The Lost Architecture: August Edition

Posted: September 3, 2018

The answer is 242 Meeting Street, the location of Larry’s Restaurant. “In this new restaurant we have tried to anticipate your every want” begins the announcement of the opening of the restaurant in the News & Courier on November 27, 1941. There is no history on the building in HCF’s archives, however, in the 1872 Birds-Eye View of Charleston, a building is present at the northeast corner of Meeting and Hasell Streets. By 1884, the two- and three-story buildings that later make up Larry’s Restaurant appear on the map as a barber shop and a store, and by 1902 the buildings serve as a restaurant. The restaurant closed in 1955 and in 1980, the building was demolished due to deteriorating conditions. The site now serves as the parking lot for the restaurant across the street, FIG. (Source: Evening Post, News & Courier, and Post & Courier articles accessed via America’s News–Historical and Current; Sanborn Maps accessed via Digital Sanborn Maps on Proquest, accessed via Charleston County Public Library website.)