Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Repair in Knightsville, SC

(Reuters) - Baker Donelson is continuing its expansion in the Carolinas by opening a Charleston, South Carolina office, the firm said Monday.

The Southeast U.S. regional law firm opened an office in Raleigh, North Carolina, in October and has had a Columbia, South Carolina office since 2016. It hired lawyers away from Womble Bond Dickinson and Parker Poe for its new Charleston office.

The move comes in a busy year for legal markets across the Carolinas. Greenberg Traurig said in April that it hired a Winston & Strawn partner to open a Charlotte office. Another Florida-founded global firm, Holland & Knight, expanded its Charlotte office in June with five private equity partners from Moore & Van Allen. Dallas-based Haynes and Boone also expanded in Charlotte with the addition of three lawyers in October.

Milwaukee-based law firm Michael Best & Friedrich said in January that it acquired the 23-lawyer Forrest Firm, adding offices in Asheville, Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro, Grenville, Wilmington and Winston-Salem.

The founding shareholders in Baker Donelson's new Charleston office are health law attorneys Alissa Fleming and Catherine Wrenn, who joined from Womble, and corporate attorney Ashley Cooper and employment attorney Jennifer Dunlap, who joined from Parker Poe.

A representative from Womble did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Kristen Leis, chief marketing and business development officer at Parker Poe, said the number of attorneys at the firm grew 38% over the last three years and it is "unequivocally" looking to grow in Charleston.

Mark Carlson, Baker Donelson's chief growth officer, said the firm is working to create full service offices in its Carolinas locations.

"We have missed out on opportunities in North and South Carolina because we haven't had enough boots on the ground," he said.

(NOTE: This update includes a correction in a reference to a 38% percent increase in partner head count at Parker Poe to reflect that the increase includes all attorneys.)

Read more:

Reince Priebus' law firm expands in North Carolina

Haynes and Boone adds three Cadwalader lawyers in North Carolina

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SUMMERVILLE — Tables begin to fill up just past noon at a restaurant 31 miles from downtown Charleston.

Surrounded by chain eateries in a Publix-anchored strip mall, La Cuisine Du Chevalier — or La Chev, as most call it — has the buzz of an energetic lunch crowd ready for some midday human interaction.

A trio of women attempt to corral four children while dunking grilled bread into large white bowls of bouillabaisse, brimming with mussels, shrimp and white fish, all steeping in saffron broth.

Empty black shells are pushed aside at another round mahogany table, where two friends catch up over mussels and glasses of iced tea.

A man sitting solo at a two-top finishes his meal and tells the server he will be back next week.

These are the sights and sounds of a restaurant that’s become a neighborhood lunchtime favorite less than a year after quietly opening in November 2022.

I would have never found La Chev without a tip from a colleague, but I’m glad I came. That satisfaction extends to residents of the Knightsville and Summerville area, who have thanked owner Jason Tucker for bringing his Southern take on French cuisine to them rather than downtown Charleston.

“A lot of people were confused about why I did it here,” said Tucker, a Summerville resident. “I saw the direction of where the homes are going.”

Tucker struck out on his own after cutting his professional teeth at restaurants in Charleston’s French Quarter. Inside the strip center space that previously housed a Ladles sandwich and soup shop, the Johnson & Wales University graduate is teaming up with La Chev’s chef de cuisine, Jonathan DuPriest, who grew up in Knightsville.

Whether it’s crab dip with grilled bread or seared scallops over French onion cheese risotto, DuPriest is consistently coming up with new daily specials that the restaurant posts on its Facebook page, which takes the place of an actual website.

La Chev boasts separate lunch and dinner menus, but there are several crossovers, including the shrimp and grits, crab croquettes and yellowfin tuna — a dish that stood out after two visits to the restaurant.

The lightly-seared tuna, served cold, rests on a steaming hot medley of chopped asparagus, corn, confit tomato and cubed bacon. A speckled cream sauce pulls the vegetables together, adding sweet smokiness to the fresh but mild fish.

“It doesn’t just play with your taste buds, it plays with the temperature sensitivities of your palate, as well,” Tucker said.

With a nice crust and firm pink center, the tuna hits all corners of my mouth, leaving soft, peppery spice behind. Though served as an appetizer, I enjoyed it as my full meal with an order of duck coq au vin dumplings — a fun riff on a French classic — on the side.

During dinner, the white tablecloths are brought out and topped with larger appetizers and mains that allow for some “Lowcountry liberties,” Tucker said.

For instance, crab croquettes are more petite crab cake than filled-and-fried roll, but the flawed descriptor doesn’t take away from each delicate bite. Paired with a light and bright diced cucumber salad, the patties’ crab-to-filler ratio favors the former.

A trio of cheese-adorned meatballs, floating in tomato ragù and served with small wedges of garlic bread, is another appetizer that satisfies without reinventing the wheel.

The same can often be said for the restaurant’s dinner entrees.

Roasted salmon, stuffed with crab and served atop crisp green beans, is one example of an expertly cooked daily special. On the side, Carolina Gold rice is bound with cheese to form a thick patty, bringing substance and salt to the Southern grains.

Steak, which appears to have been marinated and spent some time in the oven, makes up for a lack of crust with a juicy, tender texture — almost reminiscent of the roasted filet of beef my mother serves at Christmas.

Of the six dishes I sampled at La Chev, each one left me without complaints.

There isn’t much in the way of décor, more noticeable during a Monday night dinner service that saw just two occupied tables between 5:45 and 6:45 p.m. This was a far cry from the crowded lunch service I witnessed weeks before, making me ponder if ownership might consider closing their doors on Monday, typically the slowest dining day of the week.

It also made me wonder if this type of restaurant — a place that skirts the line between neighborhood establishment and one worthy of a special night out — can work in this location.

I remain optimistic.

While it’s just four miles from the town’s top restaurants — Laura, Bexley and La Rustica, among others — it’s less crowded and closer to home for many Summerville restaurants.

And as those who have dined at La Chev have likely realized, there isn’t anything like it in Knightsville.

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Jason Tucker reports that business is booming at the boîte known as La Cuisine du Chevalier, or La Chev, by the locals. The 40-seat restaurant, which translates to “the knight’s kitchen,” garnered rave reviews by online contributors when it opened in November at the former soup restaurant called Ladles in the Shoppes of Summerville.

It only recently held a grand opening celebration.

Tucker, who has lived in Summerville for the past 16 years, is no stranger to the restaurant business.

“My background is extremely diverse and it started back when I was 15-years’ old scooping ice cream in Central Pennsylvania,” he said.

Related content: Charleston rooftop bar, restaurant to renovate, rebrand

Over the years, Tucker has worked in numerous restaurants, from chains like Buffalo Wild Wings, Cracker Barrel and the Hilton, to groups like Charleston Hospitality and more. After bartending his way through college in Virginia, the hard-working transplant accepted a management position from his employer, which took him to Summerville, where he has been ever since.

The father of two boys is also the operating partner at Wine & Tapas in Summerville and was buoyed by the popularity of the business. This inspired him to open a new restaurant, this time with a French flair.

“They call the area the French Quarter, but it lacked a French-themed restaurant, which never made sense to me, especially with the growth we are seeing in this area,” he said.

Tucker said that La Chev was designed to evoke the feeling of walking down the Champs-Élysées.

“It’s a cute café that’s quaint and all about the food and wine,” he said.

It doesn’t hurt that Tucker worked in the wine distribution business and is well-versed on what’s exceptional. He said that his goal is to bring people in by rivaling the quality that a customer would get in downtown Charleston.

“It’s all about the ingredients and there’s a lot of precision and thought that goes into each of our dishes,” he said, adding that chef de cuisine Jonathan DuPriest, who grew up in Knightsville, is Johnson and Wales-trained.

When it comes to dishes, Tucker said that the most popular lunch items that they serve are the French Dip and the shrimp and grits.

“A lot of people judge the quality of the restaurant by their shrimp and grits,” he said.

As for dinner, Tucker offers quite a few specials, ranging from steak dishes, to surf and turf, scallops, crabcakes, and salmon.

“Everyone says that it’s the best salmon served in the Atlantic Coastal area,” Tucker said.

For now, La Chev is taking reservations, except for the bar and outside area, so last-minute plans to dine can be accommodated if guests don’t mind sitting in either area.

Tucker also recently announced that they will be open on Sundays for brunch.

“We’re currently working on the menu which we will implement sometime around the end of July,” he said.

Kurry Seymour was a Ladles customer who was wowed by his first visit.

“This place brings a refreshing vibe to the Knightsville area and I am impressed by the décor, which was converted into a very fine, but very cozy dining experience,” he said.

Reviews like this are music to Tucker’s ears.

“I never thought I’d be in a situation where I’d be running two separate restaurants, but I love the feeling one gets when someone is happy with an experience. Making moments special is the best feeling in the world and having the opportunity to have someone really love what you’re doing, well, it doesn’t get any better than that,” he said, with a smile.

Stefanie Kalina-Metzger is a contributing writer for SC Biz News.

Take a look inside Summerville restaurant La Cuisine Du Chevalier, located in a Publix-anchored strip mall 31 miles outside of downtown Charleston.

The San Antonio Spurs (5-30) will try to stop a five-game losing streak when they visit the Detroit Pistons (3-34) at 7:00 PM ET on Wednesday, January 10, 2024. The Pistons have also dropped five games straight.

The Spurs take on the Pistons. The Spurs are favored by 3.5 points against the Pistons. The game features an over/under of 239.5.

In their last game, the Spurs got a team-high 24 points from Victor Wembanyama in a 117-115 loss to the Cavaliers on Sunday. No line was set for the matchup, and the teams combined to score 232 points to push on the over/under. Their last time out, the Pistons saw Bojan Bogdanovic score a team-high 26 points in a 131-110 loss to the Kings on Tuesday. No line was set for the matchup, and the teams combined to score 241 points to fall short of the over/under.

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The Charlotte Hornets (8-26) will look to stop a five-game home losing skid when taking on the Sacramento Kings (22-14) on Wednesday, January 10, 2024 at Spectrum Center, airing at 7:00 PM ET on BSSE and NBCS-CA.

The Kings are a 6.5-point favorite against the Hornets when the Kings and the Hornets square off. The point total for the game is 234.5.

In their last game, the Kings got a team-high 37 points from Domantas Sabonis on the way to a 131-110 victory against the Pistons on Tuesday. No line was set for the matchup, and the teams combined to score 241 points to push on the over/under. In the Hornets’ most recent game on Monday, Terry Rozier scored a team-high 39 points in a 119-112 loss to the Bulls. No line was set for the matchup, and the teams combined to score 231 points to go under the point total.

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The New York Knicks (22-15) will turn to Jalen Brunson (25.6 points per game, 15th in NBA) when they try to beat Luka Doncic (33.6, second) and the Dallas Mavericks (22-16) on Thursday, January 11, 2024 at American Airlines Center. It starts at 8:30 PM ET on BSSW and MSG.

The Mavericks and the Knicks play with no line set for the game.

The Mavericks fell 120-103 to the Grizzlies in their last outing on Tuesday. Kyrie Irving put up a team-high 33 points in the loss. No line was set for the matchup, and the teams combined to go under the point total. In the Knicks’ most recent game on Tuesday, OG Anunoby scored a team-high 23 points on the way to a 112-84 win against the Trail Blazers. No line was set for the matchup, and the teams combined to score 196 points to fall short of the point total.

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SUMMERVILLE, S.C. (WCBD) – It was 1973 when Shirley McGreal, then living in Southeast Asia, saw beady bright eyes staring back at her from between the slats of a wooden crate.

The eyes belonged to a gibbon — a primate native to the region — who had fallen victim to the dangerous world of the pet trade, where gibbons were being sold into homes, zoos, or labs, only to later be discarded.

In 1977, McGreal created the International Primate Protection League (IPPL) in Summerville as a gibbon sanctuary. The now 47-acre property remains nestled in a quiet area of the Lowcountry that is illuminated by the sounds of the primates singing to one another.

Meg McCue-Jones, the Compliance and Outreach Manager, explained that the land was a sod farm in the late 70s and started taking in the gibbons that needed help soon after.

One of the sanctuary’s residents, Gibby, is one of the oldest known living gibbons at over 60 years old.

Like most of the gibbons at the sanctuary, his life started off rough.

McCue-Jones said that Gibby was wild caught, and “with every gibbon wild caught, they shoot mom out of the tree, hoping baby falls, and then they take the baby.”

He was first sold into the pet trade in by a Bangkok dealer, but that was just the beginning. Gibby went to labs at Hofstra University and the State University at Stony Brook.

Researchers embedded electrodes in his skin as part of a locomotion project.

The electrodes and thin wires were inserted into his muscles and connected him to a suit that would measure his muscle movements. McCue-Jones explained that this was obviously not an ideal situation on any aspect, whether it be a human or animal.

At 44, Gibby made it to his first sanctuary, but the conditions were hard on his body. In March of 2007, just four years after his arrival, the IPPL reached out to the sanctuary to relocate not only Gibby, but several other gibbons.

For Gibby, like the other 29 at the sanctuary, Summerville is his last stop. McCue-Jones says that the sanctuary is their forever home.

But with the pandemic, their home has become more difficult to manage.

With fear of COVID-19 spreading to the primates, volunteers were no longer allowed to assist with the many daily tasks necessary to keep the place running.

From hosing the outsides of the enclosures, to raking, food prep, and even assistance inside the office—the staff was left with mounting responsibilities.

The economic impacts of the pandemic left donors and community partners reeling financially, but the bills at the sanctuary remained steady.

As a non-federally funded organization, the IPPL relies heavily on donations to meet the needs of the animals.

Stacy Lambert, a Senior Animal Care Giver, said that since a lot of their population has started to reach geriatric ages, their vet bills are getting bigger as they are having more interventions and medications, different procedures, and checkup appointments with Dr. John Ohlandt.

While expensive, their system of care has proven to work.

Lambert says that in the wild, gibbons usually live about 30-35 years. However, in captivity, gibbons living into their 40s is normal. However, the IPPL has quite a few gibbons that are up in their 40s and 50s while, of course, Gibby is 62.

Although the interventions from the IPPL show the ability of the sanctuary, McCue-Jones said all those at the IPPL ultimately wish there was not a need for them at all, and that the gibbons could live freely in the wild.

McCue-Jones said, “as Shirley has spoken of before, if you really think about it, do humans need sanctuaries, should we have them? Should we be treating the animals this way?”

To send the Gibbons a care package full of nuts, click here.

To donate to the IPPL’s missions and day-to-day operations, click here.

To send specified items needed by the IPPL via Amazon, click here.