We Can DuWapp It!

For decades, if the Crull family hardware store on Wappoo Road didn’t have it, you didn’t need it. Or so it said on the store’s receipts.
Nearly two years ago, its last owners, the Metz family closed up shop for good and posted a simple goodbye note in the front-door window.
Since then, the 12,000-square-foot hodgepodge of buildings has lain fallow, waiting to be reincarnated.
Meanwhile, down the street, at the corner of Wappoo Road and Savannah Highway, city and county officials met with neighboring residents and planned and fomented big changes.
A Limehouse Co. vegetable shed has been pulled down, and plans have been considered to bring the area high-speed internet cable to woo startups turned off by the peninsula’s high prices and infrastructure issues.
The slate has been wiped a little cleaner, awaiting big change.
Local pasta maker and West Ashley resident Brian Bertolini had no idea of all the coming changes when he bought the buildings that housed the old hardware store to become his new pasta and prepared foods factory.
For the past few years, Bertolini has been growing his business Rio Bertolini’s Pasta in a simple building owned by Limehouse.
Having begun his culinary career in Charleston under vaunted chef Bob Waggoner at Charleston Place downtown, Bertolini pined for his own gig with his own name on the marquee.
He started out selling his handmade pastas at local farmer’s markets, and to local restaurants that wanted the fresh, good stuff.
And Rio Bertolini’s grew. Over the course of seven years, the company now sells pastas to 250 restaurants from Asheville, N.C., to Hilton Head.
Bertolini estimates his company produces close to 60 different types of ravioli alone; 30 flavors of pasta noodles; as well as pillowy-soft gnocchi.
“We probably produce 5,000 pounds of pasta every week,” says Bertolini outside his old site, as he cleans yet another piece of discarded restaurant equipment he picked up for next to nothing.
On top of success with the professionals, home cooks have heaped praise on Bertolini’s products. One customer from Charlotte posted on Yelp!: “Love love love this pasta! I just want to pack this man up in my suitcase and take him back to Charlotte to create pasta daily in my kitchen!”
Another customer who moved from Charleston to Annapolis, Md., wrote: “These raviolis are amazing, they are so flavorful and there are so many great combinations.”
When he gets done with plans for the new site, Bertolini will have more storage and production possibilities.
Initially, he said he will likely lease out the street-front building to another company, but dreams of a time when he could have a small stand-alone retail store to sell his wares, which also includes sauces, frozen meals, and other items.
At first glance, Bertolini’s dreams also excite city planning director Jacob Lindsey.
Lindsey likes the idea of the DuWapp area becoming home to more and more “makers’ movement” businesses that have already made Wappoo home, like a high-end car detailing company and a film production company.
“This sounds like what the city has been trying to bring to DuWapp,” says Lindsey, adding that no plans have crossed his desk.
Living on the other side of Savannah Highway, Bertolini liked the idea of staying close to home, versus driving an hour each way to a spot off Ashley Phosphate.
“I was looking all over Charleston, but everything had gotten so expensive,” says Bertolini. “Every time I found something, if I dragged my feet for a second, it would be gone. There was nothing left in this price range.”
But when he saw the old hardware buildings were up for sale, and at a price that made sense, Bertolini said he was able to pounce with money he’d saved with years of low rents from understanding landlords.
And once the roof is replaced – can’t have rain hitting the flour, Bertolini can look to expand his business even more.
Those buildings expanded Rhett Crull’s world as a kid when his dad opened it. It made Charleston in the 1970s not seem so small, as everyone from every part of the area would come by.
“I’m glad to see it’s being used for something good,” says Crull who now sells Subarus in North Charleston.
“But it’s also bittersweet that we don’t have a local hardware store in West Ashley anymore. But, again, it’s a great thing they are contributing to Charleston.”