Charleston Beer, Wine & Booze

French Quarter · french, crepes, cocktails

A basement bar, which is rare in a city that floods. The venue's own site calls it 'one of the only below-street-level bars in the city' and a 'bar clandestin', located beneath the French restaurant Brasserie La Banque at 1 Broad Street. Guests go down the building's original historic staircase into a room with soft lighting and Art Deco influenced furnishings. The menu is crepes, cocktails and champagne, and walk-ins are taken first come, first served.

Cannonborough-Elliotborough · wine, beer, snacks

A bar inside a bookshop on a residential corner. The Post and Courier (17 May 2024) wrote that when you walk into the corner store at 50 Bogard Street there is a long wooden bar with black barstools to the left and bookshelves of titles for sale to the right. Co-owners Jenny Ferrara and her husband, Michael Bourke, longtime Charleston residents, opened it in 2024 because they like to read while having a drink and wanted to build a little clubhouse. On 11 June 2026 the paper reported it ranked sixth in USA Today's 2026 10Best Readers' Choice Awards for independent bookstores, the only South Carolina shop on the list. It draws people before and after dinner at Chubby Fish, Vern's and Bistronomy by Nico.

Mount Pleasant · cheese, charcuterie, tinned seafood

Saint Urban's is a 350 square foot wine, cheese and cocktail bar on I'On Square that opened in July 2023, run by partners Warren Johnson, the cheesemonger, and Chad Besenfelder. City Paper profiled it in September 2026 for a dirty martini made with Spanish Perelló olives, French bread pizza on Tuesdays and a Wednesday night called Weenies + Tinis.

French Quarter · cocktails

A windowless cocktail room reached through a custard shop on East Bay Street. The Post and Courier (16 April 2024) called it about as close to a hidden bar as Charleston gets: it sits behind the drink fridge of Charleston Custard and Candy Co., in the back of Big John's Tavern at 251 East Bay Street, and ringing the bell takes guests inside. The room is decked out in antique furniture with tables separated by see-through white curtains. The name is a nod to the 2004 Lustra song written for the film EuroTrip. It accepts reservations and the menu leans on classics.

North Charleston · cocktails, raw bar

A speakeasy hidden inside Holy City Brewing, run by Johnny Caldwell, one half of the Charleston duo The Cocktail Bandits. The Post and Courier reported on 30 January 2026 that it sits behind the brewery bar, behind what looks like a wall of beer cans and taps ... give the wall a nudge and it opens into a small room with its own bar, a few tables and chairs, a record player and shelves of vinyl. A light above the wall is green when the room is open with space and red when it is closed or full. The menu is split into Classics, Signatures and Bites, and a raw bar is available on request.

Eastside · cocktails

A bar inside a bar. The Post and Courier (27 June 2025) reported that a yellow door at the back of the cocktail lounge Last Saint leads to a tucked-away speakeasy with six barstools and three booths, run by bartenders Bri and Andrew Travis. There are no menus ... guests name a base spirit and a few adjectives and the bartender builds the drink, at $16 each when the paper visited. Last Saint itself comes from the group behind Bar George on James Island and Ok Donna downtown.

Ansonborough · $$$$ · new american, contemporary, modern american

The Restaurant at Zero George is the dining room of the Zero George boutique hotel in Ansonborough, and it works out of an unusually small kitchen. Chef Vinson Petrillo runs a tasting menu that The Post and Courier describes through technical dishes such as a liquid-nitrogen shrimp cocktail and wagyu over Japanese charcoal. The hotel also runs The Caviar Bar, which draws on Petrillo's time as chef de cuisine at Caviar Russe in New York, and a cooking school with chef-led classes. It is Recommended in the inaugural MICHELIN Guide American South.

Cannonborough-Elliotborough · wine, small plates

A wine bar in a house, not a storefront. The Post and Courier's 2026 itinerary (14 January 2026) describes it as tucked inside a 150-plus-year-old single house in Cannonborough-Elliotborough, steps from Chez Nous and Chubby Fish. Sommelier Matthew Conway opened it in October 2021 with his wife, Carissa. Micah Pearson runs the food menu. The same owners run The Press, a burrito window next door.