With H & R Sweet Shop Gone, the Old Village Lunch Counter Runs on Pharmacy Hours

The burgers came in foam clamshells. The candy sat under a glass counter. The walls were painted green and hung with family photographs and an old Moultrie News clipping about the place. For 81 years, the small storefront on Royall Avenue served hot dogs, pork chop sandwiches, fried shrimp and flounder plates to anyone who walked in. On Oct. 14, 2026, H & R Sweet Shop served its last customer.

The Old Village still has an old-school counter where you can get a grilled cheese and a milkshake. It's a few streets over, and it's eight years older than H & R. It's also inside a pharmacy, so its hours are pharmacy hours. A lunch habit that used to fit around a burger shop's schedule now has to fit around a pharmacy's.

Two old counters, a few streets apart

The Post and Courier's report on the closure called H & R Sweet Shop the second-oldest business in Mount Pleasant. It said only one business in town has been operating longer: Pitt Street Pharmacy.

The timeline runs like this:

• 1937: Pharmacist Washington "Wattie" Zeigler opens Pitt Street Pharmacy in the Old Village.
• April 2, 1945: Raleigh Johnson and his wife, Harriet, open H & R Sweet Shop at 102 Royall Avenue, according to a Moultrie News piece marking the shop's 75th anniversary.
• 2022: Brandi Sherbert buys Pitt Street Pharmacy.
• Oct. 14, 2026: H & R Sweet Shop closes.

For close to 80 years, the town's two oldest businesses sat a few streets apart in the same small neighborhood. Both were counters with stools, and both sold things you could carry out the door in a bag. Now one is left.

What 102 Royall Avenue actually covered

H & R was more than a place to get a burger, and that matters for what comes next. The Post and Courier described cheap, no-nonsense Southern food, with burgers its food coverage has counted among the best around Charleston. It also described a second shift that had nothing to do with lunch. When school let out, the shop was the first stop for neighborhood kids, who came in for a drink and some candy. The day the paper visited, two students were picking out sour candy from under the glass.

Manager Richardean Hubbard, who ran the counter day to day, told the Post and Courier what she would miss:

"I am going to miss the customers. I've met a lot of nice people from being in here."

So the shop handled three jobs: a regulars' lunch, a cheap plate of fried seafood, and an after-school candy stop. Those were the jobs of a corner diner. The counter still standing on Pitt Street does some of them, on a schedule built for something else.

Owner Anthony Major also runs Major Hats & Suits, the hat shop next door to the old sweet shop. Its walls are covered in elaborate, colorful hats. There has been no public word on what comes next for the Royall Avenue storefront.

The older counter is inside a compounding pharmacy

Pitt Street Pharmacy is at 111 Pitt Street. On the medical side, it describes itself as a compounding-only pharmacy that makes customized medications for hormone therapy, pain, dermatology and veterinary patients. The soda fountain shares the building.

Mount Pleasant Magazine describes the room as checkerboard floors, bar stools and high countertops that look like a classic diner. The grilled cheese is the draw. It's made on the same grill press earlier generations used, and the magazine's readers have voted it Best Grilled Cheese twice, most recently for 2026. The fountain also serves milkshakes, sodas and burgers. In the same 2026 awards, readers named it Best Pet Pharmacy, which makes it probably the only place in town that won both a sandwich award and a veterinary one.

The fountain menu on the pharmacy's site lists sandwiches, burgers, ice cream and shakes, including one called Killa Vanilla, along with fountain drinks, cans and bottles. The magazine says Sherbert is working to keep the place's classic feel.

The schedule is the catch. The pharmacy posts one set of hours: Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.; closed Sunday. It doesn't list separate fountain hours. If you're planning a lunch around it, call 843-884-4051 before you go.

That puts the Old Village's oldest counter on a different clock than a typical neighborhood diner. A weekday lunch works. A weekday after-school stop works, since the doors stay open until 6. A Saturday grilled cheese has to happen before 2 p.m. A lazy Sunday milkshake at a counter stool doesn't happen in the Old Village anymore.

The weekly grid, counter by counter

Two newer Old Village spots fill some of the hours the pharmacy doesn't. Gala Cafe & Bakery is on the same block as the pharmacy at 123 Pitt Street and serves coffee, food and desserts. Brown Fox Coffee runs its Simmons Street Cafe at 307 Simmons Street. These are the posted hours for all three:

The grid shows a few things. On Mondays, only Brown Fox and the pharmacy are open. Gala is the only one of the three open on Sunday. Early mornings belong to Brown Fox, which opens at 7 a.m. on weekdays, two hours before the pharmacy. And after about 4 p.m. on a weekday, the pharmacy fountain is the last of the three still open. Hours change, so check each business's own site before you head over.

None of the three is a burger-and-flounder-plate diner, and none replaces the candy case on Royall Avenue. Between them, they cover more of the week than any one of them covers alone.

One Saturday that fits all three

On Saturday, Nov. 14, all three schedules line up with an Old Village event. The Mount Pleasant Recreation Department's Old Village Harbor 5K starts and finishes at Alhambra Hall, 131 Middle Street, and runs from 8:30 a.m. to noon. The department has run the race for more than two decades. The course winds through the Old Village's streets and past views of the harbor. More than 200 runners usually take part, walkers are welcome, and dogs and strollers are allowed. Afterward there's music, refreshments and a raffle at Alhambra Hall.

Here is how that morning lines up with the posted Saturday hours:

1. Before the start: Brown Fox's Simmons Street Cafe opens at 8 a.m. on Saturdays, which leaves time for a coffee before the 8:30 a.m. start.
2. After the raffle: Pitt Street Pharmacy is open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays, so a post-race grilled cheese and milkshake at the counter has to come before 2.
3. Later in the afternoon: Gala Cafe & Bakery, on the same block at 123 Pitt Street, stays open until 5 p.m. for dessert.

H & R closed one month before this year's race. That makes Nov. 14 the first Old Village 5K without the Royall Avenue counter. The grilled cheese on Pitt Street is still made on the same press, and on a Saturday the counter closes at 2.

At Kaylan Sells Charleston, we keep track of the small Old Village details that are easy to miss until they change, like which counter is open on a Monday and which one closes at 2 on a Saturday. If you're new to the Old Village or thinking about a move nearby, Schedule a Consultation and we'll walk you through the neighborhood's week.