BY MARGARET KENWORTHY  

 

The little building at 212 Rutledge Avenue is a bit of a mystery. It’s tiny: No bigger than 450 square feet. There’s no sign outside. The windows are covered with flyers. In fact, you’d have to stand on your tiptoes and peer in through the glass panes to realize there’s a restaurant inside.

      It’s one of 68 architectural oddities on the peninsula called sweet shops, one-story vernacular buildings built to house a variety of businesses. These unique structures began popping up around Charleston shortly after the Civil War, when lower to middle class European immigrants and African Americans started neighborhood businesses in these small spaces.          

      “Some were barbershops, tailors, doctor’s offices and grocery stores,” says Leann Dickerson, who wrote a thesis about sweet shops while interning at the Charleston Preservation Society. They got their name, she explains, because while they eventually wound up housing a variety of businesses, most started out selling candies and other sweets.

      Today, though, with new businesses pressing into the older communities, these tiny shops are at risk. In the last 60 years, 200 shops have been demolished. Half have been torn down in the last six years. Only 68 are left standing in Charleston, and of these, 13 sit vacant. One reason is that the city has zoned more than half of the existing sweet shops as residential property, reducing their commercial value. In other cases, a decrease in business has spelled disaster for some of the sweet shops.

      In May 2014, Chef Ross Webb, owner of R Kitchen and former executive chef at Leaf, started his new restaurant in the sweet shop at 212 Rutledge Street. Webb chose the building because of the location. His aim was to create an intimate atmosphere, and with seating for only 15 inside and out, his vision came true. It had just enough space inside to cook meals.

Cathy Spell, owner of First Class Cuts barbershop, also conducts business in a sweet shop, this one on Spring Street. Influenced by her uncle’s barbershop business, Spell opened her shop in 2000 and has continued ever since. Recently, however, developers have been knocking on her door, offering to buy her shop and lot. She always declines the offers. Although she is willing to rent the space, she’s not ready to sell it. 

      As land becomes more valuable, sweet shops are torn down and new buildings sprout up. Dickerson says that although these structures are small, they are as important as any other historic building in Charleston. She believes the sweet shops are an intriguing part of the city’s history, and their stories must be protected. If not, the record of these little businesses—and the people who owned and worked in them—will be lost.

      Though the sweet shops’ future is unclear, Dickerson thinks that these buildings are perfectly suited for future use as offices, shops and restaurants. Maybe one will even become a candy store.

      Webb points out that his shop is a good example of the changing businesses north of Calhoun Street. “This was originally Dave’s Carry-out Seafood, but [the landlord] jacked up the rent so they had to move locations,” he says. Today it’s a good spot for an upscale eatery, but that hasn’t always been the case. “I wouldn’t have taken it if I was offered it 10 years ago,” says Webb. 

      The demographics north of Calhoun Street have changed over the past few years. Not long ago, predominantly lower to middle-class African Americans lived on the upper Peninsula. Beginning in 2000, approximately half of the black population was lost in one decade.  Starting in the 1980’s, college students and young professionals moved up the peninsula, scooting the locals further away from their homes and businesses.

      Since Webb’s restaurant opened in the midst of a  neighborhood revitalization, his clientele is diverse. “There is every single age group and ethnicity here,” Webb’s co-chef boasts. “It’s the ideal business crowd—we hit every generation: college kids, middle-aged people, older couples.”

      While some sweet shops have been given new lives and are prospering, others are being demolished or suffering financially. That’s a loss for the city, says Dickerson. “It’s not that these small shops are only unique to this area,” she explains, “but the fact that there are so many in one tiny little place – that’s what is really unique about them.”