Fishnet Seafood

On US 17 south of Charleston, look for a dilapidated former gas station with a large parking lot outside where the pumps used to be. The parking lot is important because it is where you will dine if you are just passing through. There is no place to eat inside Fishnet Seafood, which is primarily a raw seafood market.

However – and this is a big however – there is a good-size menu of dinners, sandwiches, and by-the-pound fare that the fishmongers will cook for you. Breaded and fried when ordered, this is some wildly delicious stuff: brittle-crusted shrimp, local oysters, crab cakes, filets of flounder, bone-in or bone-out croaker, and Jesus crab, which is the management’s name for what other places refer to as devil crab.

… and that brings us to the unusual décor of this store/eatery, which includes not only the usual nautical nets and buoys, but signs everywhere reminding guests of Jesus’s goodness and ultimate importance. We’ve seen a lot of barbecues where religion is a fundamental aspect of the dining experience, but not so many seafood places. This is one where the original fisher of men is the star of the menu.