Kardea Brown’s Southern Kitchen restaurant spices things up at Charleston airport

Six marinated pork chops sizzled on the grill as flames flickered and shot up around the fare.

At the helm of the kitchen was Food Network star Kardea Brown, holding a pair of silver tongs in her hand that reflected the golden glow from the grill in front of her.

She wasn’t surrounded by cameras filming an episode of “Delicious Miss Brown” this time. Instead, she was meal prepping ahead of the April 19 soft opening of her new restaurant inside Charleston International Airport, and Brown was passing on the fine-art of her well-known regional Gullah-inspired recipes to the kitchen staff.

“You start this way, let it sit. Then you rotate it to get that signature crisscross char on it,” Brown instructed while she flipped the pork chops one-by-one with the tongs, revealing the unique grilled pattern on each piece. 

The pork chops are one of the staples on the menu at her airport restaurant, Kardea Brown’s Southern Kitchen. While only accessible past security, the restaurant invites travelers to get a first or final taste of the Lowcountry.

The celebrity chef’s restaurant is now the largest food and beverage footprint in the airport. It replaced the The Jack Nicklaus Golden Bear Grill — which occupied the corner of the Central marketplace from 2016 to 2024.

Brown spent weeks training staff and putting the finishing touches on the restaurant. For now, hours are limited until the official opening day May 15. But the April 19 entry event was such a hit the restaurant ran out of food before 5 p.m., Brown shared on Instagram. 

“We even prepped more than expected and still ran out,” she wrote, adding a video of the line of people waiting to be seated. “My heart is so full right now.”

As a Lowcountry local, Brown called it a “dream come true” to have a restaurant named after her in Charleston’s airport. 

“I would have never thought in a million years that this would be my reality today — that I would see my name above my own restaurant,” Brown said. “I’ve watched this airport expand over the years as a passenger and I never thought I’d be a part of that expansion.”

Brown hopes her restaurant redefines the idea of ‘airport food’ for visitors beyond grab-and-go sandwiches or fast food chains. She said if her meals are  the first introduction someone may have to Charleston’s rich cuisine scene, “let’s make the best impression we can.”

The Gullah and Lowcountry-inspired menu for Kardea Brown’s Southern Kitchen will include recipes that have been hits from throughout Brown’s career on the Food Network.

“Now I have a place for all of these recipes to live outside of the cookbook and show,” she said.

Items include red rice, macaroni and cheese, collard greens, smothered biscuits and gravy, and Gullah shrimp and grits.

“These are things you wouldn’t think of when you go to the airport,” Brown said. “But this is down-home cookin’.”

The restaurant is part of a $6 million investment Delaware North, a privately held hospitality company that operates concessions for airports worldwide, has made over the last year to shakeup the dining options.

Michael Blake, director of operations for Delaware North’s concessions at CHS, said the firm’s goal was to reimagine the dining experience at CHS. Enhancements include Ashley Cooper Provisions, Commonhouse Aleworks, Chick-fil-A, Starbucks, and other ventures.

“Airport food in general has a rap,” Blake joked. “We can still be quick, because we want to be sure they can get to their flight, but we also can source local ingredients and put some love into it.”

Brown said Delaware North has done an excellent job revamping the concessions at CHS in a way that “represents what the Lowcountry is about” from the sense of welcoming hospitality to the food.

Above her restaurant’s bar, a sign reads: “Hey Cousins!”

“I always say you come in as a stranger, but you’re going to leave as family,” she said. 

Gullah-Geechee inspired cuisine

Born and raised in the Lowcountry, Brown said the restaurant opening feels like her career has come full-circle, but interestingly, it’s a path she didn’t expect to set out on. 

“I was never like ‘Oh, I’m going to be a chef when I grow up,’” she said. “I wanted to be a social worker in the nonprofit sector, and I was.”

She was in graduate school, working in her field of study when she landed an appearance on a cooking show.

“No matter what I did, food was always at the center of my of my heart because I come from a long line of cooks,” she said. “Cooking has been my relief, my therapy.”

While shooting that segment years ago in her small New Jersey apartment, a conversation with a producer about Gullah-Geechee cuisine stirred up the idea to change careers.

When she later landed her own cooking show, she knew she was fortunate to have a national platform to become an ambassador for not just the Lowcountry and Charleston, but also for Gullah-Geechee culture.

“It’s intertwined into my brand because I leaned into who I am,” she said. 

Brown said the perception and popularity of Gullah cuisine has shifted over the years. She laughed as she recalled how when she was growing up, shrimp and grits were considered far from “fine dining.”

“Now it’s on every menu — it’s a Charleston staple,” she said. “It’s been nice seeing how Gullah-Geechee influence has come to the forefront in Charleston and beyond.”

Brown open to the idea of a standalone restaurant out in town one day, but the airport is a “good place to start.” There’s no shortage of foot traffic, with nearly 6.2 million annual passengers bustling through the airport each year.

Looking back at the lead up to her restaurant, if Brown could give her younger self any advice, she said it would be to slow down. She spent her 20s hyper-focused on meeting career and life goals by a certain age. Now she’s now publishing a second cookbook, she got married in March, and her first restaurant opening is in the books.

“I’ve learned that good things take time. The things you want to last need to be nurtured, not rushed,” she said. “Things will fall into place as they should, when it should. And they have.”