How Pizza Hyena owners want to make Surfside a travel destination with new restaurants
Nathan Anderson, owner of Pizza Hyena, wants to help make Surfside Beach a can’t-miss destination along the Grand Strand by bringing businesses together.
And he is expanding his Dining & Design business to further compliment the Ocean Boulevard stretch within Surfside Beach. He said the business owners, city and residents are coming together to make a special family-friendly community.
“To add a little more variety to make it a destination where people from Myrtle Beach or Murrells Inlet will drive down there to eat,” Anderson said. “We’re all working together with the same goal.”
Dining & Design, of Pizza Hyena which Anderson is the president, announced it will be opening Gracious Pig Smokehouse and Peach & Hominy Cantina across the street from the Pizza Hyena location on Ocean Boulevard.
The Gracious Pig will serve fresh-smoked meats and barbecue sides, as well as a catering menu.
The Cantina will serve Mexican and Latin American-inspired breakfast and lunch featuring fresh fruits and salsas. On the weekend, there will be a brunch menu featuring mimosas and bloody marys.
Plans to reopen the still-closed pier have served as a catalyst, spurning on new businesses. The Federal Emergency Management Agency helped the town get the funding needed to make repairs to the pier after Hurricane Matthew destroyed it in 2016. Construction of the new pier is expected to span all of next year.
Anderson’s company invested to renovate the Pizza Hyena building and take advantage of the work Surfside was doing to encourage growth, including changes to the zoning codes in the area.
“The goal was to develop businesses around the pier,” he said, adding the city overhauled its regulations to encourage businesses. “Without it we couldn’t do it. There was very little development that could be happening under the old zoning.
Once the two new restaurants are opened in 2020, Anderson said the businesses are going to bring “synergy” to the area and encourage both locals and Surfside tourists to visit. To him the community is special, tight knit and wants to support local businesses. He doesn’t want to compete with the other restaurants in Surfside, rather work to compliment the whole business community.
Moving forward, Anderson has his eyes on bringing Pizza Hyena to other locations across the Grand Strand, and potentially, to areas like Clemson or Durham, NC.
He said that everything his restaurants serve is made fresh with local ingredients. Nearly everything they offer is made in-house. No matter where the new locations are, the customer service and food quality will meet the standards people in Surfside have come to expect from the first Pizza Hyena location.
“We say it’s made with love,” Anderson said. “We love calling Surfside home.”
This story was originally published November 19, 2019 at 11:43 AM.
