GREENVILLE, S.C. — Smoke on the Water, the Southern restaurant that spent roughly two decades in downtown Greenville’s West End, is set to reopen Friday at its new home on Beacon Drive just off Pelham Road near Interstate 85, FOX Carolina reported Wednesday. The restaurant, which bills itself as “a saucy Southern tavern,” has been closed for nearly 1,000 days.
According to FOX Carolina, the move followed more than two and a half years of renovations and planning, and crews were finishing work on the building ahead of opening day. The restaurant closed its downtown location in March 2024, which the station attributed to rising operating costs.
The new site is a nearly 5,000-square-foot building at 64 Beacon Drive that was previously occupied by Red Bowl Restaurant, the Post and Courier reported when the relocation was announced in January 2024. The building sits on an Eastside restaurant row that includes California Dreaming and Chophouse ’47. At that time, owner Mike Shuler told the paper the plans called for a larger kitchen, a sunroom converted into private dining, covered outdoor seating for up to 50, an indoor-outdoor bar and an outdoor stage for live music. Creative Builders was assisting with the renovation, and the restaurant employed more than 70 people, the Post and Courier reported. The original goal was a spring 2024 reopening, a target the project ultimately missed by more than two years.
The restaurant’s former home at 1 Augusta St. sits where South Main, River and Augusta streets meet, one of the most visible corners in the West End. The Post and Courier reported in 2024 that the building’s landlord, Mitch Norville of Atlantic South Development, wanted to renovate and modernize the property. In its own announcement, the restaurant pointed to better parking, live music and easier access as reasons for the Eastside move, SCBIZ reported. SCBIZ also credited Chicken Lea, Hurdle Lea and Shuler with launching the restaurant in 2004.
For brokers and investors, the reopening is another example of an established downtown operator trading high-rent, limited-parking space in the urban core for a larger second-generation restaurant box along a suburban interstate corridor. The Pelham Road and I-85 interchange area draws steady traffic from nearby office parks, hotels and the Haywood and Woodruff Road retail districts, and backfilling a former restaurant building can let an operator reuse existing kitchen infrastructure rather than build from scratch. The long gap between closing and reopening also illustrates the construction and permitting timelines tenants face even when converting existing restaurant space.
Sources: FOX Carolina, Post and Courier, SCBIZ
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