Gathering Cafe Bringing People and Food Together

There's a new place for West Ashley foodies to test their taste buds.

Nathan Conkle opened The Gathering Cafe last month at 1124 Sam Rittenberg Blvd. in Orange Grove Plaza, and is combining Americana with Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine for a healthier take on comfort food.

"We stay away from the fried chicken, and we've got Middle Eastern influences like tabuli, we make our potato salad without mayonaise" Conkle said. "It's kind of eclectic, we have a lady working here from Afghanistan, so we've got the Mid Eastern stuff and the Americana with things like meatloaf and mashed potatoes."

The cafe's name is a play on words. After considering and discarding several potential names, Conkle said he settled on The Gathering Cafe because he liked the dual meanings it could imply.

"We have been gathering food and gathering around food for thousands of years," he said.

The artwork inside plays off of that idea, featuring shots of hands gathering crops, workers collecting tea from the fields, shots of wheat or corn fields, fishermen casting nets and other food related work.

Conkle graduated from Trident Technical College's culinary program in 2000. He worked downtown for Magnolia's during school and then worked in a friend's James Island restaurant before heading to New Orleans to work in an Orient Express Hotels Ltd. property. For the past seven years he's managed the prepared foods section of Whole Foods in Mount Pleasant.

Conkle said he'd been searching for a location for his restaurant for about five years when the spot in Orange Grove Plaza opened up. Living along Savannah Highway, Conkle said he wanted a West Ashley location but had considered spots all over the Charleston area.

"It really came down to price and competition," he said. "I wanted an area with the right demographics, but I didn't want to be somewhere that was already swamped with competition where I wouldn't be able to make it."

The Gathering Cafe is open 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. for lunch and 4:30 - 9 p.m. for dinner Tuesday - Friday. On Saturday the cafe is open 4:30 - 9 p.m. for dinner only. And on Sunday The Gathering Cafe hosts brunch from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.