South Carolina Steakhouses | SteakMap

The Best Steakhouses in South Carolina

South Carolina has 38 steakhouses across 24 towns, spread remarkably evenly: Charleston, Hilton Head, Myrtle Beach and Greenville have four each, with the rest in ones and twos from Aiken to Rock Hill.

And it is one of the most locally-owned steak markets in the country. Only two of the 38 are national chains. Two homegrown groups hold nine between them.

The South Carolina Ten

1. Hall’s Chophouse (Charleston) — opened on Upper King Street in 2009 and now the hardest table in the city. A Hall is on the door most nights — the family greets you in and sees you out — with live music nightly and a Gospel choir at Sunday brunch. Rooms also in Greenville, Columbia and Summerville.
2. Grill 225 (Charleston) — in the Market Pavilion Hotel, USDA Prime and a dining room that has not softened its white-tablecloth formality for anyone.
3. The Ocean Room (Kiawah Island) — at The Sanctuary, and the most refined cooking on this page.
4. Oak Steakhouse (Charleston) — the Indigo Road group’s original room, in an 1848 bank building. Its siblings appear on the North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia pages.
5. Rick Erwin’s West End Grille (Greenville) — the flagship of the Upstate’s own group, with rooms in Eastside, Greer, Clemson and Spartanburg.
6. 17 Prime (Charleston) — dry-aged and quietly excellent, in the shadow of the bigger names.
7. New York Prime (Myrtle Beach) — the Grand Strand’s serious steak, and a different proposition from the buffets around it.
8. Bowdie’s Chophouse (Hilton Head Island) — the island’s best, with Chophouse 119 close behind.
9. Mill Pond Steakhouse (Rembert) — in a restored country store out in the High Hills of Santee, and the best reason to drive into rural Sumter County.
10. The Peddler Steak House (Spartanburg) — the tableside meat cart, wheeled over so you pick the cut and the thickness and watch it trimmed. The same format as the Raleigh original, with more in Florence and Hamer.

Two families hold a quarter of the state

Most states in this directory are shaped by national brands. South Carolina is shaped by two local families.

Hall’s Chophouse started on Upper King Street in 2009, run by Bill Hall and his sons, and the thing people talk about is not the dry-aged ribeye — it is that a member of the family stands at the door. They greet you on the way in and thank you on the way out, every night. The Sunday Gospel brunch, with a local choir working through Southern hymns from ten until two, is the clearest statement of what the room is for. There are now four across the state.

Rick Erwin’s has done the same thing in the Upstate, with five rooms between Greenville, Greer, Clemson and Spartanburg.

Together that is nine of the state’s 38 steakhouses — roughly a quarter — against two national chains in total. For comparison, Washington D.C. has nineteen steakhouses and twelve of them are brands.

Around the state

The coast carries 21 Main in North Myrtle Beach, Perrone’s at Pawleys Island and Fire & Smoke on the Strand. Inland: Chophouse 47 in Greenville, Prime Steakhouse in Aiken, Chophouse of Chapin, Ember in Lexington, Eleven11 in Rock Hill and Epic Chophouse at Fort Mill, the North Carolina group just over the line.

The national chains

Two, both Ruth’s Chris: Columbia and Myrtle Beach. That is the entire national presence in a state of five million people.

Browse by city: Charleston, Greenville, Hilton Head Island and Myrtle Beach.