Antwan Smalls was deployed to Kuwait in 2020. The restaurant he owns with his family, My Three Sons of Charleston , was just settling into its new location on Dorchester Road. Smalls, who served in the Army before joining the Reserves, was overseas for nine months.
During that time, he was living in two worlds. When fellow troops went to bed, he would pull out his computer to manage food orders and catering gigs for the North Charleston restaurant. “I would literally go from the Army and I would put on my restaurant hat,” Smalls said.
Joining the military was an obvious path for Smalls, who attended Charleston Southern University on a football scholarship before enrolling in business school. He followed the footsteps of at least a dozen members of his family who previously served, including his mother, Lorraine. Charleston soul food restaurant receives $50K grant from national preservation nonprofit Lorraine Smalls grew up on Johns Island, where roaming the corn fields and picking fresh tomatoes sparked a love of food.
She decided she wanted to cook for a living in high school and enrolled in the Army after one year at South Carolina State. During basic training, Smalls recalls making meals for hundreds of troops every hour. She said she loved every minute of it.
“I had this master sergeant that was head of the kitchen, and I told him what I wanted to do,” she said. “He put me through a little culinary arts program.” Years later, she's churning out seafood rice, f.