You’ve heard about Bowens Island Restaurant, we know you have!

If you haven’t, get some hungry buds and plan your trip now. Don’t expect white tablecloth and maitre’d service. It’s famously no frills, but it’s worth it. The nightly crowds are a testament to the family fish camp. Robert Barber is the second generation to run the Bowens Island oyster room, hidden between Folly and James Island. Over time, it’s grown from a grimy, albeit quaint, cinderblock outpost to a pluff-mud pantheon that offers up damn good fried seafood, hushpuppies, and cold local beer in its upstairs dining room. Follow your nose downstairs and elbow-out yourself a space at the all-you-can-eat oyster tables and slurp down tasty local oysters by the shovelful that were likely pulled off the marsh that day. Oyster season or not, we have a hard time passing up the Frogmore Stew, a pot full of potatoes, sausage, corn on the cob, and shrimp steamed together as God intended it. —Sam Spence Dish, Charleston city paper