293 King St. Asian, street food $ How to save $$: Eat here, not at Basil. I love Thai food. And I (used to) love Basil. But, then I started eating at more authentic Thai restaurants (think: hole-in-the-wall with lots of Buddahs), and realized Basil might be good, but cheap Thai food is better. Fire may not be decorated with Buddah’s and it serves food other than Thai (which, I’d argue, is a good thing)… but this is the new place to go for Thai food on King Street. The best part? One-third the price of Basil! Fire is
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Taziki’s Cafe
306 King Greek/Mediterranean $ How to save $: Use either FREE HUMMUS coupon, CHICKEN ROLL UP FOR $5.95 coupon, or Restaurant.com gift card. If John Stamos were coming to Charleston, I bet he’d eat at Taziki’s for lunch. The name gives it away: Taziki’s Cafe is a Greek not-so-hole-in-the-wall, literally busting at the seams at 12:30 p.m. on a weekday with co-workers and families grabbing a quick lunch. Don’t waste time waiting to be seated, just grab the only empty chairs you can find (we sat on the stools overlooking King St.). Once seated, you can go up to the
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Verde
347 King Salads: Lunch, Dinner $ The first impression you’ll have about Verde is “this place must be a chain.” It is just so well put together that you get this impression… Sounds like the owners of this place are on to a hot concept that appears to be easily transferable to other markets. I went into this one thinking, okay, let’s scratch this chick salad joint off the list. I left full, satisfied and eager to return. You’ll notice that the concept is essentially a packed salad bar with limitless options (well, not limitless—I counted 45+ toppings, which is
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O’Malleys Bar and Grille
549 King Pub/Bar Food, Irish How to save $$: Happy hour from 4-8 p.m. gets you half-priced apps and draft beers. There’s really no other time to go. We went looking for some quick food with cheap prices one night on King Street. Because Charleston is pretty snobby with food, it’s surprisingly hard to find a cheap, fast and good place right on King Street. If you’ve been using O’Malleys appropriately, it’s always involved a fake ID, cheap shots and a tab that Daddy is floating for you (along with your CofC tuition). Well, don’t be alarmed when we tell you it’s
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Moe’s Southwest Grill
381 King Mexican, Southwest $-Cheap How to save $: You can often find coupons online for BOGO Moe’s Southwest Grill: the place we’ve all been but never thought of as review-worthy… until we were forced to write one. If you’ve been living under a rock (or, even worse, just not in the South) Moe’s is an Atlanta-based chain with 350 locations focused mostly in the Southeastern US. It is the humble opinion of Eat King Street that in a head-to-head battle with Chipotle or Qdoba, Moe’s will kick their asses every time, hands down–but that might just be because I practically
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Burger Babies
NOTE: Burger Babies is now closed. 293 King Lunch, Dinner $ How to save $: Grab a CofC campus coupon book (available for non-students like us if you can find them) and use the BOGO The restaurant opened about a year ago, offering baby burgers — or simply hamburger sliders to the untrained eye. The employees make the burgers pretty fast (I guess these “babies” don’t have to cook as long as the larger-sized ones) and the variety of beef, turkey, chorizo and tofu burgers are sure to please even the pickiest of eaters. They offer
Butcher & Bee
654 King Lunch daily & until 3am Thur-Sat $-$$ If you haven’t heard of Butcher and Bee, you’ve surely been living under a rock. Opening in October 2011, the relatively new restaurant on Upper King has made a name for itself quickly — even the New York Times has encourages its readers to try out the sandwich shop on a weekend get-away to the Holy City. Despite being located on King Street, you’ll have to plan to go there because you won’t just walk by. It’s on upper-Upper King, as in: north of Hwy 17. AKA: in the hood. Past Barsa. With that
Pace’s Pizza Balls
Pace’s Pizza Balls 363 King Lunch, Dinner, Late Night (open Mon.-Thurs. til 12 a.m. and Fri.-Sat. til 2 a.m.) $ How to save $: They regularly advertise deals on a chalk board visible from King St. I tried the Pizza Ball + 16oz PBR special for $6.95. Nothing has done well in the 363 King Street location that is now home to the new order-at-the-counter “quick food” restaurant: Pace’s Pizza Balls. Restaurants seem to come and go, never lasting more than a year. From the street, the inside space looks tiny, with just enough room for a few tables, but
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Cocktail Club
The Cocktail Club Review Charleston South Carolina King Street Good Drinks Charleston 479 King American/Pub (Happy Hour, Bar) $ How to save some $: They have different Happy Hour specials every day of the week. Thursday was select cocktails for $6 and half-off food from 5 to 7 p.m. It’s pretty hard to stumble upon the Cocktail Club–you have to been looking for it, and, even then, you might overlook it. You enter through a small door just south of The Macintosh; in fact, I had passed it many times thinking it was another entrance to The Macintosh. You’ll have to climb
Barsa Tapas
Barsa Tapas Lounge & Bar Review Charleston South Carolina King Street Spanish, Tapas, Wine Bar Dinner, Late Night Friday & Sat $ As extensive and self-proclaimed “world travelers,” we were very interested in extending our wide variety of international culinary insight on the local Spanish-inspired tapas restaurant, Barsa. You’ll want to know up front that Barsa is so far on upper King that you’ll feel as if you could be shanked by a homemade bottle knife at any moment outside of the restaurant–you up in da hood now. Don’t be alarmed, though– we made it out unscathed and didn’t see