Local favorite Westside restaurant Harold’s Cabin & The Pickled Beat announced it was closing on Instagram last week.
The restaurant’s last day of service is February 24.
Co-owner John Schumacher said that the Harold’s team recently decided that the restaurant had accomplished what its owners had set out to do when they bought the building at the corner of Congress and President streets: create a neighborhood-friendly bar and restaurant.
The current iteration of Harold’s Cabin paid homage to the original Harold’s Cabin, which served Westside residents from the 1920s-1950s. Schumacher and co-owners Mike Veeck, Bill Murray and Drew Childers bought the vacant building in 2014 and the spot officially opened to the public in 2015. The Pickled Beat, the restaurant’s upstairs bar and lounge, was added in early 2023.
“It’s bittersweet,” admitted Schumacher, who added that it’s always nice when a restaurant can go out on its own terms. He’s not sure what the future holds for the building, but he is personally taking two months of vacation. “It’s been seven days a week for ten years. I told my family I was gonna remind them what I looked like,” he joked.
Schumacher’s words are reminiscent of several other local chefs and restaurateurs we’ve chatted with recently. When Brown’s Court Bakery closed last November, owner David Schnell said he chose to close his beloved bakery for the sake of his family.
In a recent story about Charleston’s independent restaurants, restaurateur Michael Shemtov admitted that he was no longer subjecting himself to the daily grind of restaurant ownership: “At this point in my life, I’m just not interested in being on-site six nights a week to make something work. I had the luxury of raising my hand and saying, ‘that was enough.’ ”
Say goodbye with hot dogs
The silver lining, of course, is the outpouring of love from locals who will miss Harold’s Cabin.
Schumacher was blown away by the response to Harold’s Instagram closing post. “It’s been absolutely overwhelming and beautiful,” he said. “People have been coming and telling us how much they love it.”
You can tell the folks at Harold’s how much you loved them too, this Saturday, during the restaurant’s final service. The “black tie hot dog gala” kicks off at 4 p.m. and creative formal wear is encouraged. “It’s something in the cabin spirit,” said Schumacher, who should know a thing or two about hot dogs. Before joining Harold’s Cabin, Schumacher was the F&B director at the Riverdogs
“A neighborhood doesn’t need a restaurant,” said Schumacher. “A restaurant needs a neighborhood. It’s always been important to us to be part of the neighborhood.”
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