‘Conway’s open’: Businesses fare much better following Dorian than after Florence

The City of Conway is back open for business with Hurricane Dorian in the rearview.

Main Street Conway businesses were already reopened and serving shoppers Friday.

Thistle and Clover Women’s Western Boutique owner Karen Young said she was the first owner to open up on Main Street Friday morning.

The quick reopening was a huge difference from last year’s Hurricane Florence, Young said.

“They shut everything down,” she said. “We lost a lot of business. We’re still trying to get back. We lost eight months of business.”

After the area recovered from flooding, SC Department of Transportation shut down the Highway 501 bridge into Conway.

That was a hit to her business, Young said.

But being able to reopen the day after Hurricane Dorian was an unexpected blessing, she said.

“Conway’s open,” Young said. “Downtown is open for business.”

Other Conway businesses were seeing similar positive results.

Bonfire, a restaurant on the Conway Riverwalk on the Waccamaw River, had water up to 2 feet inside the restaurant after Florence. It was closed for six months, he said.

But it had already reopened after Dorian Friday morning.

“We desperately needed to open,” Bonfire owner Darren Smith said. “Just to generate some revenue. It means a lot to me to be a mom-and-pop store in Conway.”

The restaurant opened at 11:30 a.m. Friday with a skeleton crew, Smith said. He wasn’t sure if the restaurant would be ready to reopen — or what kind of damage he would find.

“We were sweating bullets again this time,” Smith said.

Smith said flooding from Florence combined with roadwork last year hurt his business — and many others in Conway. But he wants people to know: “Conway is alive.”