The Lowcountry Seafood Guide: Buy It at the Dock, Eat It at the Table

The best seafood meal you eat in the Lowcountry might be one you cook yourself. Shrimp come off the boats at Shem Creek and Thunderbolt most mornings in season. Oysters get pulled from the same creeks the restaurants pull from. You can buy both a few feet from the water, from the people who caught them, for a fraction of what the plated version runs downtown.

That’s the case this guide makes. Plenty of restaurants are in here too. But also spend a morning at a fish house with a cooler in the trunk. It’s the older way of eating here, and it still works.

The coast splits into three stretches, each with its own docks, markets, and dining rooms.

Greater Charleston →

The Shem Creek shrimp docks, Bowens Island, and the market counters of Mount Pleasant and McClellanville.

Greater Hilton Head, Bluffton & Beaufort →

Bluffton Oyster Company on the May River, the shrimp boats at Gay Fish Company, and the fish camps in between.

Greater Savannah →

Russo’s on the Thunderbolt waterfront, the Tybee docks, and the tables that cook what they land.

You can also browse every seafood spot on the coast in the restaurant directory, where the “Buy Direct” filter pulls up the markets alone. Bring a cooler, and ask what came in that morning.

Every Seafood Market on the Coast

Abundant SeafoodMount PleasantBenny Hudson SeafoodHilton HeadBluffton Oyster CoBlufftonCrosby’s Fish & Shrimp Co.CharlestonGay Fish CompanyBeaufortLivingston’s Bulls Bay SeafoodCharlestonMatthews Seafood MarketSavannahMt. Pleasant SeafoodMount PleasantNantucket’s Meat & Fish MarketBlufftonRusso’s SeafoodSavannahSea Eagle MarketBeaufortSeven Seas Seafood MarketCharlestonTarvin Seafood / Miss Paula Shrimp/Abundant SeafoodMount Pleasant

The Map