The best fried chicken in South Carolina isn't in Charleston or Greenville — it's hiding in towns so small the whole population could fit in a church parking lot. We're counting down 12 fried chicken joints that locals quietly drive hours to reach: one still a working general store with canned goods on the shelves behind your table, one a few blocks from a spring that was legally deeded to God Almighty in 1944, and one a converted gas station where Saturday means they hand you a raw steak and point at the grill.

Along the way there's a hundred-year-old rivalry between two towns nine miles apart, a Victorian mansion serving buffet, and a cafeteria line that hasn't changed since 1948. These are the places that close the second the last thigh leaves the fryer — and the ones locals would rather you didn't share.