All three of The Charleston Place’s public dining venues will be closed by New Year’s Day, and the downtown hotel’s owners say their replacements won’t open until 2028.

The hotel will close The Palmetto Cafe and the Thoroughbred Club at the end of 2026, ownership told The Post and Courier, which reported the plan Oct. 29. The closings follow the October end of chef Daniel Humm’s yearlong pop-up in the space that housed the Charleston Grill, which closed in 2025 after 36 years.

In 2028, the hotel plans to open a signature restaurant, a pub-inspired spot for casual dining and a new lobby bar that pays homage to the Thoroughbred Club, the newspaper reported.

Managing Director Becky Hubbard did not give names or menus for the new places, according to the newspaper. She called the hotel’s top-to-bottom renovation “an exciting chapter in the continued evolution of The Charleston Place.”

“The response from our guests has been incredibly rewarding,” Hubbard said in an email response to the newspaper’s questions. “And we’re just getting started.”

What is closing

The Palmetto Cafe is a garden-inspired, light-filled dining room for breakfast and brunch, according to the hotel’s website. The Thoroughbred Club is an English-inspired lounge that serves lunch, dinner and cocktails daily and afternoon tea Wednesday through Saturday at 2 p.m., the website says.

Hubbard said the new venues will nod to the ones they replace.

“For more than three decades, The Charleston Place has been ‘Charleston’s Living Room.’ Charleston Grill, Thoroughbred Club and The Palmetto Cafe hold so many memories for our community, and those memories are the foundation for what comes next,” she told the newspaper. “Across every new concept, we want to honor that legacy and carry forward the warmth and gracious hospitality that have always defined The Charleston Place’s restaurants.”

Until the new rooms open, hotel guests can order in-room dining or go to Perch, the renovated rooftop bar, Hubbard said. The hotel’s website describes Perch as reserved for hotel guests. Guests who book Club Level rooms can also eat in the club lounge, which serves food from breakfast through evening, The Post and Courier reported.

The signature room

Hubbard said the signature restaurant will be built around the ceremony of dining, with dishes finished tableside and a menu that works for a dinner for two or a larger celebration, according to the newspaper.

“The food will be elegant but approachable, and the room will be upscale, just not in the way people expect,” she said. “We want to build a timeless restaurant in this iconic location.”

It will follow a restaurant with a long run. Charleston Grill opened in 1989 in what was then the Omni Hotel at Charleston Place, The Post and Courier reported when the closing was announced in August 2025. Opening chef Louis Osteen, who later won a James Beard Award, helped make it one of the city’s few fine dining destinations for Lowcountry cooking, and chef Michelle Weaver led the kitchen for years before leaving in 2024, the newspaper reported. The Grill served its last customers Aug. 23, 2025.

At the time, Hubbard described the closing as part of a gradual upgrade of the hotel’s dining venues, the last step in a renovation estimated at $150 million, the newspaper reported.

The Humm interlude

After the Grill closed, the hotel filled its space with Chef Daniel Humm x The Charleston Place, a one-year residency by the chef of Eleven Madison Park, a three-Michelin-star restaurant in New York. It opened in October 2025 with a tasting menu that relied heavily on vegetables, The Post and Courier reported. By May 2026, under head chef Joe Baffoe, it had moved to an a la carte menu built more on Lowcountry ingredients.

Hubbard told the newspaper the partnership brought a new level of innovation to the hotel’s kitchen.

“Our culinary and serving teams had the chance to train at a Michelin star level right here at home, an experience (that) will shape their careers for years to come,” she said. “We’re excited to build upon that momentum for our next signature restaurant.”

She did not say whether ownership had considered starting work on the signature restaurant last year instead of running the pop-up, the newspaper reported.

The last piece of a long renovation

Charleston businessman Ben Navarro bought the hotel between King and Meeting streets in October 2021 through the hospitality company now known as BHC, The Post and Courier has reported. The newspaper put the purchase price at $350 million, citing Charleston County land records.

The work so far has produced a redesigned Club Level, an upgraded rooftop pool and garden bar, refreshed guest rooms and other resort-style amenities, the newspaper reported. Revamping the restaurants, the spa and the lobby are among the remaining steps.

BHC has also been busy elsewhere downtown. It opened the restaurant Sorelle and The Cooper hotel, which has four dining venues of its own, according to The Post and Courier.

Local diners will have to wait until 2028 to see what the new rooms look like, the newspaper reported.