Yes I live at the beach, but I didn’t even leave my house this Memorial Day weekend.  I was in need of some serious vegetating time.  I practiced some yoga moves and read.  Not exciting, but needed.

In my readings I discovered Charleston has a few things to be proud of in the media.   While flipping through the husband’s latest issue of Esquire  (Bradley Cooper was on the cover, it didn’t stand a chance of getting to him before I read it) I saw an article on The Greatest Bars in America.  I scavenged the list to see if any familiar haunts were on there and two local favorites were.  The Isle of Palms’ own Windjammer and downtown Charleston’s Moe’s Crosstown Tavern were on the list.  Unfortunately at the time of this post, Moe’s is closed for renovations but hopes to be open sometime this Summer and you can always visit Moe’s Downtown Tavern instead.  Those are both great, unpretentious neighborhood watering holes.  I’m a vegetarian but I hear raves about the burgers at both places.

I’ve never seen Moe’s not packed- a full, friendly house, not overcrowded.  A variety of good beers and food.  It’s got a vintage pub feel and if you’re a sports fan, they’ve got you covered with their soccer, football, baseball tv packages.

The Windjammer, however, is a bit different than any downtown establishment.  The Windjammer brings a good variety of local music and national touring acts (I saw Maroon Five there after their first hit broke, Sister Hazel, Cowboy Mouth, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, etc).  They’ve got a great beachfront deck, a volleyball net and during the summer, a season full of bikini contests.  You’ll feel comfortable there straight off the beach in your swimsuit and flip- flops or I’ve seen people go barefoot (I don’t get that, but to each their own).  But it’s a no frills bar- the recommended drink according to Esquire is Budlight in a can and that about says it all.  And if a celebrity is staying on the island- chances are you’ll run into them there (oh the fun stories about Bruce Willis, Kevin Costner and others the staff can tell).

The other Charleston accolade is that Dr. Beach (Dr. Stephen P. Leatherman is Professor and Director of the Laboratory for Coastal Research at Florida International University) picked the beach at Kiawah Island’s Beachwalker Park for his Top 10 Beaches of 2011 list.  He has this to say “South of Charleston, Beachwalker Park is the public beach located on the southern end of Kiawah Island.  Tennis and golf are featured here, as well as interpretative tours of the fauna and flora of the island.  This is certainly a nature-lovers coast, so visitors should pack their canoes and kayaks to paddle through the tidal inlets or walk down to St. Sam’s Inlet to see thousands of birds.  The water is not clear here, but it is clean and provides for fantastic seafood for low-country cooking.  Visitors can also pack their bicycles, since the sand is compact enough to ride along the 10-mile long barrier island.”   There’s 50 pieces of set criteria for Dr. Beach to make his selection and he had a lot of  beaches to select from.  We’re proud to be on that list.