(Left to right) Wine, local sauces, and grits in the restaurant’s shop; Founders and owners Jackie and William Barnwell opened Roxbury Mercantile in Meggett in 2019 on the site of his family’s store (and Esso station) from the 1920s to 1980s.
WRITTEN BY Sandy Lang
PHOTOGRAPHS BY Peter Frank Edwards
William “Beau” Barnwell remembers coming to the original Roxbury Mercantile as a child, especially his grandfather’s cooking and the worn wooden floor with gaps open to the bare ground. “That was before the 1983 fire that burned and melted everything,” he says.
These days, the building that replaced the old crossroads store in Meggett is once again home to a Barnwell family enterprise. The former paratrooper and graduate of the Culinary Institute of Charleston and his wife, Jackie, whose background is in restaurant management and accounting, bought the place from a fisherman and created a restaurant built on family and local history.
Black-and-white photographs of creek fishing trips and days in the store line a long hallway. His grandfather’s cast-iron pan hangs above the kitchen door, still intact because it wasn’t at the store the day of the long-ago fire. Vintage Carew Rice silhouettes of marsh scenes and family profiles hang on the dining room walls—given to the Barnwells in exchange for room and board when the store had living space in the rear.
And then there’s the food. The she-crab soup recipe is from Jackie’s family on Hilton Head Island. It’s creamy, but not too dense, loaded with blue crab and served with buttery Ritz crackers on the side.
(Left) Fried shrimp hot from the kitchen; (Right) A burger with bacon and fried green tomato.
Off-the-dock shrimp are fried in a light batter of Adluh Flour and Marsh Hen Mill cornmeal—a method to let the flavor shine, inspired by the simple shrimp plates served at the former Edisto Motel & Restaurant in nearby Jacksonboro. And the banana pudding is William’s grandmother’s recipe, served in a Pyrex bowl with a toasted cloud of meringue on top.
A casual, comfortable feel pervades inside and on the deck in the side yard. Local and regional craft beers are on tap, and musicians play under the oak tree outside on weekend nights when menu specials may include Korean barbecue or Cajun shrimp pasta. “People try to understand our menu,” Jackie says, “but it’s literally what we’d make for friends and family coming over at home.”
Location: 4398 Hwy. 174, Meggett (at the corner of Little Britton Rd.)
Miles from Charleston peninsula: 31
On the Menu: She-crab soup, shrimp and grits, fried shrimp, burgers, and banana pudding, plus craft beers on tap and a full bar
Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday; live music during dinner service, Thursday-Saturday
Contact: (843) 889-0044, roxburymercantile.com
Nearby Adventure: Roxbury Park, 4480 Hwy. 174, Meggett, townofmeggettsc.org/roxbury-park.html
