Blacksheep

There’s no distance too far for an excellent sandwich. Especially when that sandwich is a cloud of paper-thin mortadella and pickled peppers served on warmed ciabatta.

Beaufort, South Carolina’s Blacksheep started as a microrestaurant (14 seats in less than 900 square feet) in the middle of the pandemic in 2020, with owner/chef Matt Wallace and general manager Krista Duffy serving up a tight, 10-option dinner menu five nights a week. In 2024, after several years of resounding success and impossible-to-get reservations, the two took a pause. “We kept calling it a sabbatical,” Duffy says.

When they decided to reopen, it was to serve sandwiches and sell wine. Hence, the new name, Blacksheep Bottle Shop x Sabbatical Sandwich Co. And Wallace is putting the same care and attention into those sandwiches that he did when crafting dishes for dinner.

The meat is layered high, making their mortadella sandwich almost too large to bite into but the bread gives a bit, so you can tamp it down and devour it to the last morsel. It’s not the only sandwich, of course. There’s an Italian with cold cuts and marinated red onion, as well as a seasonal vegetarian option (the marinated squash and zucchini number with pistachio pesto, for example) along with seasonal specials like a peach BLT in the high summer or a beef and cheddar dripping with cheddar fondue. They all come with crunchy kettle chips. A short list of small plates changes frequently, too, like a smoked trout toast with a smoked and pickled red onion marmalade.

You can order a local beer or a few wines by the glass, like a Muller rosé or a Spanish garnacha, but there’s also a tightly edited selection of bottles that line a few shelves along one wall. Most of them are from boutique wineries, with a few biodynamic and natural wines in the mix. The shop offers a monthly wine club and also does tastings once a week.

The new concept is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and makes for an ideal lunch stop during a Lowcountry road trip—especially if it allows you to take a detour from the highway and enjoy the meandering back roads that lead down to Beaufort’s idyllic waterfront. Don’t forget to grab a bottle to take home.