Address:
1717 Highway 17 North
Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464
Phone Number:
843 881 9076
Web Site:
View Web Site
Sundays at Gullah Cuisine have become legendary in the Lowcountry. The after-church crowd gorges on the deluxe buffet ($12.99). A back room hosts large parties. During our visit, a family reunion of 50 people was set to arrive by bus. Owners Frank and Charlotte Jenkins even draw hordes of tourists looking to connect with black history through ancestral food.
Gullah is a culture that was forcefully imported from Africa to the area south of Charleston, centering on Beaufort. American Gullah people were initially slaves. Charlotte and husband Frank have run a catering company since 1990, and decided to open a restaurant in Mt. Pleasant on May 10, 1997, to keep up with the increasing demand for their food. When asked to describe their concept, Frank said, “Soul food is exactly like Gullah cuisine, but Gullah cuisine came first.”
At the mouth of the buffet line was this big basket of homemade cornbread squares and rolls.
The buffet featured rows of covered metal trays, including…
…cinnamon-swirled candied yams…
…crispy fried chicken…
…well-seasoned baked chicken, including breasts, prized poultry parts rarely included in buffet lines…
…collard greens cooked with ham hock…
…red rice…
…okra succotash and yellow rice with lima beans and chunks of ham…
…seafood casserole with big chunks of real crab…
…crusty yellow cheddar macaroni & cheese…
…corn pudding…
…and shrimp and grits, a definitive Lowcountry dish.
At a cutting station, a man carved honey ham and roast beef.
For dessert, Gullah Cuisine offered squares of dense bread pudding with raisins and a layer of built-in peaches, and peach cobbler. The bread pudding was tasty, and the peach cobbler wasn’t bad, but the peaches clearly came from a can.
After our meal, Frank said he plans to try something new in the next two years, and we’ll hear about it. Gullah Cuisine was getting set to launch a jazz night with more upscale food and three performers, including Sam Singleton and Ann Caldwell, for $40. In the meantime, locals can enjoy reasonably priced Southern food, with a big helping of heritage.
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The food is 1000 times better than this photography shows.
And to 1st focus on the bread like this page does is retarded. There is no lima beans in the rice served that way “okra succotash and yellow rice with lima beans and chunks of ham..”, it’s Okra in the rice with bits of ham.
Then the photos/descriptions go even further downhill on this excellent food. I hope they did not have to pay for this as an ad.
Ivy,
My goal was to recommend Gullah Cuisine’s food to readers. I started with the bread since it was located at the entrance to the buffet, then worked my way down the line. My photos weren’t great in this case, but it was the best I could do at the time, given my camera and the lighting.