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New York-style pizza joint Andolini’s Pizza celebrates 30 years of serving Charlestonians this month with rotating daily specials and live events now through Dec. 31.

On Mondays, guests can get any specialty pizza for $19.92, a testament to the year the restaurant opened. Individual chicken wings are just 75 cents on Tuesdays. Sing your heart out Wednesday evenings with karaoke from 6-9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays are family night with a free beverage and dessert offered for children younger than 12 years old. Dance to music played by a DJ every Saturday night this month from 7-10 p.m.

You can indulge in two slices of pizza and a Pabst Blue Ribbon or soft drink for $8 or a one-topping slice of pizza, salad and soft drink for $10 every day of the week.

Michael Rabin and his wife Edie opened Andolini’s in 1992 on Wentworth Street in downtown Charleston. Twelve years later, David and Mindy Odle joined the team as partners. The Rabins and Odles have since stepped away from the franchise at the beginning of this year, leaving it in the hands of Tom Milligan, David’s longtime accountant.

In the 30 years since its inception, the pizza place has been a gathering spot for many, including families, high school teens and local sports teams to share pizza and memories.

“The best thing I like about pizza is not from a taste perspective,” David Odle said. “Pizza is social. Most people get a large pizza and share it. And I love hanging out with friends and I love hanging out with family and grabbing a couple pies. It’s a community dish.”

After the success of the downtown Andolini’s, the Rabins and Odles opened multiple locations in West Ashley and Mount Pleasant a few years later. Then, the company took a different direction and opened Juanita Greenberg’s Burrito Palace in the early 2000s (now known as Juanita Greenberg’s Nacho Royale).

According to Odle, he and the Rabins split the businesses, with Michael and Edie taking the Juanita Greenberg’s and David and Mindy taking over Andolini’s.

With the effects of the pandemic seemingly behind us, Andolini’s West Ashley location on Sam Rittenberg Boulevard is back and ready to celebrate its decades-long tradition of good pizza and good times. Though its other locations in North Charleston, Mount Pleasant and Folly Beach have since closed, Andolini’s on Sam Rittenberg is considered its flagship location and houses indoor and outdoor seating, a bar stocked with cold beers and liquor, an area for live events and its own private event room.

Milligan said the food and beverage industry has always been his passion and is excited to lead Andolini’s into another 30 years. “For me, it’s kind of just like the Earl of Sandwich. The thing is, pizza allows you to eat a meal in one hand.”

Andolini’s is open from 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sun.-Thurs. and 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Fri.-Sat.

And if you’ve wondered where Rabin originally got the name for Andolini’s all those years ago, just watch The Godfather 2, Odle said.

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CHARLESTON S.C. (WCIV) — Wonderful things can happen when a community comes together.

Lowcountry non-profit, Metanoia SC, is listening to the people who live in North Charleston's Chicora-Cherokee neighborhood.

Over the past 20 years, Metanoia has been implementing programs to meet residents' needs to generate positive changes.

Shawn Saulsberry is the Board Chair of Metanoia.

"It's a huge responsibility because Metanoia is literally serving the area that I grew up in," Saulsberry said.

Saulsberry remembers growing up in what's known as "Charleston Heights," or the "Heights" in North Charleston.

The community played an important part in his childhood.

"I didn't have the organization that we have today, but somehow I ran across those metanoia-type people who saw me, and they invested in me."

His grandfather taught him the importance of entrepreneurship.

"My grandfather taught us to work hard at an early age. He would let us rent the lawnmower from him, and we would go and cut grass in the community, and we would get to keep the profits," Saulsberry said.

Now, as a Senior Manager at the accounting firm Ernst & Young, Saulsberry uses his background of a strong work ethic to encourage the youth in the neighborhood.

Metanoia serves as a youth leadership pipeline.

"I'm not the smartest or the brightest, but I do know how to work hard, and I also know how to have endurance and not stop and just encourage them. If you do those things eventually, you're gonna find what you love. You're gonna find what you want to do in life, and it's gonna work well for you," said Saulsberry.

Metanoia was launched in 2002 by a coalition of churches across South Carolina.

By definition, Metanoia certainly works well with the community it serves.

"It means to make a positive transformation, kind of take upon a positive change of direction," explained Metanoia CEO Reverend Bill Stanfield.

Rev. Stanfield and his wife Evelyn live in the Chicora-Cherokee neighborhood with their two teenage sons.

Before Metanoia's founding, the couple spent one year getting to know their neighbors and listening to their concerns.

"We really do believe people closest to communities know the solutions to their own problems," said Stanfield.

Stanfield saw this as an opportunity to build on the positive community members saw in their neighborhood.

And Metanoia did just that.

In addition to building leaders, it's the non-profit's mission to also establish quality housing within Chicora-Cherokee.

"We build new homes for some home buyers. We also build new homes for affordable rental, all within the community where prices are going up, and people are finding it hard to afford a place to live," said Stanfield.

The organization also invests in neighborhood assets. They support black businesses on Reynolds Avenue and have a partnership with a local manufacturing company to create jobs in the community.

"There's a systematic way of listening to the community and understanding what the community needs and then coming alongside the needs of the community and becoming an advocate for what the community wants to do," said Saulsberry.

If you'd like to nominate an individual or organization for a prestigious 'Jefferson Award, email your nomination to ABC News 4's Tessa Spencer.

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCBD) – It won’t be much longer before Charleston feels like spring again – and with spring in the Lowcountry comes myriad events from the Southeastern Wildlife Expo to the Flowertown Festival, the Cooper River Bridge Run and the Credit One Charleston Open.

But one thing people are always looking forward to when the warmer air arrives is enjoying live music from their favorite artists, or perhaps artists that bring back a nostalgic feeling.

We saw plenty of big-name musicians make stops in the Charleston area during their tours in 2022 like Stevie Nicks, Miranda Lambert, Sheryl Crow, Elton John, and Darius Rucker, and 2023 is shaping up to be rather active as well.

Here are five upcoming concerts you won’t want to miss:

The “Empress of Soul,” Gladys Knight, will make a stop at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center in early spring. The “Midnight Train to Georgia” singer has been touring much of the U.S. in 2022 and will perform in North Charleston on March 2^nd. (tickets)

Third Eye Blind, an American rock band who rose to fame in the 90s, will perform at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center as part of their ‘Summer Gods: 25 Years in The Blind’ tour on March 21. (tickets)

Best known for their emotional ballads, American vocal harmony group Boyz II Men will appear at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center on March 30^th. (tickets)

Country music star Kenny Chesney will bring his ‘I Go Back Tour’ with Kelsea Ballerini to Daniel Island with a performance at Credit One Stadium on Thursday, May 25. (tickets)

American country music group Lady A (formerly Lady Antebellum) will perform at the Charleston Gaillard Center on June 24. (tickets)

BONUS: For those looking for the complete music festival experience, High Water Festival will return to North Charleston’s Riverfront Park on April 15 and 16. (tickets)

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Bars and restaurants in downtown Charleston are adopting a new app as a way to prevent underage drinking on New Year’s Eve.

Charleston city officials came together in November to approve the ID scanner pilot program. The program kicked off on Dec. 5 and works through a mobile app called Intellicheck, which scans IDs to verify someone’s identity and age.

Introducing the concept to Charleston City Council, El Jefe Texican Cantina owner Roy Neal said by using the app, the responsibility to catch fake IDs shifts away from bar owners thanks to the technology.

“We’ve already seen a lot of the effects of us using the scanner technology, because the people that were going to try to use it and get by our front door system, realize that we have the scanners,” Neal said. “I think word on the street [is] that pretty much all the businesses are using the scanner app.”

Intellicheck is available for up to 31 restaurants and bars in the King Street area, and as of Nov. 30, 24 businesses have signed up.

“It doesn’t cost a local business owner anything, and you sleep better at night to know you’re in compliance with the laws of South Carolina. I mean, it’s easy, but it’s also it’s the right thing to do and I’d prefer every business owner is using it,” Neal said.

Many restaurants and bars in the King Street area offer different tickets to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Taylor O’Malley is spending Saturday night in Charleston and said it makes her feel good that the city is focusing on eliminating underage drinking.

“With age comes maturity. I think it’s nice to have a little bit of an older crowd just because of the experience with liquor and it creates a safer environment,” O’Malley said.

The city and Charleston Convention and Visitors Bureau contributed $20,000 each for a six-month program ending in May.

Following the pilot program, the businesses can negotiate separate deals with Intellicheck, but the city will not cover the cost for them.

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