Wing Ding XXIII is returning to Greenville, South Carolina, and the Palmetto Expo Center July 3-6, 2001! Members who attended Wing Ding XVII in 1995 will remember this graceful southern city, and can encourage the uninitiated to take advantage of this special opportunity. Once a center for the textile industry, Greenville is located in the Piedmont section of the eastern slope of the southern Appalachian Mountains, and is now a rapidly expanding business, engineering and high-technology manufacturing center. In this month’s article, we will explore activities to do and see around Greenville, get an insider’s profile of some of the many restaurants in Greenville and then take a jaunt down to that lovely southern belle city, Charleston, South Carolina.

Lookin’ Around Greenville
Greenville is a delightful mix of old and new, and one of the best examples of this blend is the renovated C.F. Sauer Building. Now called The Wyche Pavilion, its old facade is seamlessly incorporated with the modern red brick lines of The Peace Center for the Performing Arts. Adjacent to the Center is Reedy River Falls Historic Park, now restored to its original beauty. Also, The Westin Poinsett Hotel, built in 1925, was renovated last year as part of the redevelopment of Main Street at Court Street. During the excavation of the streets, workers unearthed and salvaged cobblestones from days of the horse and buggy!
Savor the flavor at other nostalgic downtown sites of note. Visit Jim DeYoung’s Northgate Soda Shop for “Greenville history and wise tales,” drop in on Tucker’s Soda Shop for hand-dipped ice cream milk shakes, or travel back to the lost era of the Carpenter Brothers Drug Store that dates back to 1889. For those who might like to take home a little history, antique stores abound here, so keep a corner of your trailer open in reserve!

Gene’s Restaurant is right across the street from the Greenville Little Theatre, the art museum, and the library. According to locals, this landmark eatery serves “country cookin’ meat and veggies, with culture on the side.”
Ardent baseball fans may want to take a quick ride just two and one-half miles outside of town to the “Shoeless Joe Jackson” Memorial Park. In the heyday of the Greenville’s textile mills, each plant had its own baseball team, and mill workers once swarmed out of their drudgery in the mills when the whistles blew on Saturday afternoons and hurried to their village ballparks to enjoy the thrill of America’s favorite pastime. Textile baseball produced many great legendary ballplayers, and a plaque at this pleasant spot states, “Shoeless Joe was the greatest natural hitter ever to grace the diamond, and was such an inspiration that Babe Ruth chose to copy his swing.” Sounds like a good spot for a picnic lunch!
If you are an antique hound, visit the “The Shops at 27 South Main Street” in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, only eight miles north of downtown Greenville. Take Poinsett Highway; Travelers Rest is just beyond Furman University, “on the way up” to the mountains.
Other historic sites include one of the few remaining covered bridges in this area. Campbell’s Covered Bridge is located 15 miles to the north of Greenville off State Highway 414. Finally, the Gassaway Mansion was built in 1925 and is located off Wade Hampton Boulevard (Highway 29). The Greenville Art Association owns this estate built of stones salvaged from an old grist mill dating back to 1776. Although it is open to the public by appointment only, its impressive exterior is worth a look if you are traveling in the area.

Restaurants To Savor
All this sightseeing is bound to work up a Gold Winger’s appetite, and a visit to one of Greenville’s varied restaurants is definitely in order. Wing World consulted Kathy & Charles Coleman, GWRRA #119362, Chapter Directors for Greenville’s Chapter SC-E, for some insider information. Kathy writes:
One of the very best things about traveling and being on vacation is the luxury that eating out provides—no cooking or cleanup! To help out-of-town visitors choose the best food in town, I have compiled a list of restaurants. (See sidebar). Most I have tried and liked, and some have been highly recommended. Also, be sure to take advantage of the restaurant discounts in the coupon book that comes with your Wing Ding registration.
Greenville has many of the major national chain restaurants, from fast food to the popular Outback Steakhouse and dependable Red Lobster, but you might want to sample some of the local institutions. Greenville’s independent restaurants offer a choice of honored traditions and exciting trends, sometimes artfully interwoven in the same menu!
Traditional southern-style home cooking has been lovingly preserved at Gene’s Country Cooking and Tommy’s Country Ham House. Also, you won’t want to miss the southern-style barbecue at either Henry’s Smokehouse or Smokin’ Stokes BBQ. For the adventurous, the Saskatoon restaurant offers steaks and wild game, specializing in buffalo flank steaks and hickory-grilled venison.
The modern upscale steak and seafood houses include Rene’s Fishmarket and Augusta Grill. Rene’s boasts daily all-fresh, not frozen, seafood. Stax Peppermill has long been a local favorite for fine dining occasions.
Less pricey, more casual, dining includes the Brick Yard Café and Coffeehouse, Rafferty’s and Stax’s Grill.
Breakfast lovers will enjoy the reasonably priced Stax Omega and the newly opened Soby’s On The Side has on-site freshly baked bread and pastries. Lunch is served at both restaurants as well.
International cuisine includes The Olympian for Greek food, The Italian Market and Grill, Cantiflas for traditional Mexican dishes or Don Pablo’s for Tex-Mex favorites.
Greenville has several sushi restaurants to tempt lovers of these delicate and artful morsels from the sea, and Kanpai of Tokyo offers hibachi-style cuisine. Coffee Underground will brew espressos and café lattes to serve with their trendy wrap-style sandwiches, all at #1 E. Coffee Street!
Sushi, specialty coffee drinks and wraps (not necessarily served together), cover the current eating trends, but Greenville has a new restaurant called Soby’s New South Cuisine that features an open kitchen and a combination of old and new. Calamari is one of the “in” seafoods, but here they fry it dipped in traditional southern cornmeal! Fried green tomatoes and crab cakes are served with remoulade sauce, and grits accompany your order of New Orleans barbecued shrimp! Soby’s is truly a blend of the Old South and Nouvelle Cuisine served in the chic surroundings of the renovated downtown area.
Chapter SC-E participants are looking forward to hosting Wing Ding XXIII, and know our Greenville restaurants will be prepared to welcome you!

Charleston Bound
Wing Ding XXIII attendees coming into Greenville from southern routes may want to swing over to the quintessentially southern city of Charleston, South Carolina, and nearby historic Ft. Sumter. Charleston was founded in 1670, and few cities are as rich in beauty, culture and history. Charleston was the site of the first victory of the Colonial American Revolutionary War, and as the cultivation of rice and indigo flourished, Charleston became the center of a wealthy society. Plantation lords erected opulent townhouses and made Charleston the cultural heart of the South.
The Battle over Fort Sumter began the Civil War, and in spite of war, fires, an earthquake and a series of hurricanes, much has survived. The historic district, created in 1931, was one of the first in the nation. Buildings in this city are preserved with pride, and Charleston is often referred to as a “living museum.”
Visitors today walk down tree-lined streets and pass 200-year-old houses, many of which are open for tours at a nominal fee. There are also gardens, churches and museums dating back to 1761! Members interested in military history can choose to visit Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum, the Citadel Museum, or take a boat tour to Ft. Sumter. There is even a dungeon built by the British in 1771 for the imprisonment of American patriots!
But history isn’t everything. There is much to do in today’s Charleston; you might want to start with the 24-minute multimedia presentation at the Charleston Visitor Center at 375 Meeting Street. It runs continuously from 9 to 5, and costs just $2.50.
If you have worked up an appetite trying to choose where to go first, Jestine’s Kitchen at 251 Meeting Street opens at 11 a.m. When I called this restaurant to check on its hours of operation, owner Dana related this eatery has been serving down-home southern cooking continuously for over 100 years! I heard some voices in the background, and Dana asked me to hold on just a minute. She laid the phone down to wait on some arriving customers, and much to my delight, I overheard a little of her gracious welcoming “southern hospitality.” Mmm-mmm!
If you are an early bird, Dana recommends the nearby Bookstore Cafe for breakfast. Some other intriguing restaurants in Charleston include The Kickin’ Chicken for sandwiches; Sticky Fingers, a Memphis-style rib house; and the Wild Wing Café, a natural for Wingers. Those with enough energy to take in a little night life can stop in for live jazz featured Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings at Mistral, a French bistro specializing in seafood.
Charleston is 215 interstate miles from Greenville, but just 70 miles from I-95 for those coming to Wing Ding from southern routes. Good web site sources for more information are: www.ego.net/us/sc/chs/ and www.holycityguide.com.
Are you intrigued, nay seduced, by the call of the southern state of South Carolina? I certainly am, and I’m very much looking forward to this year’s Wing Ding XXIII. I wonder which recommended restaurant I should try first! Charleston is definitely on my list of side trips; I used the above web sites to plan my itinerary.
Come to Wing Ding XXIII in Greenville, South Carolina, and experience a Palmetto state of mind!

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

Lookin’ Around Greenville: Campbell’s Covered Bridge is located 15 miles north of Greenville off Highway 414. Carpenter Brothers drug store is across the street from the Westin-Poinsett Hotel. Gassaway Mansion. Wade Hampton Blvd. (Highway 29). (864) 271-0188. Gene’s Restaurant. Country cookin’ right across the street from the Greenville Little Theatre, the Art Museum, and the Library. Meat and veggies, with culture on the side. Jim DeYoung’s Northgate Soda Shop is located on North Main Street. Reedy River Falls Historic Park is right off the sidewalk at the corner of South Main Street and Camperdown Way. To take a walk, you can find easiest parking and access behind The WestEnd Market: go down South Main, take the left fork (at the Army Store) onto Augusta Street, then take a left onto University Street. Shoeless Joe Jackson Memorial Park is approximately 2 1/2 miles from downtown Greenville. Take Academy Street out of downtown and continue over Pendleton Street where Academy St. becomes Easley Bridge Road. Continue straight until you see Judson Baptist Church. Look for West Avenue, directly across from the church. Take West Avenue and it will lead you to the ballpark. The Shops at 27 South Main Street is in Travelers Rest, South Carolina, eight miles north of downtown Greenville. Take Poinsett Highway to just beyond Furman University. Westin Poinsett Hotel is located on Main Street at Court Street. Wyche Pavilion and The Peace Center for the Performing Arts, is actually two separate buildings at the corner of South Main Street and Broad Street. The Gunter Theatre is the smaller theater, and the Peace Concert Hall is the big theater.

Greenville Restaurants: Augusta Grill, 1818 Augusta Street. (864) 242-0316. Brick Street Café & Coffee House, 315 August Street. (864) 421-0111. Cantinflas Mexican Cuisine, 3717 East North Street. (864) 244-0701. Coffee Underground, One East Coffee Street. (864) 298-0494. Don Pablo’s, 741 Haywood Road. (864) 627-8550. Gene’s Country Cooking, 527 Buncombe Street. (864) 235-2922 Henry’s Smokehouse, 240 Wade Hampton Boulevard. (864) 232-7774. Italian Market and Grill, 534 Woods Lake Road. (864) 234-8464. Kanpai of Tokyo, 533 Haywood Road. (864) 234-0334. Olympian, 743 Congaree Road. (864) 288-0300. Rafferty’s, 600 Congaree Road. (864) 297-0004. Rene’s Fishmarket, 301 Haywood Road. (864) 297-3456. Saskatoon, 477 Haywood Road. (864) 297-7244. Smokin’ Stokes BBQ, 1622 Augusta Road. (864) 242-9716. Soby’s New South Cuisine, 207 South Main Street. (864) 232-7007. Soby’s On The Side, 22 East Court Street. (864) 271-8431 Stax Grill, 850 Woods Crossing Road. (864) 288-5546. Stax Omega, 72 Orchard Park Drive. (864) 297-6639. Stax’s Peppermill, 30 Orchard Park Drive. (864) 288-9320. Tommy’s Country Ham House, 214 Rutherford Street. (864) 242-6099.

Charleston Bound: Bookstore Café, 412 King Street. (843) 720-8843. Charleston Visitor Center, 375 Meeting Street. (843) 722-2628. Fort Sumter, boat tours leave from City Marina at Lockwood Dr. (803) 722-1691. Jestine’s Kitchen, 251 Meeting Street. (843) 722-7224. Mistral, 99 S. Market Street. (843) 722-5708. Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum, Charleston Harbor in Mount Pleasant, SC. (843) 884-2727. Sticky Fingers, 235 Meeting St. (843) 853-RIBS. The Citadel Museum, main gate, The Citadel. (843) 953-6846. The Kickin’ Chicken, 350 King St. (843) 805-5020. The Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon, 122 E. Bay St. at Broad St. (843) 727-2165. Wild Wing Café, 26 N. Market St. (843) 722-9464.

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