Reuben’s Deli on upper King Street makes a pastrami sandwich that has no business being this good in Charleston, South Carolina.
That’s not a knock on the city. It’s just that real deli culture — the kind built on brined meat and rye bread that actually has some weight to it — doesn’t transplant easily. But Dave Pell, who opened Reuben’s in 2011 after years working in food service and growing up eating his way through Jewish delis in the Northeast, figured out how to make it work here. You can taste that background in every component of the plate.
When you walk in, the space is small — maybe a dozen tables, a deli case up front running the length of the counter, and a chalkboard overhead that changes with availability. The smell hits you before the door closes: brined meat, mustard, something sweet from the pastry section near the register. It doesn’t feel like a theme park version of a New York deli. It feels like a place where someone cared enough to get the details right and then stopped decorating.
The pastrami is house-cured and hand-sliced. Pell has talked in interviews about the process — weeks of brining, a dry rub, slow smoking — but what matters is what ends up between two slices of rye. The meat is tender without being mushy, and the fat-to-lean ratio is exactly where it should be. Get it with spicy brown mustard. Don’t overthink it. A full sandwich with a side runs around fourteen to sixteen dollars, which feels fair the moment it lands in front of you.
Beyond the pastrami, the matzo ball soup is worth ordering even in August. It’s clear broth, deeply savory, with a matzo ball that has some heft to it rather than that dense, sinking-stone quality you find elsewhere. If you’re going on a weekday, the lunch counter tends to move quickly — you order at the register, grab a number, and find a seat. Weekend mornings slow down a little, and that’s actually the better time to go if you want to linger over a bagel with lox and cream cheese without feeling like you’re holding up the line.
Pell is often behind the counter himself, or at least nearby. He’s not performing the role of jovial deli owner — he’s just there, checking on things, talking to regulars by name. There’s a group of older men who seem to come in most mornings, and watching that dynamic — the easy shorthand between them and the staff — tells you something about how long this place has been part of the neighborhood’s routine.
Upper King has changed considerably since 2011. The stretch around Reuben’s has seen bars open, boutiques come and go, rents climb. The deli has stayed. That’s not nothing.
If you’re heading there for the first time, go hungry and skip the tourist-district lunch spots farther south. Get the pastrami on rye, add a side of coleslaw, and take a seat by the window if one’s open. You don’t need a reason beyond the food.
