Shuai and Corrie Wang met through the pass of a restaurant in the West Village of NYC. Shuai was a chef. Corrie was a server and an aspiring author. It was love at first hand slaps. Two years, a little NYC burn out, and one big road trip later, they were married in Charleston, South Carolina. One day later, they opened a food truck there. It was called Short Grain. Among other accolades, it won them a James Beard nod. (And many of those dishes still live on Jackrabbit’s lunch menu today.)
A decade after their move to Charleston, the couple now own two restaurants in their neighborhood of North Charleston. Jackrabbit Filly, their first restaurant baby, serves heritage-driven New Chinese American cuisine inspired by Shuai’s mom and grandma’s recipes. King BBQ, their second restaurant baby, serves Chinatown-style BBQ that utilizes southern smoke and is reminiscent of the food Shuai grew up eating in Flushing and meals the couple miss the most from living in NYC. Both restaurants source as locally and sustainably as possible while remaining neighborhood joints where everyone feels welcome, can afford to eat at least monthly, and employ people who generally like where they work.
Among their awards and press, Jackrabbit Filly, which opened three months before a world wide pandemic shut everything down, came in #6 on Yelp’s Best Restaurants in the US and Canada. Since it’s opening, King BBQ has graced the cover of Bon Appetit and in 2024 won Eater’s Best New BBQ Restaurant, South Carolina, Southern Living’s 10 Best BBQ Restaurants and Bon Appetit’s Top 20 Best New Restaurants. It also won a prestigious Carolopolis design award. The couple was also awarded StarChef’s Best Restauranteurs, Charleston/Savannah region.
In 2025 Shuai was named a South Carolina Chef Ambassador, cofounded Charleston’s first AAPI group, and appeared on Season 22 of Top Chef. Since meeting Shuai, Corrie has published two novels through Little, Brown, swears some day she’ll write a third, is a James Beard Foundation WEL program alum and an Independent Restaurant Coalition board member, and otherwise, generally, keeps the whole shebang running. In their free time, the Wangs (rhymes with songs y’all) hide from everyone with their three dogs, Moose, Olive, and Golly.
