When Chemists Attack

Branchville, South Carolina, is a small town of just over a thousand people. Its claim to fame (if you can call Branchville “famous” at all), is that it’s the site of our first railroad junction. To remind us of that fact, Branchville has an annual Raylrode Daze festival. I mention this little detail because my grandmother wants me to go to this every year, but the festival is poorly timed for my teaching schedule.

Unfortunately, the railroad depot burned some years back. It has been partially restored, and is now the home of a museum and restaurant.

The restaurant is called the “Eatery at the Depot”, and we’ve been going there for a while when visiting my family.

If you didn’t know that there was a restaurant in the depot, you might miss it entirely. The small sign advertises “Railside Dining”. This is very accurate; trains occasionally go by and rattle the depot. It’s a bit of a surprise when you’re eating, but it doesn’t happen often enough to make dining at the Depot an unpleasant experience.

An outside view of the Depot

Inside the Depot, you’ll find the small, quiet (except for the occasional train), and dimly lit restaurant. I apologize for the dark and grainy pictures, but I didn’t want to disturb other diners by using the flash on my camera.

A view from our table. We were one of the first few groups to get into the restaurant the day these pictures were taken.

The restaurant offers a variety of food. You can get seafood, pork, chicken dishes, prime rib, or more traditional Southern dishes like … shrimp and grits. Patty usually gets the fried oysters (one dozen for $10.25), and I get the fried shrimp (one dozen for $11).

Rick’s shrimp plate

Patty’s oyster plate. This is one of the few times when she didn’t get garlic cheese mashed potatoes.

Both of these plates come with “Charleston Red Rice”, which both Patty and I usually avoid. Not that it’s bad, but there are things on the menu that we like better. In particular, Patty likes the garlic cheese mashed potatoes.

The main dish also comes with a small, rather unimpressive salad. Some lettuce, a small tomato or two, and a piece of bell pepper. The salad, though, is not why you would dine at the Eatery. The rest of the food (with the possible exception of the biscuit – which tastes like it was meant more for decoration than for eating) more than makes up for the uninteresting salad.

Salad. Yawn.

The shrimp and the oysters we had were excellent, but one of my favorite things at the Depot is dessert. The portions are huge, and the desserts are very good. I’m quite a fan of key lime pie, and the pie at the Depot is great. The prices are even good, considering what you pay for “prefab” desserts at chain restaurants.

Two slices of key lime pie ($2.95 per slice)

I’ve tried only a few of the other desserts myself, but they’ve all been very good. Here’s the carrot cake. Yes, that’s one slice.

A single slice of carrot cake ($3)

Be there early if you want to get a good selection of desserts. Things like the key lime pie and the cheesecake sell out quickly. If you arrive after I do, for instance, there will probably be no key lime pie left!

Like Antley’s, the Eatery at the Depot is only open three days a week: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday – starting at 6 PM. It’s well worth the stop if you happen to be in the Orangeburg / Branchville area The Eatery is located at 7501 Freedom Road in Branchville.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 27th, 2006 at 8:12 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.