Liberty Brewery & Grill in Myrtle Beach’s sprawling Broadway at the beach entertainment complex will close on Jan. 26 after 25 years in operation, according to Homegrown Hospitality Group of Charleston, which operates the restaurant and microbrewery.
Another long-time staple of Broadway at the Beach is also closing its doors. According to Jay Rodriguez, spokesperson for Broadway at the Beach, Key West Grill will be closing.
“Key West Grill has been serving guests at Broadway at the Beach since we opened 25 years ago. It is unfortunate to see them leave. We are working on the next exciting offering for our guests.”
Khuram Bashir informed MyrtleBeachSC news, he plans to ultimately close or sell Perfume City, located in the Coastal Grand Mall. “Our business was down 50% this past Christmas over Christmas 2018. However, we opened a store in Maryland that is booming in this Trump economy. It is hard to make a business work inside the city limits of Myrtle Beach,” stated Bashir.
Broadway 16 now closed, torn down
Some closings were just a sign of the times. The Broadway 16 Theatres, located at Broadway at the Beach, were closed in 2019 and torn down. This failure was caused by a global market change.
The same is true with DRESSBARN, which closed after Christmas 2019. Dressbarn was located in the Coastal Grande Mall.
This week we also reported on city favored businessman Larry Bond closing 3 out of 4 of his downtown restaurants. Read that story here: https://myrtlebeachsc.com/3-of-4-major-downtown-restaurants-close/
Bondfire Restaurant Group closed the Noisy Oyster, Gordo’s Tacos and Tequilla, and The Chemist.
Facts are, a business has from a 20 percent to 80 percent better chance of staying open if it operates outside of the City of Myrtle Beach depending upon the type of business it is. These numbers were compiled by MyrtleBeachSC news over the past 2 years based on business closings throughout Horry County.
Several downtown businesses have become savvy concerning this. These businesses are moving their operations outside of the city limits of Myrtle Beach.
Carolina Pottery once struggled in the old KMART shopping plaza downtown, but chose to move out to Carolina Forest. This business now thrives.
Sea Board Signs also chose to move from Seaboard Street in the city out to Waccamaw Boulevard in rural Horry County. This business now also thrives.
While there can be a myriad of reasons businesses tend to fail inside the city limits of Myrtle Beach, key among those are: High Crime, homelessness, heroin, and greater levels of prostitution.
The City of Myrtle Beach is a command economy, government run business climate. This makes it hard for a business to survive without full government support.
Businesses also fail even when that support is given, however. No business in Myrtle Beach saw a greater amount of government favor than those operated by Larry Bond.
Myrtle Beach is rated the dirtiest bacteria beach in the state of S.C. These bacteria samples were taken and reported by the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.