COLUMN: Florence, 28 years later

Last night, I was with some friends walking around Whitehall Circle. When we walked past Bedford Lane, I pointed down that street and said “My old house is down there on Arundel.” They thought I lived there before I moved to my present location. In a way, they were right. I lived there 28 years ago.

Twenty-eight years ago, Florence was a sleepy little town. Pineneedles Road had no construction on it, my brother and sister went to West Florence and I was a troublesome little first-grader at St. Anthony’s. The domestic headquarters for Mobile Electronics and Medical Systems for General Electric was on Radio Road, a campus that now is shared with chain restaurants, home improvement stores and other retailers. It has always been a stop-over for people driving on Interstate 95 between Miami and New York City as well as a staging point for tourists driving to Myrtle Beach. But since the time I was a 6-year-old, the town has changed dramatically while still keeping its small town appeal.

Florence has gone from sleepy town to major potential with a fine arts center, new library, performing theater and this just begs the attention of the culinary world (I knew I would get to food and wine at some point). We have enough mainstream restaurants that if you combined the chains, you could form a chain across the city. There is however a changing movement.

With the Internet, we aren’t as bombarded with mainstream movements if we don’t want to be. People such as Pee Dee Foodie and the Flossip have been changing the way we think about food in this town. They have both pointed me in the direction of such places as the farmer’s market, Chutnee, Thai House 2, Roberto’s and recently, Chubz. All local, all delicious. Also, the culinary movement has improved with such chefs as Tommy Crayton, Adam Silverman, Kathy Freidl and Chris Carpenter. If you think chefs such as these can’t keep up with the hustle and flow of food trends, you are sadly mistaken.

With this movement developing, there is a larger trend in fine wine and craft beer. There have been two trends that I have noticed: even some chains have started carrying craft beer to appeal to a wider audience. The mass appeal of local restaurants has not only been the superior food served, using such products as “Certified S.C.” and local game and fish, but it has also been the large foray of craft beer and wine. A few chain restaurants have at least caught on to the craft beer part of this and will try to compete with local restaurants. In my experience, most local food is superior, and you can tell the better local places from the ones that “mail” it in. Accurate critics like Pee Dee Foodie and Flossip can point them out. If you don’t follow them online, you should.

Restaurants that live by Sutter Home die by Sutter Home. A few restaurants have closed over town in the past few weeks. It obviously wasn’t because of their poor wine selection, but it didn’t help. Restaurateurs are starting to realize that you can’t serve great food and compliment it with generic wine. There are wine reps that should be chomping at the bit to help influence local restaurants.

Bottom line: Florence has grown up, whether it is with corporation, retail, arts and potential in 28 years time. Are we seeing our potential come together? Well, that should be something that we should all in the community, no matter the industry strive for. But it all starts local, and 28 years later, we are still growing.

Cheers!