New Dinner Options Near the Waterbridge Gates
October 1, 2026
October 1, 2026
For most of the past decade, the honest answer to "where should we eat tonight" if you lived behind Waterbridge's brick-and-iron entrances was the same handful of names. Sol y Luna Latin Cantina for something with a margarita attached. Handley's Pub & Grub for a burger that didn't require getting dressed up. TBonz Gill & Grill if the kids were picking. All perfectly good options, and all a few minutes down Carolina Forest Boulevard, the same road Waterbridge's own gates open onto. That answer held for years because nothing new was competing for it.
It isn't holding anymore. Over the past several months, a cluster of new restaurants has opened along that same Carolina Forest Boulevard corridor and the roads that feed into it, and the pattern behind who built them is more interesting than the count.
Carolina Forest Boulevard is the road Waterbridge's gated entrances sit on, the same stretch that eventually feeds Highway 501 toward Tanger Outlets. Multiple new openings this year picked addresses on or just off that boulevard rather than closer to the beach, which puts them inside the same short drive Waterbridge residents already make for groceries or the pharmacy.
The most significant of these is South Coast Beer Project, which opened at 5020 Carolina Forest Boulevard by the end of May 2026. It's described as the first brewery to come to Carolina Forest, run by Chris Evans and Susan Heryadi of Coastal Concepts Hospitality, the team that also owns The Grumpy Monk and Hop N Wich. Head brewer Brock Kurtzman, previously of New South Brewing and Southern Hops Brewing Company, built a house lineup that leans into local identity: a blonde ale, a raspberry wheat, a mocha white stout named Queen Anne's Revenge after Blackbeard's ship, and an American brown called Board Meeting. The food side sticks to Detroit-style pizza and wings, made in house, with hours running 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
What makes South Coast worth knowing about isn't the beer list. It's the detail that a 1,000-foot paved and lighted sidewalk connects the new brewery directly to its next-door sister restaurant, The Sneaky Beagle, also owned by Evans and Heryadi. That path means a Waterbridge household can park once, eat at one place, walk to the other for a drink or dessert, and never touch a steering wheel between courses. The operators also run other nearby restaurants, adding South Coast to a wider local lineup.
The other name worth knowing is O.A.K. Prime Kitchen and Bar, a chef-driven restaurant inside Carolina Forest that has recently earned Michelin recognition for its cooking. A Michelin mention attached to an address inside Carolina Forest, rather than along the oceanfront strip where most of the Grand Strand's higher-end dining has historically clustered, is a real shift in what "we're staying in tonight" can mean for anyone living off Carolina Forest Boulevard. It means the option for a genuinely special dinner no longer automatically requires the twenty-minute run toward the sand.
The Carolina Forest corridor picked up several other new names this year that round out what used to be a shorter list:
None of these are individually a reason to rewrite a neighborhood's reputation. Together, layered onto a corridor that already had Sol y Luna, Handley's, and TBonz, they change what a resident can do on a random Tuesday without leaving the Carolina Forest side of town.
It would be easy to read this as simple growth. Carolina Forest is one of the fastest-growing residential corridors on the Grand Strand, and fast-growing areas get more restaurants, that's not news. What's more specific to this year is who's building them and for whom.
Coastal Concepts Hospitality, the team behind South Coast Beer Project, already runs other restaurants in the immediate area and built this one with a lit walking path connecting it to a sister property rather than a stand-alone parking lot facing the highway. The corridor's other standout is O.A.K. Prime Kitchen and Bar, whose Michelin recognition brings another notable dining option to a Carolina Forest address.
For a Waterbridge household, the practical shift is smaller than it sounds but real. The list of places within a short drive of the gates that don't require picking between "fine but familiar" and "worth the drive to the beach" has gotten longer this year, and it happened on the same boulevard the community's own entrances sit on.
Jim 'N Nick's didn't have a confirmed opening date as of this spring, so it's worth checking current hours before planning around it specifically. South Coast Beer Project's hours and the connecting path to The Sneaky Beagle were accurate as of its opening this year, though restaurants do adjust hours seasonally, so a quick call ahead never hurts on a slow Tuesday versus a packed Friday.
If you've been meaning to try one of these and haven't yet, the walk between South Coast Beer Project and The Sneaky Beagle is the easiest place to start. Park once, and you've covered two of the newest names on the list in a single evening.
Kim Brooks lives and works in this stretch of the Grand Strand and pays attention to what changes on the ground, not just in the listings. If you're weighing a move to Waterbridge or want a neighbor's read on how the area is evolving, reach out to Kim Brooks to schedule a consultation.
She is more than an agent; she is your neighbor and guide to the beach lifestyle. Kim leverages over a decade of real estate experience and a genuine passion for service to help families create lasting memories. Reach out to her for a friendly, results-driven experience.