Locally-owned, nationally-known Tattooed Moose opens in the Citadel Mall
Local restaurateurs Jen and Mike Kulick have deep roots in West Ashley. Not only do they live here with their two kids, but they’re also the creative forces behind the trend-setting Voodoo Tiki Bar & Lounge in Avondale and their business offices (a.k.a. Mission Control) is located along Highway 61. Now the entrepreneuring couple has opened a Tattooed Moose in the Citadel Mall. Their first Moose opened in 2010 on Morrison Drive downtown. Building off its success, a couple years ago the Kulicks opened a second location on Johns Island. The Citadel Mall location is their third, with a fourth already in the works for Summerville.
“We’re super stoked to be in our homeland,” says Jen. “We live here. We have kids. This is our home. And it’s not that I don’t like all the other places, but this one is special.” Jen also gets defensive when people disparage West Ashley as a place that doesn’t support local restaurants and only yearns for a Cracker Barrel or Olive Garden. “People under estimate West Ashley’s taste. West Ashley will total support something that is local and unique,” she says. “The economic growth is here. Expensive homes are here. And people here know good food and they all want good places to go eat.”
West Ashley’s Tattooed Moose is located in the space that formerly housed King Street Grille and Bull & Finch before that … and Backstreet Deli if you want to keep going down memory lane. The restaurant has a direct entrance from outside the mall and a large open patio and outdoor bar. There’s also an upstairs area that has been turned into a game room, equipped with skeeball, air hocky, a lucky crane, and several video games, ranging from barroom favorites, such as Golden Tee and Big Game Hunter, to arcade classics, such as Galaga, Ms. Pacman, and pinball. Downstairs large garage doors roll up and open to the mall, so you can watch people exercise across the corridor at Planet Fitness while downing a basket of duck fat French fries and a cold beer.
“This is the first place we’ve opened where right off the bat we have walk-in traffic,” says Jen. Since officially opening its doors late last month, the restaurant has been packed for lunch, dinner, and brunch, which is offered every Saturday and Sunday. They are also open late night, serving food until 1 a.m.
The Tattooed Moose’s opening in the mall is a big deal for a two reasons.
For one, it’s a wildly popular restaurant that has been featured on the Food Network’s Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives and draws folks from all over the country who, while in town, want to eat at same place Guy Fieri visited when he was here. The original downtown location has become a regular drawl for out-of-towners as well as a cozy hangout for locals.
The other reason it’s a big deal is it represents the latest step in the evolution of the Citadel Mall. As malls across the country continue to decline, Richard and Ginger Davis, the new owners of the Citadel Mall, have a bigger vision, that includes uses beyond the traditional shopping mall. They continue to attract non-traditional “mall” tenants, like up-scale clothing boutiques and local restaurants, such as Sesame Burgers & Beer and now Tattooed Moose, while also buying the larger anchor parcels, such as the former JC Penny’s spot, which has already been leased to MUSC and now the Sears building. No official plans have ben announced for that space as of yet. However, the presence of a heralded local bar and eatery such as the positive Tattooed Moose is a positive sign that things are going to be quite different at the old mall in the coming years.
“I’m happy to be part of Richard and Ginger’s vision,” says Jen. “We’ve talked about doing some events together in the parking lot. There’s just a lot of potential.”
Prior to opening at the mall, Jen says she and Mike frequented Sesame, located next to Target. She says they weren’t even planning on opening another Tattooed Moose at the time, but something about the empty restaurant space kept calling out to her. “I kept walking by here and thinking ‘that space looks like a Tattooed Moose,” she says. So lucky for West Ashley, we now don’t have to drive downtown or to Johns Island to get a “Mike’s Famous Duck Club,” which includes duck confit, duck cracklins, bacon, lettuce, tomato, onion, and garlic aoli, stacked on three pieces of sweet Hawaiian bread. It’s a $15 sandwich, but it’s also large enough to split two or three ways.
Unlike other restaurant’s that tag the word “famous” to their food without any justification, “Mike’s Famous Duck Club” has truly achieved national notoriety. This in large part is because back in 2012, Guy Fieri pulled his classic 1968 Chevy Camaro up to the Tattooed Moose downtown. After watching Mike make the monster sandwich, the Food Network star dove in.
In between giant bites he told Mike, “I gotta tell ya’ … The duck is tender. The bread plays into it perfectly. Big fat tomatoes, the veggies work in. The garlic aioli. I couldn’t change a thing on it. This is money, dude.” And with that a legend was born. Every time since then when that episode airs on the Food Network, the Tattooed Moose sees a rise in business and merchandise sales.
And while the bleach blond, spiky haired Fieri is sometimes the whipping boy of the foodie world, Jen says they owe a lot of their success to him and the show. “He is a really nice guy and had a lot of great advice. We thought bigger about the moose after he left,” says Jen. “So let’s put it this way, if I’m at the grocery store and I have a choice between Guy’s BBQ sauce and someone else’s sauce. I get Guy’s every time.”
While the Tattooed Moose has become famous for its duck club, the truly famous sandwich was actually born at the Kulick’s other West Ashley establishment Voodoo Tiki Bar & Lounge on Magnolia Road in Avondale. It was during Voodoo’s early days when a short-lived attempt at brunch was responsible for Mike creating the now-famous sandwich. Although, the busy West Ashley nightlife spot decided to pull the plug on it’s brunch because it was too hectic with such a small kitchen and staff, you can still get the slider version of the duck club at Voodoo today.
In addition to “Mike’s Famous Duck Club,” the Tattooed Moose has also become well known for several other items on the menu, like their aforementioned hand-cut duck fat fries with garlic aioli. If you’re really feeling lucky, you can add a bowl of gravy for a buck. Hey, MUSC will soon be opening in the mall if you need a cardiologist on call. Speaking of feeling lucky, another favorite sandwich is the Lucky #1 Sub, which is seared pork belly topped with Kimchi, cucumbers, crispy, onions, cilantro, wasabi mayo and a sweet red sauce on a toasted roll.
“Each sandwich kind of has their own following,” says Jen. Other favorites include, the Thanksgiving Sammy, which is roasted turkey, cornbread stuffing, cranberry sauce, mayonnaise, and crispy fried onions on toasted wheat. It’s served with a side of gravy for dipping.
Tattooed Moose’s brunch menu, which is available 11 a.m.-3 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday, also has some notable offerings, like the The Fried Chicken Wing Bloody Mary, which consists of homemade bloody mary mix served tall and topped with a fried chicken wing and candied bacon lardon skewer, and the Garbage Plate, which includes meat, cheese, scrambled eggs, and veggies on a bed of duck fat fries smothered in sausage gravy.
“Because of our hours, our food availability, our game room, our patio,I feel like we kind of are everything to everybody,” says Jen. “You could come here several time a week. Because one time you might come here for lunch, then you might come to happy hour, then dinner one day, and then come back for brunch on the weekend.”
The Tattooed Moose is located in the Citadel Mall, 2070 Sam Rittenberg Blvd. For more information, call (843) 637-4284 or visit www.tattooedmoose.com