AC Repair in James Island, SC

JAMES ISLAND — A new dry bar is now open on James Island. Instead of using alcohol, the bar utilizes CBD, Delta-8 and Delta-9 seltzers produced by High Rise Beverage Co.

The bar, the first of its kind in the state, is at the back of the new storefront space of Charleston Hemp Collective at 1989 Maybank Highway Unit 103. It’s right next to a cycling studio and across the street a little ways down from The Terrace Theater.

The store, dry bar and seltzer company are all owned by Lowcountry duo Matt and Libiss Skinner, who met in Columbia when they were kids.

“There’s actually a picture of the two of us at age 10 and 8 kissing on my grandmother’s front porch,” said Matt, with a chuckle.

Now married, they’ve made it their mission to spread awareness of the healing qualities of hemp and hemp-derived products.

It all started with Libiss’ ulcerative colitis diagnosis. She was prescribed 11 pills a day at one point and was on a steroid that came with a bunch of side effects.

“I knew I couldn’t sustain that, and I was really scared,” she said.

After doing her own research, Libiss turned to CBD as part of a daily anti-inflammatory and pain control regimen, as well as a way to decrease anxiety and stress surrounding her health condition. She hasn’t had a flare up in almost two years.

It was around a year ago when the couple started High Rise Beverage Co. and began selling their real fruit- and hemp product-infused seltzers. The drinks are canned in North Carolina and come in flavors such as pineapple, blackberry, grapefruit, blood orange, raspberry, black cherry and lime. They’re also infused with CBD, Delta-8 or Delta-9, at a percentage of .3 or less of THC to adhere to the federal government’s legal requirements as outlined in the Farm Bill Act.

At the bar on James Island, these seltzers are used to make a variety of mocktails, many of which come in tiki glasses and fit the tropical theme. Bird wallpaper and a plant wall are complimented by a neon pink sign that explains the concept: “cannabis dry bar.”

The pandemic has changed the way people work in the U.S., even as industries have returned to pre-COVID-19 times.

As the number of fully remote setups has declined, many companies have transitioned to the four-day work week, a shift that some say has improved mental health, finances and relationships. There is momentum behind the movement, so much so that it is trickling down to the restaurant industry.

Across the country, some big-city restaurants are paring back hours to create a more sustainable schedule that could help draw wary veteran workers back to the business, The New York Times reported in August.

In Charleston, however, restaurants seem to be adding hours rather than taking them away.

Last year, James Beard Foundation “American Classic” Bowens Island Restaurant expanded its hours to include lunch. Restaurants that welcomed fall 2023 with the addition of lunch include Harold’s Cabin, Blu Oyster Sushi and Seafood, Azur and The Longboard, among others.

Jackrabbit Filly removed its lunch service but added three additional dinner seatings: Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. The Ordinary recently announced it would start opening on Mondays, a historically slow restaurant night that has been added back into the fold at Chasing Sage.

What is behind this wave of service expansions? It depends on the restaurant.

Many new restaurants add lunch after owners find the staffing to handle an additional service. Such was the case for The Neighborhood Dining Group at Delaney Oyster House, Minero and The James, which added Saturday and Sunday lunch in September.

Delaney Oyster House started with that weekend-only lunch rollout earlier this year before adding Fridays on Sept. 1. The 115 Calhoun St. restaurant — a worthy alternative for those not willing to wait for a lobster roll at nearby 167 Raw — has drawn enough of a crowd to warrant a third day of lunch. Otherwise, David Howard, NDG’s President, would not have added it.

“We can’t just be open and not be busy,” Howard said. “It really is a math calculation.”

Serving lunch was part of the long-term plans at Ma’am Saab, a Pakistani restaurant that serves dahi puri, chicken tikka pizza, kabab rolls and more at lunch Friday and Saturday. The midday meal was always an important part of Ma’am Saab during its days at exploratory food court Workshop, so it only made sense to bring it to the brick-and-mortar restaurant, which opened in May.

“Bringing that service back with unique lunch-only offerings has been in the works since we opened our doors at 251 Meeting St. this year,” said Ma’am Saab co-owner Raheel Gauba, who owns the restaurant with his wife, chef Maryam Ghaznavi. “We always wanted to pay homage to where we started and how we began serving the Charleston community.”

Husk, another Neighborhood Dining Group restaurant, does not serve a standard lunch, but its recently renovated patio is now open all day on the weekend. (Full hours are 4-10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 4-11 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday.)

For weekend diners, the limited menu served on the patio provides a bridge service between 2 and 5 p.m., when brunch ends and dinner starts.

“We invested and built a small support kitchen in our prep area,” Howard said. “We set that up in a way that we can have an alternative menu that can serve the patio and the bar.”

Additional services does not necessarily mean longer hours for NDG employees. Howard says chefs and management get two days off per week, even though each Neighborhood Dining Group restaurant stays open seven days a week.

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JAMES ISLAND, S.C. (WCBD)- It has been 35 days since Jennifer Drummond was found severely injured along a James Island road.

Friends and family are still searching for answers in what is believed to be a hit-and-run.

The family, joined by their attorney, held a press conference Wednesday morning with new details they hope will bring them closer to finding the person responsible.

The Drumond family, fatigued, after over a month of not knowing exactly what happened to Jenn.

“We don’t sleep at night, wondering if someone texted with a lead,” Jenn’s uncle, Chris Drummond said.

However, they’re not letting up.

Drummond said, “You just can’t hit somebody in the roadway and drive off, and someone not know something.”

Searching everywhere they know of for answers to what is believed to be a hit-and-run.

In a press conference Wednesday morning, their attorney Scott Bischoff, gave new information on her movements that morning.

“Based on information on Jenn’s phone, her step count that was also connected to her apple watch, we believe that she left her house around 5:17 and her step count stops at 5:18, just before 5:19,” Bischoff said.

According to surveillance video there were three cars that drove down Woodland Shores Road around the time of the incident, but new video shows the car believed to be the one that hit Jenn.

“We believe the primary suspect vehicle is vehicle number 3, that appears to be a relatively modern SUV with a sunroof and 5 lights,” Bischoff said.

As far as Jenn’s condition, family members say she is making progress.

They say she got up and walked yesterday, but she’s still very slow to answer questions and there’s still a long way to go.

At this point they’re just doing whatever they can to bring justice to Jenn.

“On top of a really awful injury that she suffered, our mind is also thinking who did this, when will answers surface, will answers surface. It’s something that weighs on our mind constantly,” Jenn’s best friend, Audrey Marhoefer said.

There is a $10,000 reward for information about the incident of you have any information about this incident, call the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office.

Charleston’s Neighborhood Dining Group is living up to its name with its newest restaurant concept.

Set to open this summer in the 1939-A Maybank Highway space previously occupied by Zia Taqueria, The James will be an “all-American grill” serving a range of options at various price points. The James will feel comfortable yet clubby and stylish, Neighborhood Dining Group President David Howard said.

The type of place one might visit for a quality hamburger on a Tuesday night and a prime rib on the weekend.

“It just intrigued me as an opportunity,” said Howard of the 4,600-square-foot James Island property. “It’s a concept that I’m comfortable with.”

Howard likened the The James’ approachable neighborhood offering to that of his first restaurant, Chicago’s Steak and Seafood, which he opened in Roswell, Ga. in 1991. He believes The James will provide another dining option for James Island residents who do not want to venture downtown.

The Maybank Highway-bookmarked Riverland Terrace neighborhood is undergoing a dining renaissance, one that Howard says his group is excited to join. In the last three years, the area has lured downtown Charleston restaurateurs to James Island, including the owners of Bar George, Millers All Day and Huriyali.

Millers All Day’s Terrace Plaza space opened up after Zia Taqueria moved across the street to the 1939-A Maybank Highway building The James will soon call home. Formerly occupied by Athens Restaurant, the space was twice the size of Zia’s original.

The pandemic has changed the way people work in the U.S., even as industries have returned to pre-COVID-19 times.

As the number of fully remote setups has declined, many companies have transitioned to the four-day work week, a shift that some say has improved mental health, finances and relationships. There is momentum behind the movement, so much so that it is trickling down to the restaurant industry.

Across the country, some big-city restaurants are paring back hours to create a more sustainable schedule that could help draw wary veteran workers back to the business, The New York Times reported in August.

In Charleston, however, restaurants seem to be adding hours rather than taking them away.

Last year, James Beard Foundation “American Classic” Bowens Island Restaurant expanded its hours to include lunch. Restaurants that welcomed fall 2023 with the addition of lunch include Harold’s Cabin, Blu Oyster Sushi and Seafood, Azur and The Longboard, among others.

Jackrabbit Filly removed its lunch service but added three additional dinner seatings: Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. The Ordinary recently announced it would start opening on Mondays, a historically slow restaurant night that has been added back into the fold at Chasing Sage.

What is behind this wave of service expansions? It depends on the restaurant.

Many new restaurants add lunch after owners find the staffing to handle an additional service. Such was the case for The Neighborhood Dining Group at Delaney Oyster House, Minero and The James, which added Saturday and Sunday lunch in September.

Delaney Oyster House started with that weekend-only lunch rollout earlier this year before adding Fridays on Sept. 1. The 115 Calhoun St. restaurant — a worthy alternative for those not willing to wait for a lobster roll at nearby 167 Raw — has drawn enough of a crowd to warrant a third day of lunch. Otherwise, David Howard, NDG’s President, would not have added it.

“We can’t just be open and not be busy,” Howard said. “It really is a math calculation.”

Serving lunch was part of the long-term plans at Ma’am Saab, a Pakistani restaurant that serves dahi puri, chicken tikka pizza, kabab rolls and more at lunch Friday and Saturday. The midday meal was always an important part of Ma’am Saab during its days at exploratory food court Workshop, so it only made sense to bring it to the brick-and-mortar restaurant, which opened in May.

“Bringing that service back with unique lunch-only offerings has been in the works since we opened our doors at 251 Meeting St. this year,” said Ma’am Saab co-owner Raheel Gauba, who owns the restaurant with his wife, chef Maryam Ghaznavi. “We always wanted to pay homage to where we started and how we began serving the Charleston community.”

Husk, another Neighborhood Dining Group restaurant, does not serve a standard lunch, but its recently renovated patio is now open all day on the weekend. (Full hours are 4-10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 4-11 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday.)

For weekend diners, the limited menu served on the patio provides a bridge service between 2 and 5 p.m., when brunch ends and dinner starts.

“We invested and built a small support kitchen in our prep area,” Howard said. “We set that up in a way that we can have an alternative menu that can serve the patio and the bar.”

Additional services does not necessarily mean longer hours for NDG employees. Howard says chefs and management get two days off per week, even though each Neighborhood Dining Group restaurant stays open seven days a week.

We publish our free Food & Dining newsletter every Wednesday at 10 a.m. to keep you informed on everything happening in the Charleston culinary scene. Sign up today!

South Carolina’s first-ever cannabis dry bar has landed on James Island. High Rise Dry Bar from Charleston Hemp Collective opened Aug. 11 and is changing the world of hemp-derived products and the non-alcoholic beverage space by offering mocktails made with legal cannabis seltzers.

“I think it’s really cool pioneering stuff like this,” said Matt Skinner, owner of Charleston Hemp Collective. “You always kind of worry about whether it’s going to go over and how many people are going to relate to it, but I feel like the reception we’ve gotten just so far is insane, so I’m super-excited about it.”

In recent years, the popularity of legal hemp-derived products has exploded in the Charleston area as these products are said to offer purported medicinal benefits and increase relaxation. Hemp Collective offers a range of products from vapes and gummies to tinctures and even Bloody Mary mix. But since launching its cannabis seltzer High Rise in May 2022, Skinner has noticed a fast-shifting acceptance.

“Charleston has really embraced this whole [cannabis] movement,” he said. “So much has changed, and so much of it is becoming more and more accepted.”

Currently, High Rise’s seltzers are in about 200 bars and restaurants, including Halls Chophouse and Husk, and 350 shops and grocery stores in the Charleston area. But the product also is distributed throughout the Southeast in Tennessee, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia.

“Some of the most elevated restaurants in Charleston are really trying to create mocktails now and jumping on board with High Rise to help craft that, and I think that’s special,” Skinner said.

He said he believes now is an exciting time — not only for the cannabis space but also the non-alcoholic market. He points to a renewed interest in non-alcoholic options particularly amongst Gen Z, who are noticeably drinking less alcohol than previous generations.

A 2022 consumer trends report from Drizly found 38% of Gen Z respondents said they opted for more alcohol-free drinks than the previous year compared to 25% of Millennials, 15% Gen X and 8% Baby Boomers.

“There’s this interest not only in the ‘canna-curious’ space right now, but also people are looking for NA (non-alcoholic) options. The NA world and the beverage space right now is insane,” Skinner said.

The company’s original plan was to create a second shop with a small bar, but now the bar is really the star, he said. Skinner and his business partner, Chris Long, wanted a space for a high-end mocktail bar, so they used a portion of the space for the shop and a larger portion for a bar, lounge area and multiple tables for guests to sit and mingle.

During the store’s recent soft opening, DJ Jerry Feels Good set the vibe with upbeat tunes. Skinner said the bar plans to bring DJ Jerry Feels Good back as a regular in-house DJ in addition to rotating other DJs on various nights.

Currently, the bar’s open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sundays through Wednesdays and 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. But Skinner said they may expand the weekend hours in the future.

The first iteration of the drink menu includes seven unique mocktails with names like Connection, Tranquility, Invigorate and Zen.

Drinks include fruity ingredients like salted watermelon and pomegranate and well as savory elements like ginger, turmeric and matcha. The menu offers suggestions under each drink to add CBD, Delta-8 or Delta-9 seltzer to elevate the experience.

For those who are canna-curious but not familiar with these different derivatives of the hemp plant, CBD is a non-psychoactive compound found in hemp that can induce feelings of relaxation. Delta-8 and Delta-9 are both psychoactive compounds in the plant that can induce feelings of “being high.”

Roughly one-third of a can of High Rise seltzer is used in each drink — equal to two milligrams of CBD, Delta-8 or Delta 9.

“The point is not just one and done,” Skinner said of the mocktails. “We want you to be able to try two or three drinks. And by the time you get to your third drink, you’re gonna be feeling really good. It creates more of a social experience.”

Jules Schneider, beverage director for Herd Provisions, helped develop the current menu.“[This was] easily the most challenging menu I’ve done so far,” Schneider said. “Coaxing out flavor without the use of alcohol is another beast on its own. Alcohol is such a great solvent that making well-flavored ingredients is a cinch. I ended up making my own bitters with vegetable glycerin in a pressure cooker and really relied on great produce and proper technique to make fantastically flavored syrups.”

Skinner added, “I’ve got to give a lot of props to Jules. Not only did he take time to look at so many different [flavor] profiles, [but] he was also very careful when he named them. They all really represent the ingredients of those drinks and what they stand for.”

The menu will change quarterly to introduce new drinks and operate as a space for experimentation. Skinner wants to use the bar to test out new mocktails in addition to featuring rotating specialty High Rise drinks other restaurants and bars have developed for their location including Herd Provisions, The Longboard and others.

“Charleston is a community that supports brands that they feel like are really making a movement, and Charleston has really gotten behind High Rise,” Skinner said. “I don’t think there’s another city in the Southeast that has so much respect for this cannabis drink space.”

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A developer looking to build on just over six acres of land on James Island held a community meeting with neighbors as the potential project moves forward.

JAMES ISLAND, S.C. (WCSC) - A developer looking to build on just over six acres of land on James Island held a community meeting with neighbors as the potential project moves forward.

The 6.5-acre parcel off Dills Bluff Road, near the intersection of Camp Road, is currently owned by the town’s public service district. KT Properties President Kyle Taylor said they plan to build a 20,000 to 25,000 square foot commercial center to hold about 10 to 15 businesses.

“Lowcountry-style architecture is where we’re heading,” Taylor said. “We see mixed-use retail, some restaurant, small to medium scale, some coffee, some office, medical office, just a variety of uses to support the local community.”

The district attempted to develop a new operations center on the property for several years. The projects were put on hold amid pushback from neighbors against the plan.

The property then went up for sale in 2021, and developer KT Properties is under contract with the public service district to purchase the land.

Toward the rear of the parcel, Taylor said they plan on proceeding with building 25 attached townhome units to make living on the island more affordable and save as many grand trees as possible. Taylor said those changes were made based on feedback from neighbors.

“First and foremost, we want to make sure the community knew that we weren’t doing a cross-connection road,” Taylor said. “That was the most important concerns for neighbors that we weren’t going to send traffic to the neighborhood, which we are not. Especially, making sure we are taking care of stormwater management by adding a third pond was maybe some new information for some folks inside.”

Some neighbors said the project is too dense compared to the surrounding area and the land could instead be used for a park.

“The open space that they’re proposing is not enough,” neighbor John Peters said. “That little open space in the center is like hanging out in the parking lot. It’s what I’ve been telling people because that’s what it is.”

Others, however, said it’s exactly what James Island needs to grow.

“I think it’s the beautification, and the fact that they are really addressing the stormwater issue,” neighbor Joanne Root said. “It’s very well executed, and it’s going to be very attractive, and I think it’s really going to uplift this area.”

Peters believes the project does not fit into the area where it’s slotted to be.

“There’s hawks and owls that live in there. There’s concern with the wilderness there,” he said. “They come over and take out those squirrels, so there’s a lot of little things that are being overlooked in lieu of developing to just add more citizens to the neighborhood that we already have enough citizens in.”

Root, however, believes there’s enough of a market to build the development.

“I think the townhouses would be perfect, and I think there’s a big need for that,” she said. “There’s a lot of people that can’t maintain a yard that are definitely looking for that. It’s more progressive, I think, and more forward-thinking.”

As the project has been in the works for several years, Peters said he believes it should be up to the public to decide what happens with the land.

“Put it on the ballot and say, ‘Citizens, what do you want to do with this land?’ And come up with the best ideas possible,” he said. “If the citizens say they want a development, they put a development in there. If they want a park, we’ll put a park in there. If they want a fitness trail, let’s put a fitness trail.”

Taylor said he hopes the project will be finished with design and permitting around spring next year. He said construction would follow shortly after.

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