That’s the question every first-time visitor asks somewhere around Day Two, usually after spotting it on three different menus and still not being entirely sure whether it involves a pot or a party. The short answer: both. The longer answer starts at 82 Queen Street, which has been serving this city’s signature mess of shrimp, sausage, corn, and potatoes in a single glorious pile since 1982, and shows no signs of apologizing for it.

The location is hard to miss — a rambling antebellum complex just off Meeting Street in the lower peninsula, with a series of connected dining rooms and a shaded courtyard that’s one of the better outdoor eating spots in Charleston proper. Brick walls, magnolia trees, old ceiling fans. It’s not trying to be trendy. It has never needed to.

Here’s reason one to go: the she-crab soup. Order it without hesitation. It’s rich and sherried and the kind of thing that makes you understand why people drive four hours to eat at a particular restaurant. The kitchen has been making it long enough that they’ve stopped worrying about whether it’s fashionable, which means they’re just making it correctly. That alone is worth the trip down Queen Street.

Reason two: the shrimp. 82 Queen buys local when they can, and it shows. Whether you get them simply grilled over grits or folded into one of the bigger plates, they taste like something that was in the water recently, not something that was thawed in a commercial kitchen somewhere outside the state. The grits themselves — stone-ground, creamy, not the library-paste version — could hold their own as a standalone dish.

Reason three: the courtyard. If the weather cooperates, ask for a table outside. The space has the kind of relaxed, slightly overgrown charm that Charleston does better than almost any other American city — where old brick and low light and a glass of sweet tea make you feel like you accidentally wandered into someone’s private garden. Which, a few hundred years ago, you probably would have. Lunch on a weekday is quieter than dinner and considerably easier to get into without a reservation.

Now, fair warning: 82 Queen is not cheap, and it is not trying to be. Dinner for two with drinks runs $90 to $130 without much effort. It also draws a tourist crowd, which some locals use as an excuse to dismiss it entirely — the same locals who haven’t actually eaten there recently. The kitchen’s consistency over four decades earns more respect than it typically gets from people who’ve decided the most-photographed places can’t also be the best at what they do.

This is not the place to go if you want to feel like you’ve discovered something obscure. But if you want to understand what Lowcountry cooking actually is, before you start wandering into places that do clever riffs on it, 82 Queen is a reasonable place to begin. Get the she-crab soup. Get a seat in the courtyard. Order the shrimp and grits and admit, somewhere around the second bite, that some restaurants earn their longevity.