Why subscribe?
You’ll get a curated newsletter every Thursday (right before the weekend!) about the coolest events, limited time special dishes, and new openings happening in the restaurant and bar scene. I write Weekly Specials CHS with Charleston locals in mind, focusing primarily on downtown Charleston.
You’ll also get special edition round ups! In 2024, special edition newsletters included topics like 30 places to eat soft shell crab during softie season, a detailed list of Bridge Run after parties, an Earth Day special edition post with five things to know about composting locally, ways to support with Hurricane Helene relief efforts from Charleston, plus seasonal round ups of the best autumn food and drink specials, FIVE gift guides promoting local small businesses for Small Business Saturday, and where to eat/order from for holidays like Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve.
Subscribe to get the latest news about Charleston restaurants in your inbox every Thursday, so you can plan your week - and Resy Notify efforts - accordingly.
What else should you know?
You can follow me on Instagram at @weeklyspecials_chs for real-time updates that don’t make it into each week’s newsletter.
I’m an animal lover! Sadly, nearly all of the 10 billion farm animals raised for food in America each year suffer their entire lives in cruel factory farms. Recognizing this grim reality, I rarely write about meat or meat-focused events/dishes unless I know the farms from which the restaurant sources, and am familiar with how those farms raise their animals. I always try to promote vegetarian, pescatarian, and vegan events and dishes whenever possible. For more on factory farming and how it harms farm animals, check out the ASPCA’s site here.
Admin reveal
Ever wondered who’s writing this thing?
My name is Maddie! I moved to Charleston in 2022 after 10 years of living in NYC (plus a brief stint in London), and I fell in love with the vibrancy, accessibility, passion, and seasonality of our local restaurant scene. I started this newsletter in February 2024, mostly because I was already compiling these kinds of weekly lists for myself anyway, to get myself organized around what I couldn’t miss doing each week at my favorite restaurants, bars, and coffee shops in CHS.
My passion for food has been lifelong, but it really kicked off in grad school when I got my Master’s in nutrition science from Columbia University’s med school in 2013. I worked in international development in New York City for several years, and in 2019, during a period of deep professional burnout, I quit my job and enrolled in a mostly plant-based culinary school program at the Institute of Culinary Education in NYC.
While I was in culinary school, I studied for grad exams again and applied to MBA programs. As culinary school was wrapping up in March 2020, I had accepted a spot in NYU Stern’s MBA program, was recipe planning for my final culinary school exam, and was also planning to move to Charleston for six weeks for an externship at Husk…then COVID shut down NYC completely, as well as most restaurants across the country.
After a spring and summer of quarantining on the Upper East Side, I started my MBA program at NYU that fall, studied sustainability and marketing, moved to Brooklyn, interned in sustainability for a meat company, and then moved to Charleston after graduation in 2022.
Now, I work for an animal welfare non-profit and live downtown with my partner.
