Lowcountry Food: Plums Restaurant a local favorite for decades

By Stephanie Venz | Plums Restaurant is older than I am. Yes that’s right; it’s been a local Lowcountry favorite since 1986. A casual dining experience, Plums is well known in the community for it’s great waterfront park locality and fresh salads and sandwiches. A friend of mine and I recently stopped by the downtown eatery for lunch, choosing to sit on the outside patio and enjoy the beautiful Beaufort waterfront views. Plums is one of the few restaurants in downtown Beaufort that you can sit out in the lovely open air and get some good people watching in.

We started our lunch by ordering a refreshing lemonade from our friendly server. It should be noted here that they also offer some local beers and yummy sounding cocktails, too. After reviewing their large menu, we ordered shrimp and grits (fried yummy wild caught shrimp) a greek salad, and some sweet potato fries to top it all off. You can check out Plums entire lunch menu here.

My fried wild caught shrimp was cooked perfectly. There is nothing worse than eating overcooked shrimp. Another positive about this dish is that the shrimp was only lightly crumbed. The accompanying Greek salad was fresh and tasty, although not traditional. It included garbanzo beans, which were a surprisingly delicious addition to the salad.

My friend had the Shrimp and Grits, which came with gravy too. Coming from Australia, I am by no means an expert on grits, as I had never even heard of them until a year ago. Therefore, I don’t feel comfortable judging the grits quality considering all of my expert southern readers! However, I will say that the shrimp were cooked and seasoned nicely in this dish, and the gravy was super tasty.

The addition of sweet potato fries was ordered mid-meal and they came out to our table in lightning speed. I have never had sweet potato fries that I didn’t like, and Plums was no exception. They were crispy and naughtily more-ish!

The portion sizes for the meals are pretty generous. Saying that, they are not so big that you are overwhelmed by a copious amount of food. I must say I gobbled up my fried shrimp pretty quickly, but could only get halfway through the large salad.

Other noteworthy points – the restaurant’s outdoor area is dog friendly. While we were enjoying our meal there were several well-behaved dogs that were provided little water bowls to drink from by the servers.  A nice touch as dogs like dining out too.

I recommend this restaurant for tourists and families alike, to grab a cold drink and a bite for lunch. It is a great spot to enjoy the Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park and look out over the river.  Children are provided with coloring books to keep them occupied while carers enjoy their meal.

Also, you can enjoy live entertainment on Friday evenings at lums, with a different local musician performing each night.

That’s entertainment.

Plums Restaurant is open year round – 7 days a week. Lunch hours are 11am-430pm and dinner starts at 430pm. The restaurant is located at 904 Bay Street, Beaufort and you can easily make your reservation online by clicking here.