Openings

A year ago today, Duke’s Bar-B-Que caught fire. It’s been closed ever since. Daily progress is being made towards the reopening of a local favorite franchise that started more than 45 years ago and now has 14 South Carolina locations. On Friday afternoon, owner Christian Judy, conducted a Facebook Live tour of the new place. Generations of customers weighed in during the FB session and many others have been on social media platforms in the past few months, about what they would like to see and taste in the upcoming

A fire in a barbecue pit is good. A kitchen fire at the restaurant which serves BBQ is not. When Duke’s BBQ in Aiken caught fire in June last year and destroyed the family-owned restaurant, it was devastating to the owners and to all their customers. After all, it was founded 45 years ago. That means generations have grown up with Duke’s. Aikenites have craved Duke’s enough in the past year, that they’ve driven more than an hour away to Orangeburg to again sample the chicken, pork, sauce, and sides.

After a four-month hiatus, Andre Walker is excited about inviting customers back to his storefront. Walker owns the Funnel Cake Lounge located at 212 South Belair Road, Suites 194-196, near Kyoto Japanese Cuisine and the Walmart Neighborhood Market in Martinez, which will officially reopen on Saturday, June 17 at 12 noon. The business bakes and sells funnel cakes in a variety of unique flavors, such as Miss Peaches, which is topped with homemade peach cobbler. The funnel cake lounge closed in February, which gave him time to complete some repairs

A new tenant is replacing a former downtown eatery that closed late last year, according to the Finem Group at Meybohm Commercial. The Group recently announced that Lenox on 10th, a new restaurant and bar, will move into the space previously occupied by The Bee’s Knees located at 211 10th St., which closed its doors permanently on Nov. 20, 2022. “I was personally a part of the opening training teams for Cheddar’s and Wild Wing,” said Aris Reed, one of the business’s owners. “With 20+ years of bar and hospitality

You’re probably familiar with chicken and waffles, but Dallas Hooks offers a unique twist on the Southern favorite. On Friday, April 26, Hooks launched Café on 8th, a waffle bar located at 226 Eighth St. in downtown Augusta. The eatery serves not only a variety of traditional waffles, but also savory options, such as The Down Home, which is chicken and collards baked into a waffle. Other flavors include shrimp and grits and biscuits and gravy. “There are a lot of things we can do with a waffle,” he said.

As a child, PJ Ware began cooking with his parents and never stopped. Over the weekend, he launched a new restaurant in Augusta. Ware owns Kitchen Kings located at 1370 Gordon Highway, at the corner of Doug Barnard Parkway and across the street from X-Mart. He serves a variety of dishes, including Lowcountry boil, crab legs, fried pork chops, and macaroni and cheese. On Saturday, Ware celebrated the grand opening of his restaurant, which shares space with Natta’s Sweet Treats, a bakery owned by his girlfriend, Renatta Early. Early, who