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Take Home Charleston
Local vendors guarantee you’ll always find something unusual to remember your visit.
 Looking for a little piece of Charleston to take home? An authentic memento of your stay in the Holy City or a gift for a friend or loved one? The best place to start is the Old City Market in downtown Charleston. Stretching from East Bay Street all the way to Meeting Street, the Market was built on land given to the City of Charleston in the 18th century by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Although the Market has often been incorrectly labeled as a former slave market, it actually opened in 1807 as a consolidated shopping area where residents could buy meat, fish, produce and butter in one centralized location. The bustling Market was a smashing success, resulting in higher food standards and fair prices for residents of the peninsula, and increased revenue for vendors. Over the course of the 20th century, the Market gradually evolved from a primitive supermarket into the arts-and-crafts showcase it is today—a must-see for millions of tourists each year who are drawn by its colorful boutiques and local vendors selling handmade wares.
The vendors, including the many local artisans and international importers who occupy the Open Air Market and the adjoining enclosed Rainbow Market, not only bring flair and individuality to this unique shopping area, they also guarantee you’ll always find something unusual to take home. Local crafts, including the famous Charleston sweetgrass baskets, are popular, along with a whole menagerie of collectibles, clothing and miscellany.
 A number of tasty treats are also available, like hand-made pralines, fresh-from-the-oven baked goods and locally canned specialties, providing a delicious way to remember the city.
After more than 200 years in operation, the Market is currently undergoing a facelift. When completed, the “new” Market will include a greenmarket featuring indigenous crafts, artisan-styled foodstuffs and a food court.
The City Market isn’t the only place to find a huge variety of great gifts and keepsakes in every price range. Ever since Charleston made a name for itself as one of the Southeast’s top dining destinations, the city’s chefs, many of them world-renowned, have been eager to share their fare with hungry visitors. With such a wide assortment of cookbooks written by local chefs, there’s no reason to leave the region’s delicious Lowcountry cuisine behind. Cookbooks are available in bookstores, specialty cooking stores and restaurants, where enthusiastic diners might even get an autograph between courses. (And some restaurants even carry a line of chef-created specialty food items to take home.)
Can’t decide? Charleston Receipts, the Lowcountry’s first cookbook, is the perfect beginning volume for what will certainly become a collection. First published in 1950 by the Junior League of Charleston, the cookbook features the quintessential compilation of Lowcountry recipes and has earned the title of oldest cookbook of its kind continuously in print. With more than 750,000 books in print, it’s a best-seller by anyone’s standards. And to sweeten the pot, all the money raised through the sale of Charleston Receipts helps support the Charleston Speech and Hearing Center.
View our guide to shopping in Charleston.
Daniel Ravenel Sotheby's International Realty has the connections and insights of nine generations of Charlestonians. Daniel Ravenel SIR is an independent and locally owned company that only staffs counselors who are native to, or well-established in Charleston. We are familiar with every detail of the Charleston real estate market. We know the Battery to the Beaches and everything in between, and this makes us better able to anticipate and more importantly act on opportunities. Nearly $1 billion in real estate transactions since 1983.
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