Philadelphia transplant hopes to fill need for a ‘good pretzel’ in Myrtle Beach
Seth Middleberg had been coming to the Myrtle Beach area for vacation for years before he and his wife decided to make the trip permanent.
Middleberg, being from Philadelphia, asked another relative who had made the move to the coastal city, “Do you miss anything from Philadelphia that you can’t get here?” His answer: soft pretzels.
“My wife and I looked at each other, and it clicked,” Middleberg said.
Middleberg, along with spouse Kathy Battista, signed the paperwork in 2025 to open a Philly Soft Pretzel Factory at 7827 N. Kings Highway.
The restaurant is expected to open March 9 and will be the second location in South Carolina. The other store is in Columbia.
The menu features hand-twisted, fresh-baked pretzels. There are also pretzel dogs — hot dogs baked inside a pretzel — and a pepperoni melt — pepperoni and cheese on top of a pretzel, served with a side of marinara sauce.
“You don’t have good pretzels here,” said Middleberg, who is hoping to fill that gap for the Philadelphia, New York and Boston transplants in the Myrtle Beach area.
