By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer

Charleston restaurateur Brett McKee is breathing a little easier these days. For several years McKee was juggling three restaurants. Plus, he was cooking up dishes for one philanthropic event after another.

Life was one continuous culinary sprint, and McKee finally got winded trying to run Brett’s on James Island, Brett’s At The Wickliffe House on Ashley Avenue and Union Hall on North Market Street.

As a businessman he found himself overextended and straying from cooking, his core strength. Being Brett McKee, the sociable chef whose personality has attracted a local following for the past 15 years, became a strain with so many ventures under his belt. He couldn’t be everywhere at once to chat with and meet all of his customers. He was spending less time in the kitchen.

So last year McKee sold his interests in Union Hall to his partners, sold Brett’s to chef Michael Walden and sold his Wickliffe House venture to Mediterra Catering, thus disbanding his Triad Dining Group, which comprised the three ventures. He and a new set of business partners, New York City bond brokers and longtime friends of McKee, himself a native New Yorker, planned a new downtown eatery at 17 Broad St. They opened Oak Steakhouse on Jan. 17.

In clearing his plate of his previous ventures so he could focus on Oak, McKee set off on a new direction by owning rather than leasing restaurant space. He considers the property a solid investment in Charleston’s hot, highly appreciating real estate market.

McKee and his business partners spent more than $3 million buying and renovating the 150-year-old building that is now Oak Steakhouse. The two-floor structure, which in the 1800s housed the South Carolina Loan and Trust Co., contains some of the building’s original features, such as pinewood floors, mahogany paneling, 18-foot ceilings and even the bank’s vault, which stores some 500 bottles of wine.

The 130-seat restaurant, a traditional steakhouse that also features Italian cuisine from Brett’s, adds weight to Broad Street’s relatively lean selection of eateries. McKee points out that the bulk of the city’s restaurants are north of Broad. Oak Steakhouse helps extend Charleston’s restaurant reputation southward, he says.

McKee notes that Oak’s location puts him closer to most of his clientele, which are south-of-Broad residents within walking distance of the restaurant. For those who have to drive to get there, Oak offers valet parking.

Although McKee has reduced the number of his restaurant ventures, his customer-friendly charm, which traditionally has been a drawing card, remains hefty.

“I like the personal touch,” he says.

That touch includes not only knowing customers by name, but providing wine lockers for customers who prefer to bring their own wine to the restaurant and store it there. It also will include caricatures of customers drawn by a local artist and mounted on the restaurants walls à la Sardi’s, New York’s famous Broadway restaurant whose walls are lined with celebrity caricatures.

McKee used to believe that several eateries were necessary to make it in the restaurant business. Not anymore. He says Oak embodies his dream. It is a place where he comfortably cooks fine food and mingles with his customers.

“My only other venture after Oak will be my coffin,” he says.

Dennis Quick covers hospitality and tourism for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@crbj.com.

SIDEBAR:

Oak Steakhouse

17 Broad St. (one block from intersection of East Bay Street and Broad Street) 722-4220

Hours: Open to public nightly for dinner, bar opens at 5 p.m.

Private dining available for lunch and dinner. Valet parking.

Soups: $5; Salads: $6–$12; Appetizers: $10–$15; Pizzas $11; Entrees: $16–$41.

Fare: Steaks, chops, veal, seafood and Italian dishes.

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