Drive down Rodeo Drive past the Chick-fil-A this month and you will see framing crews working a lot that did not have a building on it in the spring. That is Jim 'N Nick's Community BBQ, the Alabama chain founded in 1985 by the father-son team of Jim and Nick Pihakis, and it is coming to Carolina Forest as its fifth South Carolina location, joining outposts in Bluffton, North Charleston, Spartanburg, and Indian Land. The Post and Courier photographed the site under construction on July 27, and as of this writing no opening date has been announced.
A new chain restaurant is not news on its own. What makes this one worth a second look is where it chose to land. Jim 'N Nick's is not filling a gap in Carolina Forest's barbecue scene. It is walking into one that already works.
The smokehouses it's competing with
Fullbelly BBQ Smokehouse and Brews already sits inside Carolina Forest itself, on Sapwood Drive near the corner of Carolina Forest Boulevard and River Oaks Drive, owned by the same group behind neighborhood mainstay Tavern in the Forest. When Fullbelly opened, director of operations Drew Doss described the approach in plain terms:
"We decided not to be fancy or go crazy. We focus on being great at the basics."
That basics-first pitch has held up. Fullbelly draws on barbecue traditions from the Carolinas, Kansas City, and St. Louis, and it uses pulled rather than chopped pork, a small distinction that regulars notice. It is not alone. Simply Southern Smokehouse and Little Pig's Bar-B-Q are established favorites a short drive away in Myrtle Beach, and Conway claims its own loyal followings at Big D's BBQ Trough and Bonfire Taqueria. That is five working smokehouses within easy reach of Carolina Forest before Jim 'N Nick's ever opens its doors.
Jim 'N Nick's arrives with real institutional weight behind it. It has grown to 61 locations across six states and, according to its own account of the Alabama barbecue landscape, recently passed Moe's to become the largest franchisor among a group of in-state institutions that includes Archibald's BBQ, Bob Sykes Bar-B-Q, Dreamland, and Gibson's. Its menu leans on a four-sauce identity: an Original vinegar-tomato blend in the Carolina and Tennessee River Valley tradition, a Carolina Mustard sauce drawn from the Palmetto State's Midlands and Upstate, a Honey Habanero built for sweet heat, and a white sauce out of northern Alabama. It is a chain that knows exactly what shelf it is trying to take up in a crowded barbecue market, and it chose Carolina Forest as the place to make that case.
Chains do not typically pick fights with well-run local competitors unless the rooftop count justifies it. A restaurant group doing real site selection is reading the same signal a homebuyer would: enough households, enough repeat traffic, enough disposable income circulating in one corridor to support one more smoker.
The rest of the corridor agrees
Barbecue is not the only category betting on Carolina Forest this year. In late May, South Coast Beer Project opened at 5020 Carolina Forest Boulevard, a family-friendly brewery and restaurant with an outdoor beer garden, kids' play areas, and a walking path connecting it to its next-door neighbor. It comes from Chris Evans and Susan Heryadi of Coastal Concepts Hospitality, the team that has been building Grand Strand restaurants since launching the first Grumpy Monk in 2015 and growing that concept to three locations. They also run Hop N Wich in Conway and The Sneaky Beagle, which happens to sit directly next door to their newest project. This is not an outside operator testing the water. It is a group with deep local roots reinvesting in the same block where they already had a restaurant running.
A few miles over on River Oaks Drive, in the Village Forest plaza next to Food Lion, SeaBasil Thai & Seafood had its grand opening on March 27, complete with a ribbon cutting from the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce and a liquor license secured just days before the celebration. Owner Laddawan Fox is not new to the area. Her résumé includes King Kong Sushi locations in Carolina Forest and at Broadway at the Beach, Thai Elephants and Thai Elephants II in Charleston, and Thai Cuisine in downtown Myrtle Beach. She also owns a fishing boat and works the Gulf Stream herself, which shows up on a menu that pairs Thai staples like drunken noodles and larb with scallops, mahi mahi, and flounder. The space she took over has its own local history, having previously housed Hana Teppanyaki House and, before that, an Asian restaurant that held an exclusive category agreement for that address. Three concepts, one storefront, two decades of steady demand.
Add to that O.A.K. Prime, which has been recognized in the MICHELIN Guide American South for its steaks and seafood, and Soho, a newer sushi spot that local dining coverage already describes as a fast favorite, and the picture is consistent. Carolina Forest is not attracting one category of restaurant. It is attracting operators across price points and cuisines, several of whom already run successful restaurants nearby and are choosing to expand in place rather than chase the oceanfront.
A dessert fair with no track record to fall back on
The clearest sign that this demand is now organized around Carolina Forest itself, rather than routed through Myrtle Beach's tourist corridor, is happening on August 29. The Carolina Forest Recreation Center is hosting the first-ever Carolina Forest Dessert & Snack Fair, an indoor, air-conditioned event running from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. with local vendors selling cookies, cakes, pastries, candy, and specialty snacks, plus a sticker card activity built around prize baskets.
There is no prior year to compare it to. A first-time event at a neighborhood recreation center is a bet by organizers that Carolina Forest residents will show up for something built specifically for them, on a Saturday in late August, with no beach, boardwalk, or festival stage anywhere near it. It is a small event next to a construction site on Rodeo Drive, but both are reading the same neighborhood the same way: enough people, enough regular spending, enough reason to build something local instead of driving residents somewhere else to spend it.
What this adds up to
None of this is happening because Carolina Forest lacked options before. It is happening because the corridor along Carolina Forest Boulevard, River Oaks Drive, and now Rodeo Drive has reached a density where local operators keep reinvesting and outside chains are willing to compete head-on with businesses that already have a following. That is a different kind of growth than a new subdivision breaking ground. It is proof that the households already here are worth building for, whether the builder is a Birmingham barbecue chain with 61 locations or a Grand Strand restaurant group opening its fourth concept two doors from its first.
If you already live here, that is worth knowing next time you are deciding where to eat on a Friday. If you are watching Carolina Forest from the outside and wondering whether the growth is real or just marketing, this is the kind of detail that answers the question. Restaurants do not open where the rooftops are thin, and they especially do not compete with each other where the traffic is not there to support it.
If you are weighing a move to this corridor, or you already own here and want a clearer read on how a neighborhood like this is actually performing, Modern Fortress can walk you through what a home in this market looks like today. Schedule Your Private Tour.
