"We are definitely geared toward the locals in Carolina Forest."
That's head brewer Brock Kurtzman talking about South Coast Beer Project, the neighborhood's first brewery, in the weeks before it opened this spring. It's a strange thing to hear on the Grand Strand, where most new construction chases the tourists driving down Highway 17 rather than the people who already live three miles inland from the beach.
But look at what's actually gone up in Carolina Forest over the past several months, and Kurtzman's line stops sounding like marketing copy and starts sounding like a pattern. While the biggest openings elsewhere on the coast are engineered to catch a vacationer's eye, the newest additions along Carolina Forest Boulevard were built for a Tuesday night with the kids, not a Saturday with out-of-town guests.
The Difference Is the Address
Compare notes from this year's two biggest Grand Strand debuts. Guy Fieri's Downtown Flavortown opened June 10 inside the old JCPenney at Myrtle Beach Mall, a 50,000-square-foot entertainment complex with duckpin bowling, more than 100 arcade games, and a Freaky Tiki bar built for a beach vacation crowd. A few miles away at Broadway at the Beach, Ole Smoky Distillery and Yee-Haw Brewing moved in, and the general manager has been upfront that the brand came here specifically to reach the tourism market, with local repeat business framed as something to build toward later, not the reason it opened.
Now set that next to South Coast Beer Project, which broke ground on undeveloped forest land off Carolina Forest Boulevard and opened by the end of May. It seats 150 to 175 people inside, with room for another 250 to 300 outside, and the whole thing was designed around a resident's weekly routine rather than a tourist's one-time stop.
| 2026 Opening | Location | Built Primarily For |
|---|---|---|
| Downtown Flavortown | Myrtle Beach Mall | Visitors |
| Ole Smoky Distillery / Yee-Haw Brewing | Broadway at the Beach | Visitors |
| South Coast Beer Project | Carolina Forest Blvd. | Residents |
That's not a knock on the tourist-facing spots. The Grand Strand's economy runs on them. It's just a useful way to see what's different about what's landing in Carolina Forest specifically, and why it matters if this is the neighborhood you already call home.
The Two Buildings Built to Work as One
South Coast Beer Project sits a few hundred feet from The Sneaky Beagle, and that distance is doing more work than it looks like. Owners Chris Evans and Susan Heryadi, who also run three Grumpy Monk locations and Hop N Wich in Conway, deliberately connected the two properties with a 1,000-foot lit path that loops around a stormwater pond between them.
Evans has described the intent directly: put in a dog park behind Sneaky Beagle, put a large playground at the brewery, and let the path be the reason people treat both stops as one outing instead of two separate errands. Kurtzman put it this way when the brewery was still under construction: you can leave your dogs at the dog park and walk the path around the pond over to South Coast to try beers made in-house that aren't available anywhere else.
The practical upside shows up on a busy Friday. If South Coast is full, you walk the path, put your name in at Sneaky Beagle, grab a drink, and wander back when your table's ready. Nobody drives anywhere. That kind of built-in flexibility is unusual in a neighborhood shaped by strip-mall parking lots along Highway 501, and it didn't happen by accident. Evans has said plainly that the design reflects who actually lives here: families looking for a good meal and a place to unwind without crossing town.
The beer list leans into that same local-first instinct. Kurtzman's lineup includes a blonde ale called Blondes Do It Better, a mocha white stout named Queen Anne's Revenge after Blackbeard's ship, and an American brown called Board Meeting. None of it is trying to impress a first-time visitor with a novelty flavor. It's built for someone who's coming back next Thursday.
What Else Is Opening Along the Boulevard
South Coast isn't the only new name worth knowing if you live here.
SeaBasil quietly opened at 4036 River Oaks Drive, tucked into a strip-mall address that undersells what's happening inside. It's building one of the stronger early reputations of any 2026 opening on the Grand Strand, with a sleek black-interior dining room serving Pad See-Ew, red curry shrimp, and hibachi platters alongside fresh coastal seafood. It earned a perfect 100 health score, and at least one reviewer singled out a server by name, which says something about the kind of place it's trying to be. This isn't a restaurant chasing tourist foot traffic off the boardwalk. It's a neighborhood spot that happens to be very good.
Jim 'N Nick's Bar-B-Q is further behind but moving. The Alabama-born barbecue chain applied for a commercial permit in January for a spot on Rodeo Drive at U.S. 501 in Carolina Forest, and construction is underway, though no firm opening date has been set. It'll be the chain's first Grand Strand location, joining four others already in South Carolina, with the nearest currently in North Charleston. Worth watching, not yet worth planning a Friday around.
The Calendar Nobody From Out of Town Would Find
The restaurant openings tell part of the story. The neighborhood's own event calendar tells the rest, and it's just as locally oriented.
Every Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., the lawn at the Carolina Forest Recreation Center turns into a farmers market, with produce, coffee, and baked goods from vendors who show up week after week. It's not part of the larger Waccamaw Market Cooperative that runs the Conway and Surfside Beach markets. It operates on its own, which fits a neighborhood that's been building its own institutions rather than importing someone else's.
This past Saturday, August 22, Handleys Pub & Grub hosted "It Takes a Forest," the Carolina Forest High School All-Sports Booster Club's annual fundraiser. It's not a tourism event or a citywide festival. It's a DJ, a silent auction, and raffle prizes to fund uniforms, equipment, and travel costs for every sports team at the high school and its three feeder middle schools. You will not find it on a Myrtle Beach visitors' guide, because it isn't for visitors.
Coming up next Saturday, August 29, the Rec Center hosts its first-ever Dessert & Snack Fair from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., an indoor market of local vendors selling cookies, cakes, pastries, and specialty treats. And the neighborhood's already circled November 21 for two events on the same day: the second annual Carolina Forest Holiday Fair back at the Rec Center, and the Parks of Carolina Forest Fall Market at Huger Park Avenue.
None of this is dramatic. That's sort of the point. It's the rhythm of a place that's grown fast enough to need its own weekly market and its own school booster fundraiser, without needing to borrow either from Myrtle Beach proper.
What It Adds Up To
Carolina Forest has spent years being described as one of the fastest-growing residential corridors on the Grand Strand, and that's true enough as far as it goes. What the last few months show is something more specific: the businesses and events filling in behind that growth are being built with residents as the primary audience, not tourists passing through on their way to the beach. A brewery with a dog park and a pond path. A Thai restaurant with a server regulars know by name. A booster club fundraiser at the neighborhood pub. A farmers market that runs on its own schedule.
If you've lived here a while, none of this will surprise you. You've probably already walked the path between South Coast and Sneaky Beagle, or grabbed a coffee at the Wednesday market. But it's worth naming the pattern anyway, because it's part of what makes Carolina Forest function differently from the beachfront corridors a few miles east, and it's likely to keep shaping what opens here next.
If you're weighing a move within the Grand Strand and want a read on how a specific pocket of it actually lives day to day, not just what the listing photos show, Larisa Esmat has spent her career learning these neighborhoods block by block. Let's Connect — Book a Consultation, and talk through what life actually looks like on the ground here.
