The Griffon — Restaurant in Charleston

We stumbled on this pub on our walk around the historic district of Charleston recently. It is billed as a traditional English pub, and therefore, being English myself I felt obliged to check it out. My son & I made our way to the bar area and we sat in the corner of the bar near the cash desk. This gave us a good chance to chat with the bar staff, particularly a nice, friendly lady who showed a genuine interest in her customers. Glancing through the impressive list of draft beers I chose the Ghost Monkey Stretchy Pants Kölsch. Kölsch beer comes originally from Cologne in Germany near where I live. This Kölsch beer didn't resemble much the original stuff but it was refreshing, nonetheless. By the way, proper Kölsch would never be sold in pint glasses – traditionally only 0,2l Stangen of course. My son stayed with a chilled, sweet ice tea.

They have no WiFi here which is a pity. And the resemblance to an English pub? Well, I suppose so, but English pubs don't usually have their walls & ceiling completely plastered with layers on one dollar bills. Except, I was in a Soho pub in London recently and they had their walls covered in money as well.

All in all, we found this to be a nice place, made particularly special by the bar lady who was happy to chat with us when not serving other customers. I would have tried to drink myself through their list of beers but I was driving later that evening so no way....

CHECK YOUR CREDIT CARD STATEMENT AFTER EATING HERE! Someone will charge a 18% gratuity for themselves if you do not tip when paying for your check online. We had the worst service from the waitress that never showed up after 45 minutes of us being seated. We had to ask another waiter to please take our order. The entire night she only stopped by our table three times and had a bad attitude. She neglected the other tables that were hers around us. The other tables were also complaining about the service from her and needed someone else to take their order after sitting there forever. We tipped the waiter, with cash, that ended up helping us the rest of the night because he provided better service and kept checking up on our table. We had to pay for our meal through the toast app and I had a screenshot of my bill and when I check my bank statement there is a $6 increase. I did not approve of being charged another $6. There was a reason I did not tip her. I believe she took it upon herself to give herself $6. If she did it to me, I am sure she has had done it before to other people. That is stealing. If you so choose to eat here, keep an eye out on your credit card statement at the Griffon. To top it off, the food was...

What a nice pub style restaurant. It was very busy, but we didn't have to wait in line, which was nice, especially in that heat. It's a very unique restaurant, the walls and ceilings are full of dollar bills with names, dates, messages etc. Before we left each one of us stapled a dollar bill with our name and date on the wall. The servers were super nice, and the food was excellent. Even my picky 12 year old loved the grilled cheese and fries. He actually said he never had such a delicious grilled cheese sandwich before. (I know, doesn't say much about my cooking skills,lol). My 16 year old had a black bean burger, she really loved eating it. Usually she is on some kind of diet (she is skinny, no diet needed) that she won't gain an ounce. But she ate that huge burger with gusto. My friend had a Philly cheese steak sandwich for the first time in his life (he is visiting from Germany) and he loved it. And my fries, OMG, they were out of this world. I didn't know fries can taste so good. Besides that, it was a huge portion, I couldn't even finish it, I shared them with my kids. The prices are very reasonable too, which is definitely a plus. Next time I'm downtown I will definitely eat...