HANAHAN — A popular Southern restaurant has closed in Hanahan’s Bowen Village.
Nigel’s Good Food, known for serving fried pork chops and whiting, okra soup and owner Nigel Drayton’s famous fried “Geechie Wings,” served its last customers in April. It marks the end of a 15-year run for Drayton’s restaurant brand which previously operated two additional outposts in North Charleston.
Drayton started his culinary career as a busboy at Hyman’s Seafood, where he quickly earned a spot working in the kitchen. It wasn’t long before he was cooking specials and helping out blossoming young chefs like B.J. Dennis, who counts Drayton as one of his first mentors.
Drayton opened the original Nigel’s Good Food at 3760 Ashley Phosphate Road in 2011 alongside his former business and life partner Louise. The restaurant was an extension of the catering company they launched in 2005.
In 2016, they added a second Nigel’s Good Food in Ladson, and, three years later, debuted Slaughter House BBQ & Brew in a former uniform shop next to Nigel’s Good Food II. All three establishments have since closed, leaving Hanahan as the last remaining location.
In a Facebook post, Drayton thanked the people who helped him achieve such longevity in the Charleston area.
“Having four restaurants at one time is a bit of a challenge and at one point I felt I had the perfect recipe but things changed and I wasn’t prepared for it,” he wrote. “When I opened Nigel’s I wanted to be a neighborhood restaurant in front of Windsor Hills, where I bought my first house at. It became way bigger than I could’ve ever imagined and I am grateful.”
The chef still operates one Charleston-area restaurant: Nola’s Creole and Soul, which opened in September 2024. It serves New Orleans-style cuisine, as well as a handful of Nigel’s Good Food favorites, inside a 3,800-square-foot space at 9770 Dorchester Rd. in Summerville.
