Pearlz Oyster Bar

Great oysters, fish & chips and oyster shooters.

Very good oyster selection. Everything we had was great. Service was friendly and fast.

Oh Pearlz! You were good to us. On our first visit to Charleston we stopped by this place a couple of times for happy hour. It’s from 4 – 7 and have some great specials on oysters, shrimp, drinks and other apps.
We walked in at 4:05 one afternoon and the bar was almost completely full. Everyone was ordering oysters and shrimp so we decided to join the party and do the same.
I’m not a fan of oysters, but they were good and fresh. I personally enjoyed the peel and eat shrimp. I ordered a cocktail of their HH menu $ 6 and I believe champagne is $ 3 and draft beer as well. The drinks were delicious I really like The Belon.
We did try other items such as the lobster roll and seafood gumbo. My bf couldn’t get enough of the gumbo, it was very tasty.
Solid happy hour place, really friendly bartenders and staff. Great oysters and drinks. Can’t wait to return!

Enjoy happy hour (pm4/​pm7); provide oyster plate, pork rinds, grilled Mahi taco, the house wine & champagne are also with discount price.
But the champagne isn’t real champagne, just Spain sparkling, $ 3 per glass, no big deal, have fun!
You must enjoy the food in Charlston downtown.

Great first night in Charleston. Steamed oysters, lobster roll, Mahi taco, mussels, crabcakes… it was all really good. The 2 things that stood out most were the fact that both the 5 year old (fish sticks and a grilled cheese) and the 11 year old (mussels app and a Ceasars salad) both cleaned their plates. They also had a whiskey drink like an old fashioned with lemon that was my favorite part of dinner

Get here early! We got here 30 minutes after they opened and the wait for a non-​communal table was 45 minutes. The staff was more than accommodating though and gave us bar stool seat until the table was available since we had our 2 month old with us. Three dozen oysters, mahi tacos and 1.5 lbs of peel and eat shrimp later I would’ve given Pearlz 5 stars! Unfortunately I ordered a lobster roll as a last course and it was underwhelming at best, very little lobster salad on an overly buttered roll. Still though, the happy hour is unbeatable and the oysters are fantastic!

First time to Charleston and stopped here right from the airport at 10pm. Open later than other places which is a plus! Greeted at the door right away and sat immediately. Friendly staff and knowledgable about the daily fish menu. I ordered the Lemon– Herb Swordfish and my bf ordered the Sheepshead pan seared. Both were delicious! Red rice was very flavorful and fish was fresh.

I love Happy Hour in Charleston and Pearlz is always my first stop. I always get the dozen oysters ($ 10.95 during HH sometimes I need to follow up with a second dozen) with champagne (HH $ 3/​glass) and oyster shooters (HH $ 3.50). Occasionally I will get the house salad with the oysters and they have a house made creamy dill (I don’t think they consider it ranch) that is delish. I did get the clam chowder once and was less than pleased with it, runny with very little clam flavor and even fewer clams, so I haven’t made that mistake again. Back to the oysters though, for being house oysters these little suckers are plump and loaded with flavor. And Pearlz does a really good cocktail sauce (and don’t forget to mix in the horseradish!).
Expect there to be a wait during HH and dinner during the week. But don’t worry, put your name on the list and head across and down the street just a bit to the Gin Joint and take advantage of their HH until you get a call from Pearlz OR get a drink and linger near the bar since those seats are first come first served.
P. S. these are the current prices which have increased a bit since I first started going but still a good deal. Happy Hour is from 4−7pm M-​F

After reading another Unilocalers review, we visited Pearlz in the early afternoon on Sunday.
As you walk in, there is a chalkboard that lists the different oysters and fresh fish catch available that day. They had some interesting fish that we hadn’t tried.
We had a sampler dozen of six different types of oysters; two of each type. They were placed on the plate like a clock, going from South to North, where we noted the different salinity and meatiness of each oyster. It was fun to taste each one and compare the flavors and consistency to the ones before. Then we ordered another dozen of the oysters that we liked the best.
After that delight, we tried the Grilled Sampler Plate of four smallish pieces of the fresh catch fish (from the board), with risotto and a light tomato sauce. We enjoyed both very much.
The service was good, and the vibe comfortable. The only con was the excessive amount of sand and oyster shell chips in each of the oysters that we tried. I like to drink the oyster liquor and this made it difficult to do with any grace. Other than that, it was an excellent experience.

YASSS! That’s all I can muster when I think of Pearlz. This was our first visit to Charleston and it was also a celebratory trip. I wanted champagne, and my husband wanted oysters. Enter Pearlz happy hour. I didn’t think $ 1 oysters or $ 3 champagne could actually be good, but boy was I wrong. The champagne was great – bubbly, dry, but with a nice flavor. My husband really enjoyed the oysters and also had an oyster shooter. I enjoyed the happy hour shrimp, which were fresh and delicious. We weren’t ready to leave so we ordered the homemade chips and they were perfect as well – crispy, a little greasy, and a hint of old bay or BBQ. We didn’t come here until the last night of our trip, which is probably a good thing, because I would have spent the whole weekend here had I known how great it was.
We did have to wait for a little bit to get a seat at the bar during happy hour (4 – 7) but we were able to get drinks to stand with. The bartenders, and the patrons, were friendly and helpful in making sure we could get drinks and see the menu. The whole vibe of this place is local and friendly.

Came here for happy hour and had a BLAST! The house (river) oysters were under $ 10 a dozen, so we destroyed those and then tried the dozen variety (without the house oysters). Each was amazing!
Our Bloody Mary’s were outstanding, both the regular and the shrimp version, and again, super cheap for Happy Hour!
My favorite part… HOME MADE PORK RINDS! Seriously?!? I know I’m not from the south, but DAMN, I nearly drooled at the thought! They came out warm, and BBQ flavored and WHOAH… Just WHOAH.
The corn fritters were also amazing– a sweet and savory treat that felt like a dessert in between our meal! Yey.
Great service, excellent oyster shuckers (who by the way, gave GREAT advice on other places to visit while we were in town).
Super happy and definitely recommend coming for happy hour, but get here EARLY because this place gets packed!

The BLT seafood tower is great and the price is really reasonable. Around 145 for 4 (including tax and tips).
We ordered two dozens of oysters, a salad, a soup, a lobster roll, a linguine, a chocolate liquor, and some chips. Recommend the salad, aka the BLT seafood tower for the richness and healthiness; the oyster platter for the rather cheap price but the oysters are not as flavorful as those I had in Chelsea Market at NYC. The homemade chips are great, especially when consumed with the blue cheese.
Do not recommend the lobster roll, the linguine and the clam chowder. The lobsters are not chewy and the bread not properly toasted. The linguine has a lot of great seafood but I don’t really like the pasta. The clam chowder is a little too salty for us.
*Bonus: Awesome service and friendly staff

After driving all day and skipping lunch, we were starving and in need of sustenance. We stumbled across this place soonafter arriving in Charleston and, coincidentally, it was during their daily Happy Hour! Honestly, the Happy Hour menu (4−7p M through Fri) is where it’s at! You can sample a handful of items (including from the raw bar) for a nice discount.
My husband and I each ordered a cocktail ($ 6 during HH) and started with a dozen raw oysters for $ 10.95. And these oysters were HUGE and came with all the extra fixings– crackers, cocktail sauce/​horseradish, a vinaigrette and lemon slices. We didn’t slow down and ordered the homemade chips with bleu cheese. Yummy pieces of crunchy goodness… once you started you couldn’t stop munching on them and the order was more than generous for 2. As if that wasn’t enough, I ordered the tuna burger off the main menu while my husband ordered several of the mahi tacos off the Happy Hour menu. The tuna burger had a hearty piece of tuna cooked medium rare. One of the unique toppings was seaweed salad which sounds a little odd at first but it totally worked. Delicious! My husband had the mahi tacos which are served in flour tortillas. He enjoyed them and appreciated that the mahi wasn’t just dipped in batter and fried. They kept it simple by grilling it, then topping it with cabbage, pico de gallo and crema.
Service was great. Our server was on top of things and super friendly and even advised me not to order the extra taco (my eyes are always bigger than my stomach) since the tuna burger was so hearty. The restaurant is lively and had a fun vibe as it seems to cater to both tourists and young professionals in the area.
Highly recommend this place!

Everytime I go to Charleston, I always make a pitstop to Pearlz. It has become one of my favorite places to get seafood when I’m down in the South. They have a fixed menu and rotating menu based on what seafood is in season written on a chalkboard to the right of the oyster bar. For our last visit, we tried various small dishes:
Steamed Mussels: not bad but not fantastic as well. Great wine flavors though.
Baked Oyster Rockefeller: one of my favorite appetizers. Highly recommend
N.E. Clam Chowder: Creamy and fills the soul. Chunks of clam were floating all around the soup.
Old Bay Lobster Bisque: the old bay spice was incredibly overpowering. I couldn’t taste anything other than that
Though the food is good, the wait to get a table is insanely long. The service is also a bit slow and I believe this is part of the reason their turnaround time for tables are a bit slower than average. Would I come here again? Of course! At the end of each dinner here, the manager or owner made a stop at our table and asked us about our experience and tried to get to know their customers. I really appreciate the fact that they still wanted our feedback on our experience (even though they’re already so busy). They recently opened a new Pearlz location right next to my parent’s place in Charlotte and I cannot wait to bring them there.

Stopped in yesterday for happy hour drinks and appetizers with coworkers. Was pleasantly surprised to learn Pearlz makes some small batch beers. I ordered a white ale. I got a pint fresh off of the new keg. Very good first pint but the second tasted bitter and overly effervescent. :(
We ordered some crab dip and calamari to share– both were phenomenal. They certainly do seafood well! Will def have to return for some wine and seafood

I had dinner at Pearlz Oyster Bar while in Charleston for a wedding in May. It was very crowded inside the restaurant on a Sunday evening, and we requested to sit outside. Luckily a few tables were turning over about 15 minutes after we got there so we didn’t have to wait too long. We had ordered beers at the bar while we were waiting, but it took our server at least 15 additional minutes to bring us water to the table. It took quite awhile for her to take our order, and for our food to arrive. I am a pretty patient person but I was getting antsy during that meal.
I had a seafood special that came with risotto. The risotto was good but some of the pieces of fish were a bit overcooked and had a rubbery texture to them. My boyfriend had the NY Strip, and enjoyed his meal (it is rare for him to complain about a steak dinner). We declined dessert because my boyfriend had his eyes set on gelato down the street.
I just went to the Pearlz website to reference for my review, and I just noticed that they are a small chain, with 4 locations in NC and SC. Dang, I thought I had picked a nice mom and pop restaurant.

Place was packed with people at happy hour with good reason. I think that downtown this has got to be one of the better casual happy hours that gives a good value with their Oysters and some other items but this night I had the oysters. We had a table of 6 and 4 of them were our guests from out of town. They loved it. The food service was above average although it was so busy that sometimes we waited a little longer for things but all in all very good service. My oysters were great. The ambiance is perfect for what you are getting. I usually go to the West Ashley Store but this place really does feel authentic with the décor. Looking forward to coming back sometime when not as busy but really not sure when that is. I think we are in offseason right now and it was full. Good products and service make for a steady clientele. Will be back!

Oh hiya pals– Here I am to tell you news that you most certainly must already know, or at least have heard tell all over town. That fact can’t stop me from singin these praises, though. Pearlz has an excellent happy hour. Do it. You like oysters? Go!
Between the hours of 4 – 6 Monday– Friday, a dozen expertly shucked, beautiful, super freshy raw oysters are $ 10.95. Wonderful.
That means we’re gettin two dozen. At least. And probably a couple of shooters too, those tasty gulps of greatness. The olé gal loves her oysters, alright. Wash em down with homegrown drafts at $ 3 each? Don’t mind if i dooo…
Want some more redundant recommendations? I’m not even gonna wait for your response! I’m tellin you like all the rest that you’ll be needing some of those corn fritters too. Like really. So light and fluffy inside their crispy exterior, and savory and sweet with a slight dusting of powdered sugar; they’re almost like a corny beignet. Delicious. So do that too.
Another snacky accompaniment to oyster slurping which we really enjoyed as well were Pearlz’ homemade potato chips with blue cheese. Tasty. Business.
Now as I’ve noted the echoing nature of this review here, and how I’m not coming at you with any groundbreaking news, you may be wondering why I even went to ramblin’ trouble. I’ll tell ya. When we’ve had a great time I like to yell about it. That’s the case here.
Every time we’ve been to Pearlz the place has been packed, yet service stays top notch. Our servers have been fast with the refills and friendly t’boot. The oysters are pristine. Dope snacks here. Repeater repeats: Happy Hour. Go!

Food was good but not OMG. Had assortment of oysters and their house oysters (James river va), the seafood stack, and gumbo. We were happy with all of them. The price and freshness of the oysters were excellent, my salad was tasty — although I would’ve preferred a different lettuce as the base since the iceberg gets kind of soft. Gumbo was too thick for my taste and definitely needed more seafood — tasted more sausage than seafood.
It was crowded but the service was not exactly efficient. The wait staff doesn’t appear to work as a team and help clearing plates, refilling waters, etc. Saw lots of walking by fast empty handed and no eye contact with tables around.
It takes awhile but not unreasonably so… So for those in a hurry beware!

Once again, I’m happy I trusted Unilocal to lead me to a winner.
I loved this place. I was in town on a business trip and happened to be wandering around the downtown area around dinner and came in.
Great atmosphere and the hostess was super friendly. I ordered «The Naked Cowboy» and it was probably the best mixed drink I’ve had all year.
Also purchased a half dozen of the half oysters and the seafood hot pot. All good choices!