#YeahTHATWeekendAgenda: Farehouse Brunch Returns, Tortas at Mextiz, Grand Bohemian Greenville Breaks Ground, Moving Up, Ducks Ducks Ducks
Apr 20, 2019 01:02AM ● By Chris Haire
Former Site of Rafferty's Restaurant and Bar to be redeveloped: During the 1980s, the Congaree Road corridor from Haywood Mall to Roper Mountain Road first begin to emerge as a popular commercial corridor.
By the late '90s, the road had morphed into a convenient dining spot situated between two of the area's major malls -- both of which had undergone significant renovations -- and near three movie theaters, Hollywood Cinemas, Haywood Cinemas, and a dollar theater. Downtown Greenville was reemerging, but the Haywood area was where you often went when you went out.It was at this moment when Rafferty's staked its claim at 600 Congaree Road.
Although the heart of Greenville retail shifted from Haywood Road to the Hollingsworth properties on Woodruff in the 2000s, Rafferty's remained while other once-popular eateries closed up shop. But following a fire last September, Rafferty's shuttered its doors for good. The site, however, will be redeveloped.
In February, Duck Shack Real Estate Partner sold the property for $965,000 to 600 Congaree LLC, and according to Colliers International which assisted in the sale, the site will be redeveloped as an "upscale dental office."
Duck Shack has previously bought the property for $1,125,000 from Rafferty's Inc. Ky Corp.
“This is a great example of the idea that good real estate is always good real estate,” said Colliers International’s Frank Hammond, CCIM, CPM, who represented Duck Shack in the sale. “While the Haywood Road retail corridor is experiencing the effects of recent trends in retail, such as the announcement of the Toys ‘R’ Us closing, the adaptable use of this property is an example of how a great location with strong demographics will reinvent itself.”
Although the Greenville location is closed, more than a dozen Rafferty's locations remain in business across the south, primarily in Tennessee and Kentucky. --Chris Haire***
To Subscribe to Greenville Business Magazine for $35 a year, click here.
***
Farehouse readies brunch relaunch: The Farehouse at Taylors Mill has been a popular brunch spot since it opened last year, but months ago, the restaurant next to 13 Stripes Brewery nixed Sunday brunch hours as staff retooled the menu. That retootling is over and the eatery is set begin serving brunch again, starting Sunday, April 28, from noon to 3 p.m.
No word yet on the menu specifics, but the restaurant will be offering "homemade brunch items available but there will be scratch-made snacks, sandwiches, salads," in addition to bottomless mimosas and a bloody mary bar," according to a Facebook post from the dining establishment. --Chris Haire
***
New Mexican street food shop Mextizo Tortas & Tacos to open today on Haywood Road: Ask fans of authentic Mexican fare in Greenville there's a chance they'll tell you that Las Meras Tortas is one of the Upstate underrated gems.
With locations on White Horse Road (next to La Unica) and Wade Hampton Boulevard (across from the Taylors Walmart), Las Meras specializes in serving tortas, a popular street food sandwich that can include cheese, tomatoes, jalapenos, avocado, lettuce, onions, refried beans, and your choice of meat, from carne asada to chorizo to carnitas.
And now Las Meras has a sister restaurant: Mextizo Tortas & Tacos.
Located at 601 Haywood Road in the same shopping center housing Kanpai and City Range, Mextizo will be open starting today April 17 from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. At press time, no regular menu was available, but it wouldn't be an unheard of to imagine something similar to Las Meras.--Chris Haire
***
WYFF 4 will mark the 10th anniversary of its award-winning Chronicle program on “10 Years of Chronicle” premiering Wednesday, April 17 at 8 p.m. This locally produced special looks back at some of the incredible stories WYFF News 4 has told over the past decade.
The first Chronicle debuted in the spring of 2009 with “Chronicle: Paul’s Gift,” which followed the process of organ and tissue donation. Since then, the program has investigated issues like the opioid crisis and domestic violence and told the stories of interesting people like Rev. Billy Graham and Shoeless Joe Jackson.
“I have been part of Chronicle from the beginning and look forward to each program because of the stories we tell about the people and places that make the Carolinas special,” said Jane Robelot, host of Chronicle and WYFF News 4 anchor/reporter.
“I grew up in Greenville and know this community very well, but I can honestly say I learn something new each time we work on a Chronicle project," Robelot adds. "We want Chronicle to be memorable…something a viewer can talk about with their friends. I am so proud of what we have done in our first 10 years and am excited about where we can go from here.” --Kathleen Maris
***
Reedy River Duck Derby Announces Event Activities: While the Duck Derby is known for the 10,000 little ducks that float over the Reedy River falls to help local charities, the Rotary Club of the Reedy River Greenville also hosts an all-day celebration.
“The event is going to be filled with fun activities for people of all ages,” said Jessica St. Clair Smith, president of the Rotary Club of the Reedy River Greenville. “As always, we’ll have live music and entertainment, games for children and interactive booths. We’ve added some new elements this year, such as Old World Festival’s interactive drummers and Chicora Singers, which involve the community even more and we are all very excited about that.”
This year’s event, which is called the official unofficial kick-off to summer in Greenville, will be on Saturday, May 4 from 10:30 a.m.-4 p.m.
For more information on how to adopt a duck, visit www.reedyriverrotary.org. --Kathleen Maris
***
Grand Bohemian Greenville Breaks Ground, Unveils Renderings of Restaurant and Lobby: On Wednesday, the Kessler Collection's Richard C. Kessler, Mayor Knox White, and other officials held a groundbreaking ceremony at the site of the Grand Bohemian Greenville overlooking the Reedy River. The Kessler Collection also released renderings of two interior focal points, the lobby and a two-floor bar and restaurant.
Much like Charleston's Grand Bohemian, the 187-room, 30-suite Grand Bohemian Greenville boutique hotel will feature art work curated by Kessler himself, a man who helped found the successful Days Inn chain in 1970 back when he was only 23, according to his company bio. Since 2010, Kessler has kept himself busy with the Kessler Collection, a string of nine hotels operating in Orlando, Asheville, St. Augustine, and Savannah, with eyes on new Grand Bohemians in Charlotte and Atlanta.
“The location is uniquely dramatic, situated in the heart [of] a downtown reprieve, overlooking the Reedy River. There will be no other hotel in the state of South Carolina with such tranquil ambiance created by natural beauty," Kessler said in a statement.
The Grand Bohemian Greenville is inspired by mountain lodges and is expected to be completed in 2021. It will be located blocks away from the new Camperdown development, one of the signature projects in the East Gateway District.
Camperdown will feature the 17-story Falls Tower, the new AC Hotel By Marriott, and the Greenville News. The development will bring with it a mix of residential, retail, and some 150,000 square feet of office space. Local business solutions firm Elliott Davis plans to move its headquarters to Camperdown, as does the GVL HQ of Bank of America.
Further down Broad, plans for a five-story 38-condo complex have been submitted to the Greenville Planning Commission. Located at 301 East Broad Street, at the corner of Broad and David Francis Street and across the street from McBee Station, the development would sit on 1.9 acres. Broad Street LLC is behind the complex while the Johnson Design Group is the architect.
The development of the East Gateway District and Broad Street stands out from the other projects in downtown Greenville, which are largely concentrated in West End. The ongoing construction in the two areas are sign that the center of town is continuing to move away from the northern end of Main Street where downtown revitalization began nearly 40 years ago. --Chris Haire***
To Subscribe to Greenville Business Magazine for $35 a year, click here.
Upstate SC Alliance Launches Major Campaign To Recruit Job Seekers: "Move Up" -- those are the words that Upstate SC Alliance and other business organizations want out-of-area job seekers to have in their heads when they start searching for new employment. It's a carefully crafted catchphrase that is not only the recruitment campaign's name, but a call for workers of all stripes to move up in their careers and move up to the Upstate where the Blue Ridge Mountains yawn their greatness, to borrow from a local alma mater.
The Move Up campaign was officially unveiled April 17 at Upstate SC Alliance's annual meeting, and what was revealed was an online effort spearheaded by a resource-heavy website, MoveUpstateSC.com, and the promise of a social media campaign that recalls VisitGreenvilleSC's successful #yeahTHATGreenville campaign, with the job-recruitment effort nudging current residents to share their stories about why they call the Upstate home using the hashtags #MoveUpSC and #AreYouUpForIt.While the MoveUpstateSC site will allow users to explore the Upstate county by county -- whether it be by cost of living, housing availability, marquee employers, or amenities -- a key component of the site will involve promoting so-called Upstarters, the men and women who moved up to the Upstate to find better careers and a better quality of life, from former Washington, D.C. resident Chris Briddell, vice president and chief compliance officer for AnMed Health, to Indiana native and engineer Sadie Waycaster, an associate product manager at the Duncan fiber optic firm AFL.
Lummus also noted that the site is initially envisioned to be used by employers to assist in their recruitment efforts. "Employers and recruiters can place a brand badge and link on their websites to direct job-seekers to explore the community before they’ve even applied for a job by visiting MoveUpstateSC.com," he said. --Chris Haire