Wagener Terrace Asked for Ice Cream and Dinner Help. The Old Bank on Rutledge Avenue Listened.

"People asked for things like ice cream, take-and-bake meals and happy-hour snacks." That's how Jared Hellman, co-owner of Odd Duck Market, described the results of a survey he and his partner sent to the Hampton Park neighborhood a few months before their Rutledge Avenue location opened, according to Charleston City Paper.

The two Odd Duck locations in Park Circle and Summerville started out without any of those things. All three were added for Hampton Park. So the café that opened this summer at 637 Rutledge Ave. is the same Odd Duck in name, but its menu was shaped by the blocks around it. It isn't only a place for a morning latte. It was built to be useful at 5 p.m. on a Wednesday.

A bank branch, rebuilt for quick stops

The building used to be a bank branch. In its opening coverage, the Post and Courier reported that Odd Duck opened there in July and turned the bank's old drive-thru into a walk-up ordering window. Inside it's small, about 900 square feet with a handful of tables. Floating shelves hold the market goods, and a mural by Cara Fischer covers the gabled ceiling. Sam Norton and Tanner Hicks of Oak & Moss Contracting, who also designed the Summerville market, came up with much of the space. It also has artwork by Arun Drummond.

Two features of the old bank shape how people actually use it. The first is the walk-up window, so you can grab a coffee without going inside. The second is parking. City Paper counted almost 30 spots and called that "practically unheard of in downtown Charleston." A wrap-around patio adds the outdoor seating the small interior lacks.

The owners say they designed it around the park on purpose. "The one thing we really wanted to do was tie organically into Hampton Park," Hellman told the Post and Courier. "There's a lot of nods to the park, both overt and subtle."

Why these owners asked first

Hellman and Andrew Hare have run food businesses in Charleston before. They co-owned Bubba Slye's Deli at King and Warren streets, which closed in 2023. They opened the first Odd Duck at 1082 East Montague Ave. in Park Circle that same summer. The Summerville location, in a 1870s Victorian on Cedar Street, followed in January 2026, and Rutledge Avenue opened in July.

Hellman told City Paper that this neighborhood has been part of their story from the start:

"Hampton Park and Wagener Terrace have always been a big part of our story. My first legal beer in Charleston was at Moe's Crosstown, and my first apartment was at 128 St. Margaret St. ... We looked for spaces in the neighborhood when we were first getting Odd Duck off the ground."

Knowing the area explains why they ran a survey instead of copying their Park Circle setup. Hellman said some of the answers "surprised us and differed from our core offering." The ideas were already on their list, but the survey "moved them up the roadmap in time for the Hampton Park opening."

What the survey added

Each of the three requests changed what the shop is for.

• Ice cream. Odd Duck partnered with Riverbend Creamery in Lincolnton, North Carolina. On opening week, a sign on the patio advertised it. A café that sells ice cream has a reason to stay busy after lunch.
• Happy-hour snacks. At opening, the shop launched what Hellman called "an aperitivo-style happy hour menu," with charcuterie nachos, snacking bacon, and bread and spread. The regular drinks list includes a house white, red and rosé, a house spritz, a sake Bloody Mary, and mimosas by the glass or carafe.
• Take-and-bake meals. Prep happens at Odd Duck's commercial kitchen in the Navy Yard, which the team calls "the lab." Hellman said they're developing new take-and-bake meals and more for the deli cooler.

"We've expanded our take-and-bake meals, deli salads, sides and prepared foods so the market can be genuinely useful, particularly when someone needs to solve dinner," Hellman told City Paper. A dinner stop needs hours that run into the evening. The Post and Courier reported the shop's hours at opening as 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. Before planning a trip around them, it's worth calling the shop at (843) 203-3490 to check.

What's in the cooler at 5 p.m.

The deli case is where the "solve dinner" idea shows up. Here's a sample from the Hampton Park online menu this fall:

Put two sides and a dip on the counter and you have most of a weeknight dinner for under $20. The shelves add the rest, mostly from local producers City Paper named as crowd favorites: sourdough and English muffins from Laila's in Summerville, sourdough cookies from Saltwater and Sourdough, milk from Lowcountry Creamery, and eggs and meat from Storey Farms. Sarah's Dumps and Sobremesa, a small-batch mole and salsa company based in Charleston, stock shelves there too. The selection changes over time. "Curation is always a moving target," Hellman said.

The morning menu is similar to the core menu at the other two locations. It includes a prosciutto breakfast sandwich with egg soufflé, cheddar, arugula and Calabrian chili aioli on focaccia, a lox bagel, muffins, doughnuts, croissants, and a full coffee menu. The Post and Courier pointed to the vegan and gluten-free bialys and doughnuts as a big hit. For kids, there's turkey and cheese, chicken salad, and a pizza melt.

The weekly schedule

Because the shop is open from breakfast into the evening, it has also picked up a few recurring events.

Sunday mornings. The Sweet Jessamine Flower Truck parks at the Hampton Park location every Sunday from 8:30 a.m. to noon, according to Odd Duck's events listing. The truck, named Haddie, is a 1967 Volkswagen Transporter where you build your own bouquet from fresh-cut flowers, as described on Sweet Jessamine's site. You can pick up flowers, a coffee and a loaf of Laila's sourdough in one stop.

Tuesday evenings. Mahjongee is holding open-play mahjong at 637 Rutledge on Tuesday, Nov. 17, from 5 to 7 p.m. Tickets are $35 and include all game materials and a first glass of wine, and the kitchen takes individual food orders. That's a 5 p.m. table game with wine at a place that sells breakfast sandwiches, and it fits the evening hours the survey pushed for.

Weekday late afternoons. This is the slot the survey shaped most: aperitivo snacks on the patio, a scoop of Riverbend ice cream after a loop around Hampton Park, or a stop at the walk-up window for sides and a dip before dinner.

Hellman described the goal for every location as creating spaces "useful to their surrounding communities." On Rutledge Avenue, that means coffee at 7 a.m., and sides and a dip from the cooler at 6 p.m.

If you know a Wagener Terrace corner like the one at 637 Rutledge because you've been bringing it up as you weigh a move, that's exactly the kind of detail Kaylan likes to walk through in person. Kaylan Sells Charleston can map out which blocks put the walk-up window, the park loop and your Sunday flowers all within an easy walk. Schedule a Consultation and we'll start there.