River Oak Tea Room at Hopsewee Plantation: A Review
For a charming, memorable afternoon tea experience, head over to Hopsewee Plantation!
Located just south of Georgetown, South Carolina, this tea room is about halfway between Charleston and Myrtle Beach, making it a convenient day trip from either of South Carolina’s major coastal cities.
The tea room is a recent addition to the offerings at this historic property, which dates to 1790. The owners had the idea to add on a tea room when a local tourism board requested a meeting space and tea to be served.
From there, the owners realized that they could quickly scale the operation to 55-60 guests at a time, opening the experience up to bus tours and others who would be interested in a cozy, Southern style dining experience.
Today, the River Oak Cottage hosts guests each Tuesday through Saturday year round.
Below, you’ll find everything you need to know to have an excellent time at the tea room at Hopsewee Plantation!
Inside the Tea Room with views of the grounds and an indigo dyeing demonstration
How to Get to the River Oak Tea Room
Hopsewee Plantation is located along Highway 17, the main highway that runs along the South Carolina coast. Get more ideas on what to do along this road with my Highway 17 road trip itinerary!
If you’re coming from Charleston, you’ll need to take Highway 17 through Mount Pleasant, Awendaw, and McClellanville.
Make a day of it by visiting these 2 locations in depth:
Once you cross the Santee River north of McClellanville, you’ll turn into the front gates at Hopsewee when you get to the next bend in the road.
Keep a careful eye out as the entrance and turn come up quickly from this direction, and it’s fairly easy to miss.
If you’re coming from Myrtle Beach, you’ll head south on Highway 17 through Murrells Inlet, Pawleys Island and Georgetown.
From downtown Georgetown, you’ll travel 13 miles to get to the entrance to Hopsewee. Just before your turn onto the property, you’ll see an old gas station and store (it’s long closed), and you’ll turn to your right before you get to the bridge.
Signage to help you find the tea room
When you get to the property, go through the main gate and follow the circular dirt road until you’re nearly at the historic house.
You’ll find parking along the road opposite the house. From there, follow the signs for the River Oak Tea Room.
It’s in a bright orange building that you can’t miss. The building used to be a maintenance shed and office, but the owners have restored and expanded it to the tea room that you can visit today.
What to Eat at Hopsewee Plantation’s Tea Room
Reservations
First of all, I highly recommend making reservations. The tea room isn’t huge, and it can be quite popular on Saturdays with birthday and bridal groups.
Making a reservation ensures that you won’t have to wait around when you get there, and that there will be a table available for the size of your party.
Reservations also help the chef and wait staff more accurately prepare for that day.
If you’re dining mid-week during the cooler months, you can probably get away with just showing up. But during the summer and throughout all of the weekends, definitely take the time to book a reservation.
Regular Menu v. Afternoon Tea Menu
The menu for the River Oak Tea Room
When you make your reservations, you’ll be asked if you want to eat off of the regular menu or the afternoon tea menu.
The regular menu includes many different dishes, including appetizers, desserts, soups, sandwiches, quiches, and chicken perlo (what I’d call chicken bog).
You can still order a scone and hot or cold tea from the regular menu if you’d like.
If you order the cold tea, note that it is slightly floral and not the traditional black tea that you’ll find at many Southern restaurants.
You’ll also be provided with a tiny carafe of simple syrup to sweeten your tea, which is a bit unusual.
Traditionally, sweet tea has granulated sugar added to it when the brew is still hot, so that the sugar has time to dissolve.
Providing simple syrup instead of pre-sweetened tea has the benefit of allowing each guest to be able to sweeten to his or her tastes, and it provides a bit of ceremony to the entire thing.
It will be hard to choose from the many teas!
The afternoon tea experience comes with the traditional tiered tea stands and includes finger sandwiches, scones and jam, and multiple small desserts.
You’ll also get your choice of the many hot teas they have on offer here, so many that there will be a separate tea menu at your table when you arrive!
You can choose from the standard menu with Southern style appetizers, entrees, and desserts, or you can opt for a traditional afternoon tea with scones, tea sandwiches, and treats.
When I visited with my mom and dad, we made sure to get different items so that we could try as much as possible.
I opted for the blue cheese spinach quiche, which was served with a few pieces of fresh fruit, a pickled okra, a side salad with bacon and blue cheese crumbles, and a dressing of my choice.
I chose ranch.
My meal also came with a pimiento cheddar biscuit, which was tasty and reminded me of a refined Red Lobster biscuit.
For better or for worse, the pimiento wasn’t super strong. I was fine with this as I don’t love pimientos, but if you’re going into hoping for a substantial flavor, you’ll come away disappointed.
My mom ordered the Southern sampler platter, which gave her more than half a dozen different soul food favorites in small portions.
Overall, the Southern sampler platter packed a lot of options and flavor into one plate. She got barbecue, collards, chicken bog/perlo, macaroni and cheese, and sweet potato casserole. It was also served with a pimiento cheese biscuit.
The barbecue was mustard based and full of flavor. There was perhaps too much going on in the BBQ for my mom, who isn’t a fan of anything remotely spicy, but I thought it was both delicious and complex.
The collards were the low point for her, but she enjoyed the chicken perlo, mac and cheese, and sweet potato casserole, with the latter being her favorite.
Everything on her sampler platter was done well. You could tell they were traditional Southern dishes, but each had the chef’s own twist on a classic. Balancing tradition and invention is a difficult thing to do, especially when it comes to food, but I felt that chef Raejean Beattie did it well.
My dad decided on the shrimp creole. You can just get the vegetarian creole over locally grown rice or okra pancakes, or you can add on shrimp, chicken and sausage for a small fee.
The creole was delicious with traditional flavors and a good amount of spice. He also added on sausage for a heartier meal.
He decided on a side of chicken perlo. He enjoyed it, but said that it could’ve been served a bit hotter for maximum flavor.
All of the entrees come with one of the restaurant’s many sides, including pasta salad, potato, salad, rice, grits, fruit, a salad, cole slaw and mac and cheese muffin.
Prices are reasonable, especially when you compare them to what you’ll get in downtown Charleston for a similar style tea experience.
We’ve also done the Hotel Bennett tea, which is far more expensive for far less food than you’ll get here. This might be one instance where you’ll have a better experience by heading out on a day trip.
What Else to Do at Hopsewee Plantation
When you’re done with your meal, don’t hurry back to your car. This property has several other things that you need to add to your itinerary.
Gift Shops
There are 2 gift shop areas, both within the River Oak Cottage.
In the one closest to the dining room, look for the bracelets dyed with indigo and tea. They’re made by Deb, one of the tea room’s waitresses!
The other gift shop is next to the front door of the tea room cottage and has local rice, grits, ornaments, indigo dyed shirts, and tea themed accessories.
If you’re thirsty, you can grab a soft drink or water in the cooler here.
Grounds
A portion of the wooden boardwalk along the Santee River
You can wander the grounds and the short boardwalk along the Santee River.
Doing so is free regardless of whether you’re doing a tour or visiting the tea room, and the beautiful live oaks frame nearly every part of the property.
The boardwalk is another newer addition to the property. You can linger along the river at the dock, or make your way back towards the main house.
Museum
This museum, which is still being added to as new information about the plantation comes to light, focuses primarily on the enslaved people who made life at Hopsewee possible for decades.
Much of it relies on oral tradition told from local residents who are descendants of those people who were enslaved here.
There is major archeological work going on at the plantation to help learn more about their experience, and of the plantation in general from its inception.
While the museum is small, it’s a great place to start your learning about Hopsewee Plantation, the system of slavery that dominated the South prior to the Civil War, the indigo and rice crops, and much more.
It’s a unique time to visit the museum as it is constantly changing and being updated as more information is gathered about the property.
This is a separate fee, and you can pick up tickets in the dining room.
Tours
You can also take one of the house, archeological, or Gullah tours, but these are an additional fee.
The only way to see the inside of the house is with a guide on one of the scheduled daily tours. These tours last about an hour and carry you through the main areas of the home. You’ll learn about the plantation owners and the enslaved people forced to make a life on this land.
The house tours are appropriate for younger kids. I first went on one of these in late middle or early high school and really enjoyed it.
To learn more specifically about the enslaved population at Hopsewee, book a spot on one of the Gullah tours. This guided tour discusses the Gullah culture that grew within the Sea Island and Lowcountry slave populations, the process of rice production, and much more.
Final Thoughts on the Hopsewee Plantation Tea Room
The back of the Tea Room
I recommend this experience wholeheartedly to anyone interested in Southern dining with a fun twist.
As an Anglophile who seeks out tea rooms wherever I go (including the afternoon tea at the British Museum), I love to find places closer to home that are carrying on this tradition.
The menu is varied enough to provide your party with plenty of options, while still including tried and true favorites from Southern cuisine and afternoon teas.
It’s location halfway between Myrtle Beach and Charleston makes this an easy option for a bridal luncheon, girls’ day out, birthday lunch, or just a way to jazz up your weekend.
