After you order the Garlic Shrimp Combo Plate, grab a pile of napkins. You will need them—all of them. Once the food arrives and you crack open the Styrofoam clamshell releasing a cloud of steam, you’ll see why: giant Lowcountry shrimp, red potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, and corn on the cob glisten with a signature garlic-parsley butter sauce. Like in a typical Lowcountry boil, the steamed shrimp arrive tails-on and have to be peeled. The melted butter sauce, a departure from the traditional version, makes this work even messier—but also more delicious.
“I wanted to give a Beaufort classic a new twist, so I started experimenting with butter,” explains Greg Brantley, the owner of The Seafood Spot. Of course, there’s not much that garlic and butter can’t make better. Not that the fresh, authentic Lowcountry seafood Brantley serves up at The Seafood Spot needs improving. It’s the opposite, actually. When Brantley and his wife, Kenisha, moved to the Upstate following their daughters off to college, they felt the region’s seafood options were lacking. “There was nobody frying or steaming fresh fish like we do in Beaufort,” Brantley says. “I saw there was a great need for it around here.”
An Army veteran and a former sales manager, Brantley is not one to waste time. He and Kenisha opened The Seafood Spot in late May 2018, bringing his family recipes and seafood traditions to Greenville. Their restaurant is tucked into a small strip mall just off Laurens Road—if you weren’t looking for it, you might not find it. But plenty of people have found it. The restaurant stays hopping with people picking up fried fish sandwiches, fried shrimp baskets, Lowcountry crab rice, and the garlic combo shrimp and crab plates that have made Brantley’s place a local favorite.
Brantley sources his seafood from the coast: Beaufort, of course, as well as North Carolina. He’s confident that when fish is good and fresh, it doesn’t take much to make it shine. His Lowcountry traditions—quality seafood, light breading, simple seasoning—are ringing true here in the Upstate, offering an authentic taste of the Carolina coast. But the real secret to his cooking isn’t something you can pull from the ocean: “When you cook with love, it’s going to turn out good every time,” says Brantley.
The Seafood Spot, 219 W Antrim Dr, Greenville; (864) 520-2010, theseafoodspotupstate.com
