New Businesses

Camilla Kitchen sits on South Main in the heart of downtown Greenville, working as a coffee shop, bakery, and cafe in one. Alongside the coffee there are fresh-baked goods and a cafe menu, plus a small food-store side for picking up a few things to take home. It also keeps a longer day than most downtown coffee stops, opening early and staying open into the evening later in the week, so it fits an after-dinner stop as easily as a morning cup.

Cohesive Coffee runs this cafe inside the Southern First location on Verdae Boulevard in Greenville. It keeps weekday daytime hours, which makes it more of a workday coffee stop for people moving through the Verdae area than a weekend outing. Beyond the drinks, it doubles as a small food store, so there is something to grab on the way through and not only a cup to go.

Cohesive Coffee is a neighborhood coffee shop on the Airport Road side of Greenville, set away from downtown. It opens early, at seven, and stays open through the afternoon every day of the week. Beyond the coffee, it is listed as a cafe and food store, so it works as much for grabbing a bite or picking something up as for sitting down with a drink. Prices land at the easy-going end for the area.

Bridge City Coffee at The Intersection sits in downtown Greenville, an easy stop when you are working your way through the city center and want a proper cup of coffee. It runs as both a cafe and a small food store, which makes it as good for a quick grab-and-go as it is for slowing down over a drink. The draw is the coffee: espresso drinks and brewed cups made to order, with something to eat alongside. The food-store side means you can also pick up a few things to take home, so a stop here can be more than just the cup in your hand.

Along the Wade Hampton corridor in Greenville, this is the flagship that started it all for Bridge City, the spot where the company first roasted its own beans and opened a specialty coffee drive-thru. The expanded seating room has become a place people settle into for a while, with quotes carved into the handmade tables and a poem one of the founders wrote and painted onto the wall. Coffee is roasted in-house rather than bought in, which is really the whole point here. Alongside the espresso menu and rotating seasonal drinks, there are bags of single origins and blends to take home, and retail orders ship the same week the beans come off the roast. A small food and pastry side rounds it out. What makes the shop different is built into how it runs. Bridge City hired its earliest team members through a partner non-profit and frames itself around building value in the people who come through the door, not just selling coffee. Reviewers keep returning to two things: coffee they rate among the best in the Upstate, and baristas who stay warm even on a slow, rough morning. The short version if you go: serious specialty coffee in a room that is easy to linger in, run by people who clearly want you there.

There is a bit more to a stop at Methodical than the coffee. The counter handles the espresso and cafe drinks, a bakery case adds something fresh to go alongside your cup, and a small food-store shelf lets you pick up a few things to carry home in the same visit. That combination of coffee bar, cafe, and little market is what sets it apart from a standard grab-and-go around Greenville.

Methodical Coffee sits on Wade Hampton Boulevard just outside downtown Greenville, serving espresso and drip coffee alongside a short cafe menu. A retail side rounds it out, so it works as a place to pick up a few things to take home as much as a place to sit a while with a cup. Prices stay approachable and the hours run daytime, opening early on weekdays and closing by late afternoon.

Bobby's runs a Central Texas-style pit in the middle of the South Carolina Upstate, and the method sets the tone: meat smoked over real wood in offset pits, with no gas or electric assist, which is what earns a place its True 'Cue certification. It is a lean, family-run operation in Fountain Inn that smokes a few days a week rather than trying to be everything at once. The board runs to brisket, beef and pork ribs, pulled pork, smoked turkey, and house-made sausage in both an original and a jalapeño-cheddar version. Sides are made from scratch, corn pudding and mac and cheese among them, and there is craft beer and hard cider to go alongside a tray. The restaurant grew out of a seasoning company. Owner Tay Nelson started Bobby's as a spice blend in 2010, taught himself to smoke, built it into a catering business, and opened the Fountain Inn restaurant in 2018. The original all-purpose seasoning, along with a citrus blend and a BBQ rub, is still sold by the bottle next to the food.

Two chefs run this weekday lunch spot on Highway 86 in Piedmont, and it shows on a specials board that turns over by the day. What could have been an ordinary sandwich counter instead cooks from scratch with local ingredients, and the menu wanders happily past the usual into deconstructed Navajo tacos, hog jowl taco boxes, and green chili goat cheese queso. Alongside the sandwiches and burgers are shareable plates worth splitting: mac and cheese bites with pepper jam, fried green tomatoes with pimento cheese, Brussels sprouts in a balsamic reduction with goat cheese. The same kitchen handles catering for weddings, corporate lunches, and events across the Upstate, and packs take-and-bake family meals for the nights nobody feels like cooking. The chicken salad is the one people mention most, offered regular, jalapeño cheddar, or pecan and sometimes tucked into cucumber cups. With the specials changing through the week, half the fun is landing on the order that becomes your own.

Catering Etc is a Powdersville caterer serving the surrounding Upstate, handling both food delivery for smaller orders and full catering for larger events and gatherings. Based on the Powdersville side of Anderson County, it is a local option for hosts who would rather book someone close to home than drive into the city to arrange a caterer.

The Soul Roll tends to get ordered before anyone has fully settled in: a house creation of greens and pork served with sauce, the sort of thing you won't find spelled out on many menus. It shares the board with brisket, burnt ends, ribs, hand-pulled pork, and smoked wings, plus a rack of BBQ sauces brought to the table so you can dial in your own plate. These days Smitty's cooks from a downtown Easley storefront on East Main, a move from its original Calhoun Memorial Highway spot, though the approach hasn't changed since Allen Smith opened in 2018 after teaching himself brisket on a smoker he'd bought on sale. The catering side and the food truck carry the same plates out to weddings, events, and at-home gatherings around the Upstate. Reviewers keep singling out the brisket and burnt ends as some of the best smoked meat around here, backed by the old-school mac and cheese, seasoned greens, and jalapeño cheddar cornbread a lot of us grew up on, with banana pudding and peach cobbler to finish. It was voted Best New Restaurant of the Upstate in 2023 and has since drawn a widely watched BBQ eating challenge to its counter. Work your way across the smoker and the sides enough times and you'll land on the one favorite that's yours to defend.

Taste of Distinction started as a catering kitchen and built enough of a following that owners Doris and Joe opened a restaurant alongside it. Catering still comes first here, handling weddings, church and school events, corporate lunches, birthdays, and grand openings out of the Easley kitchen, with private event space available at the location by appointment. What most of the Upstate knows it for, though, is the Sunday buffet. Reviewers describe a spread that runs deep: around a dozen meat choices from ribs to chicken, a full run of vegetable sides, soups, and Southern staples cooked from scratch. The kitchen also builds catering menus to a theme, from Southern comfort food to Italian to a taco bar, so a booked event rarely looks like anyone else's. A few things pull people back in particular: the turkey and dressing casserole, mac and cheese that turns up as a favorite in review after review, stuffed mushrooms, meatballs, and peach cobbler to finish. Presentation gets named nearly as often as the food itself, and folks who worked directly with Doris tend to mention her by name. It fits a wedding or a company lunch you want handled without fuss, and the Sunday buffet makes an easy family outing after church.

Chef Beks Catering is an Easley caterer serving events across the Upstate, handling both the food and the delivery that comes with it. Its hours run seven days a week, which leaves room to plan around a Saturday reception or a weekday office lunch. The menu and the kinds of events they take on come straight from the caterer, so it is worth reaching out directly to line up the details for your date.

Three Oaks has built a local following on Southern home cooking: a home-cooked breakfast off the griddle in the morning, and a proper meat-and-three by lunch. You would not guess it from the outside. The cafe shares a building with a gas station on Geer Highway, and inside it stays plain and easygoing. You order at the counter, grab your own drink and silverware, and settle in, and the owner tends to check on tables himself. Fancy it is not, and nobody there is pretending otherwise. Mornings lean on omelets, pancakes, biscuits and gravy, and grits that customers single out. Lunch shifts to country-style plates: pot roast, country steak with gravy, and Southern sides like green beans and collards, plus a daily special people compare to a Thanksgiving spread. The kitchen caters too, from casual gatherings to weddings, at your place or theirs. If you are going big at breakfast, the Kitchen Sink Omelet is the one people talk about. Expect generous portions, honest prices, and the feel of eating at a neighbor's table more than a restaurant.

Shortfields sits on South Main Street in Travelers Rest, a comfortable spot for a weekday lunch or dinner that also opens early on weekend mornings for a slower start to Saturday and Sunday. Beyond the dining room, it runs as a catering operation, so the same kitchen that feeds walk-in guests can put together food for events and gatherings around the Upstate.

The burgers are the plate to know at Shortfields, ground from a blend of Angus and brisket that people around here point to as the difference. The room is casual and diner-style, sitting on downtown Simpsonville's Main Street with wood booths, a bar side where the TVs pull a crowd for weekend games, and a kids' section that makes it an easy family call. A private room takes on church groups, birthdays, and parties well past a dozen. Beyond that the menu spreads wide: wings in a range of flavors, a well-liked Reuben, salads, steaks and lamb chops, and weekend brunch, with a bar leaning on bourbon and mimosas. The breadth traces back to where the business began, as a catering operation in 2010 that grew into the Main Street restaurant a few years on. The catering side never went away, and still books weddings and private events across the Upstate. The other dishes reviewers single out are the fish and chips, with lightly breaded fish and a fry people describe as uniquely crispy, along with the chicken cordon bleu and the shrimp and grits. Praise for the food and the friendly service runs consistent, and the same reviews are honest that the dining room gets loud when it fills and the decor reads more comfortable than freshly updated. It stays busy enough that a short wait at the door on a Friday or Saturday night is normal.

Little Pigs has held its spot on South Main in Mauldin since 1986, and the setup tells you what it is before you order: walk up to the counter, pigs decorating nearly every corner, no table service and no pretense. There's a drive-through for anyone pressed for time. It's a place that decided long ago the food would carry it, and in Mauldin it has. The smoke is hickory, the pork comes chopped or pulled, and the ribs pick up a real bark before any sauce goes on. You choose your own at the counter, from mild and hot to a vinegar and a mustard base that reads as pure South Carolina. Burgers hold down the menu for anyone who didn't come for barbecue, and the catering side has been feeding Upstate events for decades. The sides do a lot of the work. Reviewers talk up the hushpuppies, the baked beans, and the onion rings as much as the meat, and the banana pudding and sweet tea have their own following. Lunch stays cheap, the daily special especially, and the line moves fast enough to get you in and back out on a work break.

CHEF360 Catering takes care of the food for events in and around Greer, offering catering along with delivery for when you simply need the meal brought to you. For current menus and the range of events they cover, it is best to reach out to CHEF360 directly.

Laurenda's is a family-run kitchen in Greer that cooks from grandmother's recipes and has run its catering side long enough to have handled Upstate weddings and rehearsal dinners for more than two decades. The folks behind the counter will tell you they would rather make friends than clients, and most of the catering work still comes by word of mouth. Inside, it runs like an old-school cafeteria line: you move down the counter, point at what looks good, and the staff plate it up for you. The center of it is the meat-and-three, the day's Southern sides stacked next to fried chicken, hamburger steak, or whatever else is coming out of the kitchen that afternoon. A full dining room seats well over a hundred, with banquet space for when a family needs to feed a crowd. The dishes people single out most are the mac and cheese, the dressing, and green beans cooked soft and Southern, and plenty of folks don't leave without a slice of the scratch-made coconut or strawberry cake. Sunday lunch after church is its own tradition here. With a spread that shifts by the day and more sides than fit on one plate, you'll sort out your own standing order somewhere around the third trip down the line.

White Wine & Butter is the restaurant at Greer Golf, off Gap Creek Rd in Greer. A sit-down Southern kitchen set at a golf course is a bit of its own thing in the Upstate, and this one reaches past the dining room too: it caters, taking the same Southern cooking out to events around the area. For anyone up in Greer, it makes for a Southern table close to home rather than a drive into Greenville for dinner.

Chef Stephanie Bolden & Co. is a chef-led catering operation based in Greenville, cooking for events and gatherings. Along with event catering, the kitchen also offers food delivery, so it works as well for a planned party as for a simpler order during a busy week.

Destinè Event Studio is a event venue located in Gloucester City. Rated 4.8 stars from 19 Google reviews.

The Sapphire Grand is a wedding venue located in Deptford. They offer catering service, event venue, food delivery and service services. Rated 4.5 stars from 619 Google reviews.

Suite105 is a event venue located in Winslow Township. Rated 4.8 stars from 26 Google reviews.