Stuart Forster dines at Millers All Day in Charleston, South Carolina, experiencing southern hospitality, cocktails and good food – including traditionally made grits.
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On entering Millers All Day, a bar and restaurant on King Street in downtown Charleston, I knew — simply knew — that I had to photograph the team working there.
With their beards, tattoos, rugged looks and laid-back attitude, it was obvious they would be naturals in front of the camera.
Southern hospitality is, of course, renowned. Despite it being a busy lunchtime, would they mind taking a moment to be photographed? I’d have regretted it long into the future if I hadn’t asked that question. Not at all, came the answer. Nothing quite shows the charm of people as smiling and being gracious while under pressure.
A Charlestonian said to me that one of the big differences between people in Charleston and, say, New York City, is that folk in the Holy City (a nickname derived from the many churches in Charleston) tend to have more time for conversation than up north.
A miller of grits
That proved to be the case with Greg Johnsman, one of the owners of Millers All Day, whom I chatted with while photographing by the restaurant’s antique mill.
“Millers is a concept of my partner of mine. He’s a chef, I’m a farmer and we kind of came together thinking we could do a brunch spot. Brunch is a big deal here in Charleston, South Carolina…it’s an opportunity for people to come together,” explained Greg as he stood by a neon sign advertising grits, a popular all-day dish in the southern states of the USA.
Though I’d heard grits mentioned in movies set in America’s South, I’d never previously tasted them so felt compelled to ask Greg for clarification about what they are.
“Think polenta and cornmeal. Depending on where you get polenta, some’s course and some finer. Grits are separated out between the bran and the germ and the meat. The meat is the heaviest kind of piece. We cook it very similar to oatmeal. As the day progresses, we add different toppings to it,” answered Greg.
“Morning could be a simple bowl of grits with a little bit of cheese or butter. By night you can have shrimp and bacon and all different things put on top,” he elaborated. Millers All Day opens at 7.00 am every day, serving traditional dishes such as biscuits and gravy (picture scones doused in a creamy pepper sauce laced with chunks of chopped sausage), chicken and waffles, corn muffins in addition, of course, to bowls of grits.
Grits in South Carolina
Greg didn’t mind sharing his favourite grits recipe.
“I got two little boys that sometimes don’t want to eat grits. We make a lot of grits because that’s what I do for a living. But once you make the grits, I’ll have another pan going of sausage crumble. I throw it in the pot when the grits are done with a lot of cheese and rotel. Rotel is a kind of mixture of onions, peppers, tomatoes and a little hot sauce. I throw it all in there. I call it ‘the dump recipe’ or ‘the pot licker’. The whole pot is licked when everybody’s done,” he grinned.
Greg started milling as a teenager.
“When I was in middle school, I used to help an old man on the weekend to restore old tractors and equipment — he was a third-generation miller. They were making moonshine…they didn’t want me getting in to help that way, so they kept me busy milling all the corn.”
“I married into a family farm and as we saw the end in sight, knowing that the tomatoes and all we were growing from a shipping standpoint wasn’t going to be there, my business started growing large enough for chefs all over the United States. The rest of the family now grows for the milling of the operation. It was a kind of a hobby turned passion and saved the family farm,” he explained.
Eating at Millers All Day
Millers All Day opened in 2018 and has the vibe of a modern diner. After photographing Greg, I headed back to my table for a bowl of spring pea and potato vichyssoise, a type of fresh soup, followed by a plate of seasoned flounder served with unicorn grits.
Davey, the bar manager, mentioned he had developed a number of fruit cocktails as daytime drinks. I ordered a Holiday in Tortuga (a cocktail mixed with pineapple rum, strawberry Campari and Antica Formula vermouth) before photographing him at work.
After a slice of brown coconut cream pie, I grabbed an opportunity to photograph Greg with Nathan Thurston, the chef who co-owns Millers All Day and specialises in the Lowcountry cuisine of South Carolina.
Perhaps one more cocktail and I would have stayed all day at Millers? But with so much of Charleston still to explore it was time for me to make a move.
Visiting Millers All Day
Millers All Day (tel. +1 843 501 7342) is at 120 King Street in Charleston, South Carolina, USA.
Millers All Day menu
The menu at Millers All Day features sandwiches, biscuits and gravy, cornmeal pancakes and more. You can preview the menu online.
Map of Millers All Day
The map below shows the location of Millers All Day in downtown Charleston:
Travel to Charleston
JetBlue, KLM and American Airlines operate flights between London Heathrow and Charleston International Airport with one stop.
Hotels in Charleston
Search for accommodation in Charleston, South Carolina, using the map below:
Books about Charleston
Planning a trip to Charleston? You can buy the following from Amazon:
Lonely Planet Pocket Charleston and Savannah.
Very Charleston: A Celebration of History, Culture, and Lowcountry Charm by Diana Hollingsworth Gessler.
Useful travel information
See the Explore Charleston website for information about the city and its attractions.
Further information
Thank you for visiting Go Eat Do and reading this post about dining at Millers All Day in Charleston, South Carolina. If you are planning on visiting Charleston and appreciate history, don’t miss the opportunity to visit Fort Sumter.
Stuart Forster, the author of this post, is an award-winning travel writer. He received the U.S. Travel Association’s 2026 IPW Travel Writer Award (Best Trade Publication).
Photographs illustrating this post are by Why Eye Photography.
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This post was initially published on Go Eat Do on 25 April 2019.
Geoff Moorse
February 20, 2021 at 13:39Nice memories of a lovely city!
Go Eat Do
February 23, 2021 at 19:26Yes indeed. Charleston really did impress.