What's a must eat here?

I always stop by and have homemade fried chicken at my friend Val's place in Irmo. As for restaurants nothing jumps out me to recommend. I'd probably look at urban spoon or trip advisor for recs. If you find a good place, please post it back here.

Mr. Friendly's was attached to our hotel and food was pretty good when we were there for the game last year.

Forgot to mention, we saw Billy and Gabe there as well, so you know it "the spot" to be.

Campus is nice..

I went to the game last year...had a good time. The fans there were nice...little cocky at first (no pun intended) but many were actually shaking our hands as we walked through the parking lot congratulating us after the game. Didn't mind the little bit of trash talking we got when we were there. If you're gonna be permanent rivals, better start making it fun!

One thing that is different about Williams-Brice is that it is on the state fairground...so we didn't even try to park near it...costly or impossible (especially by the time we got in). Plus, being the first time, we didn't exactly know where we could trust to have our car parked! :-)

I'd say 'where you should eat' depends on how long you're actually gonna be there. We drove in from Central Texas, so we spent the night outside of Atlanta, then drove in the day of the game and got there sometime between noon and 1:00pm.

There are four large parking lots to the S/SE of Colonial Life Arena, you can find them at the corner of Devine St. and Gadsen St. (By the way, if you head S/SE on Gadsen St., you will run directly into Greek Village and all the SC Sorority houses...) We parked there, and it was free. At the corner of Devine and Gadsen, there is a pizza/pub place called 'Thirsty Fellow'. Good food and drinks...and not very pricey, either. The only thing that sucked is we couldn't watch any college football while we were there...because A&M-SC was the opening game! :-) It was fun watching all the 'experts' pick SC over us, though...in hindsight at least!

Once we were ready to go to the stadium, we walked back across the parking lot to the next street to the east (Lincoln St.), and they have a booth and for $2.50, you can get a round trip ticket on a shuttle (you get a wristband) to a spot near the stadium...you still have to walk a little ways to the stadium, but it wasn't anything bad. You get dropped off (and get back on) near Rosewood Dr. and Olympia Ave. You'll walk through all the SC tailgaters and they were all nice...at least the ones we ran into. The line to get back on it was long...but since the Aggies won, it was a blast talking with tall the fans (pretty much all A&M) waiting for the shuttles.

But like I said, where to eat will probably depend on how long you're there. For us, coming in that afternoon, and then jumping back on the road immediately after the game, where we parked and ate was perfect. There just aren't really a whole lot of places to eat around Williams Brice, so unless you plan to park and tailgate there, you'll wanna look more downtown.

Liberty Bar & Grill..Old Civil War Hospital...they even serve Shiner too...good sports bar/restaurant.

Blue Marlin for seafood. Maurice's for BBQ.

Ruth's Chris Steakhouse

For all the folks advocating charleston when visiting columbia, check out Asheville, NC. 2.5 hours the other way on 26 and you get Beer City, USA, great food, mountains, and cool weather.

2nd for Ruth's Chris. Beautiful location and great steak.

Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives online has a list of places they have hit when in the area. We went with them in Columbia and Charleston and were not disappointed.

2nd the Maurice's bbq