while people-watching. $$$, D. Closed Sunday

& Monday. 100 N Main St. (864) 271-8667, ristorantebergamo.com

STELLA’S SOUTHERN BRASSERIE

Boasting French flair and fare, this sister restaurant to Simpsonville-based Stella’s Southern Bistro is the second in Jason and Julia Scholz’s line of quality eateries.

Situated in the burgeoning Hollingsworth Park area, Stella’s Southern Brasserie offers a local twist on French staples—such as blue-black mussel shells with smoked tomato broth, Marsala-spiked onion soup gratinée, and roasted game hen—served up daily in a lively, chic environment.

Don’t miss the breakfast pastries. $$-$$$. B, L, D, SBR. 340 Rocky Slope Rd, Ste 100, Greenville. (864) 626-6900, stellasbrasserie.com

FOOD TRUCKS AUTOMATIC TACO

Since 2015, this taco truck has delivered new wonders and old favorites. Owner Nick Thomas treats the tortilla as a work of art, with the likes of Nashville Hot Chicken or Thai Shrimp with fried avocado stuffed into soft shells. Sides like the street corn are must adds. Don’t miss a chance to reinvent your taste buds—check the Automatic Taco’s Facebook page for their weekly schedule. $. Schedule varies. (404) 372-2266, facebook.com/automatictaco CHUCK TRUCK

Owner David Allen uses only local ingredients to make his burgers. Treat yourself to a pimento cheeseburger and fries, or salute our Cajun neighbors with the truck’s signature N’awlins burger—a fresh-ground beef patty served with andouille sausage, peppers, onions, and applewood-smoked white cheddar, topped with the Chuck Truck’s very own herb aioli. $. Schedule varies. (864) 884-3592, daveschucktruck.com ELLADA KOUZINA

Greek cuisine hits the Greenville scene in this big blue traveling kitchen. Traditional treats are always available off the spit, the lamb and chicken gyros are Mediterranean heaven, and their special take on Greek fries are the ideal pre-meal snack. Check social media for weekly schedules and booking opportunities. $. Schedule varies. (864) 908-5698, facebook.com/ elladakouzina2013 ROBINO’S

Chef Robin’s vision of freshly sourced fare with a home-cooked feel comes to fruition in Robino’s Food Truck. Though mainly

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featuring Italian food, this truck shucks out a wide variety of American classics, such as the chicken potpie with puff pastry or the garden burger. For those with dietary limitations, the vegan lasagna is a great go-to option. $, Schedule varies. (864) 621 3064, robinosfoodtruck.com THOROUGHFARE FOOD TRUCK

From culinary school to the streets of Greenville, Neil and Jessica Barley have made it their mission to bring people together through food. Not only has Thoroughfare proved that tater tots can be eaten with every meal (their disco tots are topped with white cheddar gravy), they’ve driven their way into our hearts. Don’t miss the mahi mahi tacos topped with kale slaw and chipotle aioli. $. Schedule varies. (864) 735-8413, thoroughfarefoodtruck.com

PIZZA BARLEY’S TAPROOM & PIZZERIA

Pizza and beer—flowing from more than 27 taps downstairs and another 31 upstairs—are what bring students and young revelers to Barley’s. Besides the tap, there’s a list as long as your arm of selections by the bottle. Try the classic New York–style pizzas, or go for one of Barley’s specialty pies. Afterwards, make your way upstairs to the billiards tables and the dartboard lanes. $-$$, L, D. 25 W Washington St. (864) 232-3706, barleysgville.com COASTAL CRUST

This Charleston-based catering joint graces the Greenville scene with artisan, Neapolitan-style pizza pies. Served out of a turquoise ’55 Chevy tow truck, the pies are baked in a wood-fired brick oven and topped with local produce from Reedy River farms. Stick with the classic margarita pie, or branch out with the red Russian kale and Gorgonzola, sprinkled with almond pieces and drizzled in olive oil. Location information available on their website. $, L, D. Location varies.

(843) 654-9606, coastalcrustgreenville.com

SIDEWALL PIZZA COMPANY

Located on the main drag of Travelers Rest, on Cleveland Street downtown, and now on Pelham Road, this pizza joint is a fast favorite with its handcrafted, brickoven pies made from local ingredients.

But their salads are nothing to ignore, not to mention dessert: the homemade ice cream will make you forget about those fellas named Ben & Jerry. $$, L, D. Closed Sunday & Monday. 35 S Main St, Travelers Rest, (864) 6100527; 99 Cleveland St, (864) 558-0235; 3598 Pelham Rd, (864) 991-8748, sidewallpizza.com

STONE PIZZA

Serving both Neapolitan- and New York–style pizzas, the latest edition to the corner of Stone and Park avenues is no pie in the sky. Ideal for a classic family outing or catching the game with a few friends (beer, sports, and pizza, amirite?), STONE and its fire-inspiredpies are crafted with house-made mozzarella, San Marzano tomatoes, Caputo flour, and baked for a flat minute in their wood-fired oven. $$, L (Sat & Sun), D. 500 E Park Ave. (864) 609-4490, stonepizzacompany.com TOSS PIZZA

Located in the South Ridge Apartment Community, the TOSS menu is loaded with unique, artfully crafted pies that are a far cry from your typical pepperoni. Head far east with the Phuket

Thai Pie, based with zesty curry sauce, then topped with peanuts, arugula, and shiitake mushrooms. The Chile Relleno is guaranteed to light a fire in the ol’ belly— thanks to a few poblano peppers and ground chorizo. There’s even gluten-free options available.

Fill YourHeart With Love

$$, L, D. 823 S Church St, Greenville.

(864) 283-0316, tosspizzapub.com VIC’S PIZZA

The sign that says “Brooklyn, SC” at this walk-up/take-out joint makes sense when you see what you’re getting: piping hot New York–style pizza, served on paper plates. Purchase by the (rather large) slice, or have entire pies delivered (as long as your home or business is within three miles). $, L, D. Closed Sunday & Monday. 12 E Coffee St. (864) 232-9191, vicspizza4u.com

TACOS FARMHOUSE TACOS

Hand-crafted and locally sourced, this TR taco joint is the love child of Mexican cuisine and Southern soul food. Start the meal with a few small plates—try the fried green tomatoes with pimento cheese or the pan-seared crab cakes—then dig into pure taco bliss with the Travelers Rest hot chicken or the fried catfish with tartar sauce. Go a little lighter with a farm-fresh salad, and end with a mouthful of campfire s’mores. $-$$, L, D, SBR.

164 S Main St, Travelers Rest. (864) 6100586, farmhousetacos.com

Since 1948

PACE JEWELERS 1250 PENDLETON STREET, GREENVILLE 864-232-3436 • PACEJEWELERSINC.COM

PAPI’S TACOS

Table 301 plankowner Jorge “Papi” Baralles brings family tradition and the familiar childhood flavors of Cuautla, Pace 4thS Town Feb18 v4.indd Mexico, to this walk-up taqueria on the Reedy River. The menu is short and to the point. Get your tacos with shrimp, barbacoa, al pastor, carne asada, carnitas, or chicken and chorizo, or sample some gelato in the display case. Get in, get out, and enjoy Falls Park. $, L, D. 300 River St.

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(864) 373-7274, eatpapistacos.com WHITE DUCK TACO SHOP

The new kid on the taco block, White Duck sets up shop at Hampton Station in the Water Tower District, and feels right at home next to Birds Fly South Ale Project. Try the Bangkok Shrimp taco or the Mushroom Potato with romesco, and pair with their fresh peach sangria or Birds Fly South’s crisp Bungalow Golden Ale for the complete taqueria experience. $-$$, L, D. Closed Sunday & Monday.

1320 Hampton Ave Ext Suite 12B. whiteducktacoshop.com WILLY TACO

Much like its Spartanburg-based sister, Greenville’s Willy Taco is a straight-up Mexican fiesta! Housed in the former Feed & Seed, the animated atmosphere pairs perfectly with their festive food presentation. Choose from a variety of taco flavors; we suggest the crispy avocado—topped off with one of their house-crafted margaritas.

945 E. Main Street, Spartanburg, SC 29302

26 Rushmore Drive, Greenville, SC 29615

864-573-2353

864-268-8993

$-$$, L, D. Closed Monday. 217 Laurens Rd. (864) 412-8700, willytaco.com

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Scene FEBRUARY

B. Thru Feb 4 JUNIE JONES IS NOT A CROOK

Created by author Barbara Park back in 1992, our favorite little firstgrade troublemaker is known for her innocent-but-wild antics and a signature head of unkempt auburn hair. Sure, she’s had her fair share of shenanigans—like thinking her newborn brother is a baby monkey— but when Junie is framed for the theft of a super fantastic pen, she’s about to give a whole new meaning to the term “juvenile justice.”

Gunter Theatre at the Peace Center, 300 S Main St, Greenville.

Fri, 7pm; Sat, 10am & 1:30pm; Sun, 1:30pm & 5:30pm. (864) 467-3000, peacecenter.org

Thru Feb 10

ROCKIN’ THE KEYS

The rock genre tends to conjure up images of shiny electric guitars and 12-piece drum sets. But there ain’t nothing wrong with tickling a little ivory. Centre Stage’s popular rock show series is back again with a

musical vengeance, ready to rock your socks with a songbook of hits by celebrated piano men Elton John, Billy Joel, Ray Charles, and Stevie Wonder—and that’s not all. Directed

by Rick Connor with musical direction

by Chase McAbee, this soulful, highspirited spectacle is guaranteed to entertain.

Centre Stage, 501 River St, Greenville. Thurs–Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. $29-$39. (864) 233-6733, centrestage.org

Thru Feb 10 A MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN

Written as a sequel to Long Day’s Journey into Night, this Eugene O’Neill play sees the return of character James Tyrone, Jr., who finds himself at the center of a deceptive plot set in motion by his tenant farmer Phil Hogan.

Persuaded by her father’s control, Hogan’s daughter Josie is instructed to seduce and blackmail Tyrone in order to save the family land. However, when emotions and guilt come into play, there may be more than a gleam of moonlight shining between these two.

Warehouse Theatre, 37 Augusta St, Greenville. $30. (864) 235-6948, warehousetheatre.com

We are purchasing diamonds, We are and purchasing estate antiquediamonds, jewelry, and antique jewelry, signedestate pieces and fine Swiss watches. signed pieces and fine Swiss watches.

361 East Kennedy Street | Downtown Spartanburg | 864.573.5252 Smithworks_HalfH_TownFeb13.indd 1.com 1 1 Smithworks_hlfH_TOWN 4 T O W N / t o w nAug15.indd c a r o l i n 1a

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Artwork courtesy of RIVERWORKS Gallery

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CAN’T-MISS CULTURE / EVENTS / ATTRACTIONS

Thru Feb 11 THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

The Phantom of the Opera has become one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s timeless stories of romance and deception. When Christine becomes the object of the Phantom’s affection, he will stop at nothing to have the young soprano in his grasp.

But will kindness, a gift he’s never known, finally set his dark soul free?

The Peace Center, 300 S Main St, Greenville. Tues–Thurs, 7:30pm; Fri, 8pm; Sat, 2pm & 8pm; Sun, 1pm & 6:30pm. $65-$105.

(864) 467-3000, peacecenter.org

Artwork courtesy of RIVERWORKS Gallery

Thru Feb 23 DIRECT EXPERIENCE: CANCER AND ART

The Metropolitan Arts Council will host an in-house gallery exhibit that will give fourteen cancer survivors the opportunity to share their stories of strength and survival through art.

The showcase features a collection of mixed-media works—jewelry, watercolor, paper-making, woodturning, collage, and acrylics—curated to reflect each artist’s experience with this nondiscriminatory disease, and,

in effect, create healing and peace.

Metropolitan Arts Council, 16 Augusta St, Greenville. Mon–Fri, 9am–5pm. Free. (864) 467-3132, greenvillearts.com

Thru Feb 25 23 AWARDS More than 150 entries from Greenville Technical College’s visual and applied art students were whittled down to those featured in this RIVERWORKS Gallery exhibition, which highlights each of the program’s diverse offerings—such as sculpture, painting, photography, drawing, and graphic design. The free exhibition provides a crucial, curated platform for ambitious students to showcase their year of studio work and earn prize money from donors. This year’s “Best in Show” winner was a drawing by Alexander Hadaway titled Ladders.

RIVERWORKS Gallery, 300 River St #202, Greenville. Thurs–Sun, Noon–5pm. Free. (864) 271-0679, gvltec.edu/riverworks/

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23 AWARDS Thru Feb 25: Thurs–Sun, Noon–5pm.

RIVERWORKS Gallery.

Discover the best works of Greenville Tech’s studio arts students, whose range spans from painting to sculpture to graphic design.

Life moments shouldn’t be interrupted for service calls. From covering our shoes to explaining everything in detail, we are committed to ensuring your home’s problems are fixed without any headaches.

Call Corley to experience the remarkable service your family deserves.

(864) 908.3362 W W W. C O R L E Y P R O . C O M “Corley has always delivered top notch service. The technicians have always been considerate, professional & friendly.

They always explained each repair & why it was needed. Never once did I feel that they were trying to simply “sell” me a repair.

I would recommend Corley to anyone looking for a trustworthy, dependable, honest company.” – Vickie S., Mauldin Corley hlfH TOWN_Feb18.indd 1

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UNIVERSE LIVE 1–4 MARVEL It’s safe to say that we’re all

THE BAND THAT EXPANDS

holding out for a hero these days. But even if there’s no caped crusader to swoop in and save us, we can still pretend, right? You won’t believe your eyes when the best and the bravest of Marvel’s superhero family unite forces to take on the mischievous Loki and his quest for world domination. Spider-Man will swing; the Hulk will bust a few seams; and Thor’s mighty hammer will strike down the evil-doers. That’s pretty super.

Bon Secours Wellness Arena, 650 N Academy St, Greenville.

Thurs-Sun, times and tickets vary.

(864) 241-3800, bonsecoursarena.com

Expands up to one and a half ring sizes Available in round and half-round From one half to four carats Lifetime warranty

to tide you over until the main event in June. This year focuses on courage, and will star none other than that ol’ cherry-tree-chopping U.S. forefather, George Washington. The inspirational, educational series of talks will be performed by Colonial Williamsburg interpreter Ron Carnegie, and are preceded by an opening night benefit at the S.C. Governor’s School of the Arts & Humanities.

S.C. Governor’s School of the Arts & Humanities & Wade Hampton High School. Fri, 7:30–9:30pm; Sat–Sun, 2–3:30pm. Opening night benefit, $30; other events, free. (864) 244-1499, greenvillechautauqua.org

CHARITY BALL 3 SWEETHEART There’s no better excuse to get

gussied up for a night on the town than when that night also benefits a wonderful cause. Hosted by the Upstate’s Meals on Wheels chapter, this year’s Sweetheart Charity Ball celebrates 50 years of fundraising for the homebound helping organization. Offering a fun night of dining, dancing, and auction, you’ll be hoping the clock never strikes twelve at this enchanting evening.

Hyatt Regency Greenville, 220 N Main St, Greenville. Sat, 6–11pm. $150 per ticket. (864) 233-6565, mealsonwheelsgreenville.orgs

available at

6–7

THE CHRISTIANS

A megachurch. An enraptured audience that is thousands-strong.

A leader who’s about to shatter everything he’s ever taught his congregation to believe in. The stage is set for playwright Lucas Hnath’s engrossing production, a piece praised by critics when it debuted in 2015. Pastor Paul has spent more than 20 dedicated years building his evangelical empire, but at the height of his success, he soon begins to question what faith—and the decisions we make in its name—really means.

Centre Stage, 501 River St, Greenville. Tues–Wed, 7pm. $14-$19.

(864) 233-6733, centrestage.org

I am a visual learner who benefits from using hands-on materials.

I receive one-on-one lessons in a classroom with a 12:1 student to teacher ratio.

I am encouraged to develop my strengths and explore subjects that interest me.

SPARTANBURG: 2 BLUEGRASS DELLA MAE

I am Five Oaks Academy.

Toddler through Middle School 1101 Jonesville Road Simpsonville, SC (864) 228-1881 www.fiveoaksacademy.com Minds Opened Here!

This all-female quintet has released three studio recordings since their formation in 2009, and were even nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album in 2014. Rootsy, sincere, and raw, Della Mae is a mustsee for fans of Brandi Carlile, the Avett Brothers, The Lumineers, and other famous folksters.

Chapman Cultural Center, 200 E St John St, Spartanburg. Fri, 8–10pm. $30. (864) 542-2787, chapmanculturalcenter.org

2–4

WINTER CHAUTAUQUA

Because history never goes on holiday, Greenville’s Chautauqua festival presents its annual wintertime showcase, a cold-weather counterpart

Gilbert gears up for his sixth headlining tour alongside former Staind frontman Aaron Lewis and rising star Josh Phillips. The Ones Who Like Me jaunt will promote cuts from Gilbert’s fourth studio album, The Devil Don’t Sleep—which debuted at number one on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart—as well as a handful of hot singles that put Gilbert on the map. So put on those daisy dukes and crank it up loud; it’s time for another small town throwdown.

Bon Secours Wellness Arena, 650 N Academy St, Greenville.

Thurs, 7pm. $28-$160.

(864) 241-3800, bonsecoursarena.com

BATTLE 8 PIANO We’ve all had one of those late-

night sing-alongs at Jack n’ Diane’s downtown. This is a little bit different.

Conjured up by master pianists Andreas Kern and Paul Cibis, the musical duel pits the two accomplished extraordinaires against one another

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Photograph of Della Mae by Scott Simontacchi

GILBERT 8 BRANTLEY Singer and songwriter Brantley

JOIN VOLUNTEER

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MARVEL UNIVERSE LIVE Feb 1–4; Bon Secours Wellness Arena.

IMPACT

In need of an escape beyond social media?

Watch your favorite superheroes duke it out against the forces of evil at this high-action show.

in an epic battle royale that features pieces by composers a la Chopin and Debussy—and they even take requests. Different in both their style and training, it’s up to the audience to answer the question of who is the true master of the keys.

Founder’s Memorial Amphitorium, 1700 Wade Hampton Blvd, Greenville. Thurs, 8pm. $23-$43. (864) 770-1372, bju.edu/events/fine-arts/

9–10 CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY

Jury’s still out on whether winning an entire chocolate factory would be worth having to deal with those orange, slightly sinister Oompa Loompas on a daily basis. Sleep with one eye open, amirite? But Roald Dahl’s classic children’s tale has all the elements of pure imagination: a band of whimsical characters dead set on snubbing each other out, an eccentric chocolatier in a big purple hat, and, of course, plenty of scrumdiddlyumptious treats that will be dancing in your dreams long after the curtain call.

Chapman Cultural Center, 200 E St John St, Spartanburg.

Fri, 4:30pm & 7pm; Sat, 2pm. $10-$15. (864) 542-2787, chapmanculturalcenter.org

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24 HOUR PLAY FESTIVAL

Photograph of Della Mae by Scott Simontacchi

Forget those New Year’s resolutions about weight loss and getting in a full eight hours of

sleep—that is, if you haven’t already.

Instead, put all of your focus on making it through the 24 Hour Play Festival. A staple of the Greenville Little Theatre’s alternative Studio 444 series, the event gives writers, actors, stage managers, techs, and directors a mere 24 hours to pull together a fullblown production. As fast as they are funny, you won’t want to miss these original works.

Greenville Little Theatre, 444 College St, Greenville.

Sat, 8pm. $15. (864) 233-6238, greenvillelittletheatre.org

10 PROFESSIONAL BULL RIDERS

Bulls are temperamental, emotionless, and destructive. So it makes perfect sense why you’d want to hop on and irritate the mess out of it. The Real Time Pain Relief Velocity Tour is certainly not for the faint of heart; this heart-pounding, adrenaline-pumping leap of faith may last a mere eight seconds, but it’s one of the most dangerous day jobs out there. Even if you can’t slip into some cowboy boots and try it out yourself, the whole family can still cheer on the professionals as they cling for dear life atop a bucking beast.

Bon Secours Wellness Arena, 650 N Academy St, Greenville.

Sat, 7pm. $15-$100. (864) 241-3800, bonsecoursarena.com

TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Join us for a Prospective Member Open House to learn more about the JLG and how to become a member.

Thursday, March 15 Tuesday, March 20 6pm at JLG Headquarters

JLGreenville.org

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Feb 20; Tues, 7:30pm. The Peace Center.

Celebrate Beatle Mania for the first or fiftieth time at this show that will have you screaming “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!”.

Photograph by Richard Lovrich, courtesy of the Peace Center

Marble s Granite s Stone s Travertine Terrazzo s Concrete s Vinyl s Corian

RAIN—A TRIBUTE TO THE BEATLES

Polishing s Restoration s Maintenance

10, 13, 27 BALLOONACY No, it’s not the story of an air-filled latex vessel struggling with madness. Rather, this high-flying adventure is designed with the wee ones in mind, serving up a fun, interactive experience that relies on visuals rather than language. When faced with spending her birthday alone, an elderly woman learns about the power of friendship—and the many amazing forms it comes in.

South Carolina Children’s Theatre, 1200 Pendleton St, Greenville.

Sat, Tues, 9:30am & 11:00am. $10. (864) 235-2885, scchildrenstheatre.org

Grout & Tile Cleaning & Sealing

10–June 3

SUPERHEROES AND SUPERSTARS: THE WORKS OF ALEX ROSS Comic book writer and illustrator Alex Ross has drawn some of the comic book realm’s most symbolic characters—the award-winning artist

Residential and Commercial

counts Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Green Lantern among his famous portfolio of cover work.

The Upcountry History Museum will present an exhibit of Ross’s best drawings, sketches, and models, featuring beloved superheroes and other pop culture icons.

Upcountry History Museum, 540 Buncombe St, Greenville.

Tues–Sat, 10am–5pm; Sun, 1–5pm.

Adults, $8; seniors, $7; ages 4-18, $6; 3 & under, free. (864) 467-3100, upcountryhistory.org

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MIKE EPPS

Whether he’s tricking Alan into buying “floories” in The Hangover or trying to evade his baby mama in Next Friday, or on stage doing standup, comedian Mike Epps knows how to tickle your funny bone. Epps’s Platinum Comedy Tour is sure to be no exception, especially with guest host Sommore, and comics Earthquake and DeRay Davis stepping up to the mic.

Warning: side-splitting may ensue.

Bon Secours Wellness Arena, 650 N Academy St, Greenville.

Wed, 7pm. $60-$135.

(864) 241-3800, bonsecoursarena.com

Orchestra help set the stage for a romantic Valentine’s evening for two— with a little help from Edwin McCain of course. The singer/songwriter (and Greenville native) will pair up with the GSO for a special Pop’s Series concert, featuring a selection of classic and contemporary tunes that are sure to get you in the mood for love.

Restore Your Floors, Counters or Showers

Call for a FREE On Site Estimate

Ask about our fabulous stone care products!

888-388-7730

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The Peace Center, 300 S Main St, Greenville. Wed, 7:30pm. $55-$65.

(864) 467-3000, peacecenter.org

Photograph courtesy of Greenville Symphony Orchestra

VALENTINE 14 ALetMUSICAL the Greenville Symphony

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talented foursome has been letting their strings do the talking since the release of their first, criticallyacclaimed album in 2008. Though technically trained as classical artists, Brooklyn Rider continues to find ways to make the old sound new, adding contemporary arrangements by Rufus Wainwright, Elvis Costello, and Sting to their repertoire of violin, viola, and cello-based tunes. Their newest album, last October’s Spontaneous Symbols, featured a compilation of tracks crafted especially for the band.

Gunter Theatre at the Peace Center, 300 S Main St, Greenville.

Thurs, 7pm. $45. (864) 467-3000, peacecenter.org

Buncombe Street United Methodist Church, 200 Buncombe St, Greenville; First Baptist Church, 722 Grace St, Greenwood. Sun, 3pm. Adults, $30; student, $15.

(864) 467-3000, peacecenter.org

Photograph by Zoran Jelenic, courtesy of the Peace Center

RIDER 15 BROOKLYN Bred in, well, Brooklyn, this

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LES BALLETS TROCKADERO DE MONTE CARLO

Sure, they’re jete-ing and pas de bourrée-ing across the stage to signature works like Swan Lake, The Dances of Isadora, and The Nutcracker. But take a closer look and you’re bound to notice there’s something a little different about this talented troupe. Yep, they’re all men. Since their first performance in 1974 in New York City, the “Trocks” have become dance world legends, charming audiences with a show that is equal parts humor, energy, and technical skill.

The Peace Center, 300 S Main St, Greenville. Fri, 8pm. $15-$45.

(864) 467-3000, peacecenter.org

Photograph courtesy of Greenville Symphony Orchestra

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UPSTATE HEART BALL

Taking top honors as the number one Heart Ball in the state of South Carolina, the Upstate’s version raised more than $1,000,000 last year and saw some 950 guests come out in support of the American Heart Association. This year’s glam gala will include a variety of auction items valued at $160,000, not to mention a fantastic gourmet dinner, live music, and special segment honoring the survivors and families of those affected by heart disease.

TD Convention Center, 1 Exposition Dr, Greenville. Sat, 6–11pm. ahagreenvillesc.ejoinme.org/My Events/20172018UpstateHeartBall/ tabid/869200/Default.aspx

18, 25

HERRING CHAMBER ENSEMBLE ANNUAL CONCERT

Sponsored by Furman University’s own Gordon and Sarah Herring, the Greenville Chorale returns for yet another stirring winter production.

The two-day, two-venue concert will showcase several inspirational works, including Canadian composer Eleanor Daley’s poignant “Requiem,” as well as a special tribute to British a cappella vocalists The King’s Singers.

TRIBUTE TO 20 RAIN—A THE BEATLES

The longest-running tribute to the Fab Four—even outlasting the actual Beatles—has been an international sensation for more than four decades.

Taking the chronological approach to the Beatles’ whirlwind musical odyssey, the multimedia spectacular opens with the band’s early days at the Cavern Club before progressing on a magical mystery tour of live television performances, manic fandom, stadium shows, and their eventual break-up.

With the 50th anniversary of the iconic “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” this year, there’s no better time to come together in honor of one of history’s most influential acts.

The Peace Center, 300 S Main St, Greenville. Tues, 7:30pm. $45-$65.

(864) 467-3000, peacecenter.org

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REND ALERT: eyelash extensions! Never tried them? Come see us at Verb Beauty Studio! You will spend less time with your morning routine, no mascara needed, and the extensions will accentuate your gorgeous eyes!

Shown in photo: a classic set of eyelash extensions

by Ashley with Verb Beauty Studio.

TALK 20 CHAUTAUQUA SERIES: HARRIET TUBMAN In line with this year’s theme of “Courage,” Greenville native and former Open Book owner Duff Bruce will conduct an enlightening, factbased conversation on abolitionist, humanitarian, and Civil War spy Harriet Tubman. Bruce will educate guests on her famed escape from slavery and her work on the Underground Railroad, as well as Tubman’s connection to the Palmetto State, and the courageous undertaking she endured to ensure freedom for so many.

315 S Main St., Travelers Rest (864) 906-7276 www.verbbeauty.com

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Scene Hughes Library, 25 Heritage Green Pl, Greenville. Tues, 7–8:30pm. Free. (864) 244-1499, greenvillechautauqua.org

and producer Irving Hillman.

Gunter Theatre at the Peace Center, 300 S Main St, Greenville.

Thurs, 6:30pm. Free. (864) 467-3000, peacecenter.org

STAPLES 21 MAVIS WEB Along with her three siblings, 22–24 CHARLOTTE’S A companionship artist Mavis Staples rose to fame first as a member of the Staples Singers, a family outfit hammered together by patriarch Roebuck “Pops” Staples. But it was through her solo work that Staples was truly able to leave her mark on the music community, cementing herself as a maven of pop, gospel tunes, and emotionally-charged anthems that took aim at America’s divisive political and social climate. At 78, Staples remains a voice not only of her own generation, but of countless others to come.

The Peace Center, 300 S Main St, Greenville. Wed, 7:30pm. $25-$55.

(864) 467-3000, peacecenter.org

CONVERSATION— 22 POETIC PICTURES AND WORDS:

MOTIONPOEMS HIGHLIGHTS BLACK POETRY

The Peace Center’s Poet-in-Residence Glenis Redmond will take the spotlight at this installment of the performing arts center’s Poetic Conversation series.

Redmond’s “The Tao of the Black Plastic Comb” is among the newest to receive the Motionpoems treatment, a unique, creative concept that brings written words to life through brief, visually stunning films. Post-screening, guests will have the chance to sit in on a discussion with Redmond, Motionpoems co-founder Todd Boss,

between a pig and a spider is about as unlikely as one between a vegan and pretty much anyone who’s not a vegan, but this classic children’s tale will make you believe in miracles. Author E.B. White weaves the story of Wilbur, a runty little pig who escapes a dire farm-fate thanks to his arachnid savior, Charlotte. While the seasons flit in and out, the bond shared by this incredible duo continues to grow, teaching them both about life, trust, and what it means to be a true friend.

Greenville Little Theatre, 444 College St, Greenville. Thurs, Fri, 10:30am; Sat, 2pm. $15. (864) 2336238, greenvillelittletheatre.org

23–24

A COMEDY SPECIAL TAPING OF STEVE MARTIN AND MARTIN SHORT: AN EVENING YOU WILL FORGET FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE With a combined track record of nearly 100 years on the comedy circuit between them, it’s safe to say that Martin Short and Steve Martin are the stuff of legends when it comes to delivering the laughs. From stage to screen and everywhere in between, the two funnymen have garnered their fair share of memorable moments and

Making a Difference By Serving Our Community Are you ready for our delicious freshly baked breads? How does a scone, muffin, or croissant sound? Gluten and Hormone free meats and cheeses make the best sandwiches, especially when paired with our amazing baked goods. Stop by for a delicious sandwich, fresh baked bread and a signature peanut butter cookie!

Upcountry Provisions Bakery & Bistro Right Off the Swamp Rabbit Trail in Travelers Rest, SC

6809 State Park Rd, Travelers Rest, SC 29690 | Open Mon. - Thurs., 7:30am-7:00pm; Fri. - Sat., 7:30am-8:00pm upcountryprovisions.com | 864-834-8433 1 2 UpCountryProv 0 T O W N /hlfH t oTOWN w n c Dec17.indd a r o l i n a .1c o m

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zany behind-the-scenes yarns—and now you get a firsthand retelling.

Featuring musical guests Jeff Babko and the Steep Canyon Rangers, the taped performance will include highlights from their illustrious careers, personal anecdotes, and, yes, even a song or two.

The Peace Center, 300 S Main St, Greenville. Fri–Sat, 8pm. $100-$250.

(864) 467-3000, peacecenter.org

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Photograph of Rodriguez courtesy of the Peace Center

JONNY LANG WITH SPECIAL GUEST DOYLE BRAMHALL II

Like many aspiring musicians, Jonny Lang got his start at a young age, playing guitar for friends and family when he was just 12 years old. Now at 36, his skill set may have undergone a few changes, but his passion is steadfast, propelling him to six Billboard 200 albums and a Grammy for Best Rock Gospel Album in 2007.

The gifted blues artist will be joined by renowned musician and songwriter Doyle Bramhall II. The Peace Center, 300 S Main St, Greenville. Sun, 6:30pm. $35-$55.

(864) 467-3000, peacecenter.org

27

RODRIGUEZ

At first, the story of Sixto Rodriguez might seem like one that is all-too-common for most musicians. His first recorded singles were virtual white noise when released in the U.S., gaining little attention before they were quickly forgotten. Overseas, however, was a

different story. Rodriguez’s impactful songwriting resonated with fans in South Africa, Australia, Botswana, New Zealand, and Zimbabwe, and his sudden sleeper fame made him the centerpiece of the 2012 documentary Searching for Sugar Man. His career revived, Rodriguez is now primed to take his place at the table with other giants of the industry.

The Peace Center, 300 S Main St, Greenville. Tues, 7:30pm. $35-$65.

(864) 467-3000, peacecenter.org

z ot Do N

Miss

27, March 1, 3 LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR

Penned by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti in 1835, the tragic opera centers around Lammermoor Castle, where Enrico is planning the forced marriage of his sister Lucia to Arturo.

Unbeknownst to him, Lucia has already given herself to Enrico’s sworn enemy Edgardo. What ensues is a tangled web of deception, heartbreak, and Lucia’s eventual descent into madness. The University Opera Association production will be guested by Mark Walters, Sarah Coburn, Kevin Thompson, and Yi Li. Rodeheaver Auditorium at Bob Jones University, 1700 Wade Hampton Blvd, Greenville.

Tues, Thurs, Sat, 8pm. $23-$43.

(864) 770-1372, bju.edu/events/fine-arts/

RODRIGUEZ Feb 27; Tues, 7:30pm.

The Peace Center.

Singer-songwriter Sixto Rodriguez croons out his world-renowned melodies, like “Crucify Your Mind” and “Sugar Man,” from the Peace Center stage this month.

January 26 - February 10

by Eugene O’Neill Directed by Mark Sutch Sponsored by Greta & Graham Somerville

864.235.6948 warehousetheatre.com FEBRUARY 2018 / 121

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TOWN Estates is a monthly feature of TOWN Magazine.

Estates

Homes as distinguished as our readers.

Waterfront Estate, The Reserve at Lake Keowee

To advertise your listing in TOWN Estates, contact Caroline Spivey at 864.679.1229 or cspivey@communityjournals.com

4007 State Park Road, Greenville

Beautiful Parkins Lake Homesite

Wilson Associates Sharon Wilson (864) 918-1140 wilsonassociates.net

Coldwell Banker Caine Suzy Haynsworth (864) 616-9540 bit.ly/SuzyHaynsworth

5BR, 5.5BA · MLS#20186126 · $1,695,000

5BR, 5 Full 2 Hlf BA · MLS#1346085 · $1,150,000

14 Lanneau Drive, Greenville

Stunning Keowee Lot, Keowee Vineyard

Furnished Lake Home, Lake Keowee

Wilson Associates Laura McDonald (864) 640-1929 wilsonassociates.net

Keller Williams Luxury Lake Living Libby Zorbas (864) 207-8711 luxurylakelivingrealty.com

Keller Williams Luxury Lake Living Libby Zorbas (864) 207-8711 luxurylakelivingrealty.com

Parklike Setting, The Reserve at Lake Keowee

104 Bamber Green Court, Greenville

14 Hunley Lane, Greenville

Keller Williams Luxury Lake Living Patti Shull (864) 985-2980 luxurylakelivingrealty.com

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices C. Dan Joyner, REALTORS® Carole Atkison (864) 787-1067 SpauldingGroup.net

Joy Real Estate Hally Postlewaite (864) 275-7370 Hallyp@joyrealestate.com

Keller Williams Luxury Lake Living Patti Shull (864) 985-2980 luxurylakelivingrealty.com

4BR, 4.5BA · $950,000

4BR, 3BA, 2Hf BA · MLS#20192406 · $839,000

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MLS#20186194 · $895,000

5 BR, 4.5BA · MLS#1358827 · $799,000

5+ Acres · MLS#1353782 · $1,100,000

5BR, 4.5BA · MLS#20193681 · $849,000

4BR, 3.5BA · MLS#1356508 · $685,000

1/22/18 10:10 AM

m

222 Kilgore Circle, Simpsonville

10 Parkins Pointe Way, Greenville

14 Landsdown Avenue, Greenville

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices C. Dan Joyner, REALTORS® Carole Atkison (864) 787-1067 SpauldingGroup.net

Wilson Associates Blair Miller (864) 430-7708 wilsonassociates.net

Wilson Associates Laura McDonald (864) 640-1929 wilsonassociates.net

4BR, 3BA · MLS#1358750 · $634,000

105 Abby Circle, Greenville

5BR, 4BA · MLS#1355953 · $354,000 Coldwell Banker Caine Cynthia Serra (864) 304-3372

4BR, 3.5BA · MLS#1358945 · $609,900

3BR, 3BA · MLS#1358538 · $489,000

217 Waters Run, Greenville

4BR, 2.5BA · MLS#1355879 · $325,000 Coldwell Banker Caine Cynthia Serra (864) 304-3372

YOUR LISTING HERE

Unique & Luxurious 119 N Main Street – Downtown Greenville 3 BR, 3.5 BA Luxury Condo | $2,500,000 Approximately 4000 SF and 3,000 SF of Unfinished Basement 2nd floor completely restored and renovated in 2007/2008 using the highest design and crafted materials available. Elevator from 1st to 2nd floor. 2 car parking in attached garage.

400 sf of heated space for gym or storage.

Main floor has 15+ ceilings with exposed beams, refinished original pine floors, large aluminum clad custom windows overlooking Main Street. Kitchen has Miele, Thermador, concrete counter tops, handcrafted shelving.

Master bedroom with atrium has private bath and ample closets. Large guest bedroom on main has own bath. 2nd floor has suite for bedroom, office or studio. Rooftop deck offers views of Paris Mountain. Call for a private viewing of this spectacular property.

Philip Whisnant 864-551-3524 | philip@realservadvisors.com 18 East North Street, Suite 302, Greenville, SC 29601

www.realservadvisors.com FEBRUARY 2018 / 123

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SECOND

Glance

Southern Slant

B

roken brushstrokes with sunlit tones, everyday scenes portrayed en plein air—a work of Impressionist art is easily identified. Epitomized by the art of Monet and Renoir, the period’s techniques were once considered radical. During the late nineteenth century, a group of Parisian-based revolutionaries chose to brighten instead of blend, to capture the sacred in the simple, leading to one of the most celebrated artistic movements in modern history. The Greenville County Museum of Art pays tribute with Impressionism and the South, displaying 15 AmericanImpressionist pieces by the talents of Kentucky-born Frank Duveneck, Virginia’s Gari Melchers (above), and Lowcountry artist William P. Silva. Combined, the varied works represent the progressive passion of the Impressionist era.

—Abby Moore Keith

The Greenville County Museum of Art, 420 College St, Greenville; Wednesday–Saturday, 10am–6pm, Sundays, 1pm–5pm. Impressionism and the South is on display through September 16.

Gari Melchers, The Hunters, 1925. Oil on canvas. Photograph of artwork courtesy of the Greenville County Museum of Art

GCMA honors the progressive paintings of the Impressionist era

124 TOWN / towncarolina.com

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CHERISH YESTERDAY, ENJOY TODAY AND CELEBRATE TOMORROW.

THE FOREVERMARK THREE STONE DIAMOND JEWELRY COLLECTION

THE FOREVERMARK T H R E E S TO N E D I A M O N D J E W E L RY C O L L E C T I O N

© Forevermark 2016. Forevermark ®,

®

and

™

are Trade Marks used under license from The De Beers Group of Companies.

CHERISH YESTERDAY, ENJOY TODAY AND CELEBRATE TOMORROW.

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