Home Care In Conway, SC

It took Joe Floriano three tries before he found the best place for his new deli. But he’s hoping that the Conway location, along with the name, will draw customers to check out his sandwiches and desserts.

Floriano, along with his wife, Michelle, have opened Don’s Deli and Bakery at 201 Graduate Road, Suite 114, across from Coastal Carolina University off of U.S. 501.

Floriano bought the naming rights from Don Jackson, who formerly operated the popular Don’s Deli on Church Street in downtown Conway.

Jackson comes into the deli from time to time since it opened on Aug. 15, 2025, and helps to make sandwiches, Floriano said.

Floriano hopes to build on Jackson’s reputation, as well as his own years of operating delis.

“I’m going to give them the same type of sandwich,” Floriano said of Jackson’s reputation for providing a good deli experience.

Floriano had operated delis in New York before making the move to South Carolina in December.

The deli will serve both hot and cold sandwiches, as well as bakery items. Floriano makes his own gyros and kaiser rolls, as well as cannolis filled with a cream that is a recipe passed down from generation to generation, he said.

Floriano also will serve his version of the cronut, a recipe he developed that was popular at his deli in New York and at festivals. Other bakery items include devil dogs, pies and cheesecakes.

Floriano and his family made the move to Myrtle Beach seeking an opportunity to open a new restaurant. After his Enrico’s Pastry Shop in Hartsdale was flooded following Hurricane Ida in 2021, Floriano said he struggled to keep the deli open after the storm damage.

They heard that a family friend had opened a pizza restaurant in Myrtle Beach and was doing well. So Floriano came to the area to scope out a possible place to open a new deli.

He realized that many transplants from New York and New Jersey, like himself, were looking for a good place to get sandwiches and desserts they knew from home.

Floriano’s sandwiches are each made fresh and are piled high with meats and cheeses.

He said customers won’t go hungry. In fact, he said customers can come in and get a sandwich and a dessert for lunch, and maybe even have some leftover for dinner.

CONWAY, SC (WMBF) - An international party bike company could soon be coming to the city of Conway.

Council passed the first reading Monday night of a proposal to allow Pedal Pub in the city, which has over 50 locations across the United States and Canada, including in cities like Charlotte and Wilmington.

City staff did express concerns about alcohol on the Pedal Pub, saying the city doesn’t have an open container zone.

However, officials with Pedal Pub said during the meeting that there would be no alcohol on the bike, and they never intended to sell alcohol on board.

According to the company, the bike would bring guests to different businesses in the city, such as restaurants, ice cream shops, bakeries and the theater.

The tours would last two hours, and guests would spend 20 minutes at each establishment.

The party bike allows 15 people to ride it. The bikes are powered by those pedaling but have a driver and a motor for extra assistance and safety.

The proposed pubs will only be driven on streets with a speed limit of less than 35 miles per hour.

The company said that its biggest concern is supporting the community and Conway businesses.

The company added it wants to do historical tours at some point as well.

The president of the company also wants to expand to Myrtle Beach.

Conway City Council will need to pass a second reading before Pedal Pub is officially allowed.

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Just over 109 acres off Cultra Road is on its way to being added into Conway city limits after council voted Monday, Aug. 4, to annex the property for a future neighborhood.

The property — at Cultra Road and Oak Street — is currently in Horry County’s Commercial Forest Agriculture district and could be rezoned to Conway’s Medium-Density Residential zone, after it's annexed.

Conway City Council on Monday took its first vote on the annexation request, which will go to planning commission members Thursday for a public hearing and recommendation.

A large portion of the property is in a flood zone that runs through the middle of the property, Conway planning documents state.

For Conway Councilman William Goldfinch, the property being in city limits instead of unincorporated Horry County is the “lesser of two evils.”

“We’ve got to annex it, because if we don’t, it will be worse,” Goldfinch said, adding that the sensitive areas of the property would be developed if the neighborhood stayed in the county. Goldfinch also mentioned concerns about traffic in the area.

If located in the city, staff has said they would not support rezoning portions of the property within the flood zone to allow residential development. Instead, these areas could be rezoned as Conservation Preservation.

The applicant, Development Resource Group, LLC, is seeking the city’s Medium-Density Residential zone, but the city’s future land use map shows three preferred designations: Neighborhood Commercial, Conservation Preservation and High-Density Residential.

The planning commission will meet at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, where a public hearing is scheduled. Those interested in sharing their opinions on the proposed annexation may attend the meeting in the Planning and Building Department’s conference room, at 196 Laurel Street.

After Thursday’s meeting, the annexation request would need to go back to city council for a final reading.

A Myrtle Beach-based developer is in the process of annexing more than 100 acres off of Cultra Road in Conway, SC.

If approved, this over 109-acre property that sits near the intersection of Cultra Road and Oak Street, could be added to Conway city limits.

At least 30 people packed into the Planning Commission meeting on Thursday night to discuss the development on the property. None of the residents who spoke were in favor of the project.

No plans were discussed and no documents of what the new development could look like have been submitted to the city.

The city’s planning commission, a volunteer board, voted to postpone their final decision on the large property until their Sept. 4 meeting as a result of the property’s identification number not being included in a public advertisement required by law. Although the statute doesn’t mandate that the number has to be in the public advertisement.

Given the public’s response to the new development, Conway’s Planning and Development Director Jessica Hucks said she’d recommend advertising it again.

Project Engineer, Rob Wilfong, from Development Resource Group LLC, who would be developing the over 100-acre property, declined further comment to The Sun News about the project.

Horry County land records show that this property is owned by Burroughs & Chapin Company Inc. No permits or transfer data were available on the county’s land records database about the property.

Even if the annexation is ultimately denied, the property could still be developed with greater density under its current Horry County Commericial Forest Agriculture zoning.

Wilfong with DRG said at a city planning commission meeting that under the property’s current zoning, he can build up to two residences per acre on the property and a myriad of different commercial options including livestock, retail and storage units.

That means that DRG could develop up to 208 homes on the property even if the city denies them annexation.

Residents of the adjacent Midtown Village development, including John and Ellen Powell, shared concerns about traffic, protecting wetlands and the potential for flooding if the trees are all cut down to make way for the new houses.

“What about the people?,” John asked. “What about the people that are already here that don’t want what’s already going on?”

He said he was ready to move and felt unheard.

“I think this is ridiculous,” Ellen said. “You have a flood zone and you’re going to take down all the trees? Who does that? I mean I think it’s really, really dumb.”

“Is it a done deal?” Denise Linderson, another resident of Midtown Village asked the planning commission about the new development.

The Midtown Village development is a subdivision that borders the property DRG would develop. It was almost 15 years in the making, with original homes being built in 2008 and construction continuing through 2021, according to the developer’s website.

Planning commission chair Jessica Wise confirmed that this request was for rezoning and annexation and that the board hadn’t received any plans yet.

“The city does require connectivity between neighborhoods,” she said.

This means that if the property does get annexed, the roads will connect through to the existing Midtown Village neighborhood.

Kelli Thomas said when she began waitressing at Rivertown Bistro months after it opened in 1994, she had no idea what to do when a customer ordered calamari.

Thomas, who now works for Conway Alive, went to the bartender, thinking it was a drink, and together they tried to figure out how to make a calamari. At that point in time, Conway was a small Southern town and a restaurant had never added something like fried squid to the menu.

Conway has come a long way since Rivertown Bistro had Thomas learning what calamari is on the job.

When Darren Smith first opened the restaurant, he said Conway was a “one-restaurant town.” That has changed drastically in the last 10 years, with more than 20 restaurants now open in a small radius.

This evolution was not accidental. The city capitalized on Horry County’s growth and put resources towards turning downtown into a destination. This allowed Conway to transform itself from simply being a historic town to a “little Charleston,” as described by Justin Falcone, the owner of Italian restaurant Leone’s.

During Smith’s first 20 years in Conway, he said many restaurants would open for only a few years before closing — but that changed when the city began investing in itself.

In 2016, The Burroughs Company donated about five acres of waterfront land to the city of Conway, according to The Sun News. This spurred city officials to begin working on a downtown masterplan to use the land wisely, said City Administrator Adam Emrick.

“(The land donation) really forced us to look inward and give a critical look to all the space that we owned and challenge ourselves to do better,” he said.

The masterplan outlined goals for Conway’s downtown. Objectives included promoting Conway as a place for “fine arts, cultural and historic groups” and encouraging mixed use environments, including retail, employment and residential use. The idea was to bring more people downtown, according to a 2019 masterplan.

Conway offered new incentives to businesses looking to open in the downtown area, like reimbursing capital recovery fees, Emrick said. The city charges these fees to new businesses to help offset the added strain to public resources. The reimbursement made it cheaper, and easier, for businesses to open downtown.

The city eventually had to remove this incentive in downtown corridors, as space for new development ran out, Emrick said.

These tactics spurred what feels like organic growth. Along Main Street of Conway, one can find the twee Our Next Chapter Bookstore, a historic performing arts theater and a variety of restaurants. The historic buildings and the mom-and-pop businesses fit together, giving downtown Conway the Hallmark feel the city strived to create.

“A lot of people that were born and raised in Conway are still here or live locally. I think they appreciate the growth without commercializing it,” said Falcone of Leone’s.

Myrtle Beach-area businesses rely on the influx of summer vacationers to get them through the rest of the year. However, the Conway market does not work like that.

“Myrtle Beach is so up and down because of tourism. One of the restaurants I worked at (in Myrtle Beach), their slowest week was $4,000 a week and their busiest week was $285,000,” said Chris Snyder, the owner of the Crooked Oak Tavern. “I didn’t want to do that. It was a lot of work for staffing.”

Several restaurant owners, including Snyder, said one reason they opened in Conway was to avoid the stress of Myrtle Beach’s fluctuating seasons. The restaurant owners also love that their main customer base is year-round locals.

“The backbone of my business are locals, even if it’s Myrtle Beach people and from Pawleys Island. We pull from all surrounding communities, from the beach and inland, Aynor, Florence and all that,” Smith said.

Conway locals no longer feel like they need to “cross the bridge” to find a good meal, said June Wood, the Conway Public Information Officer. For example, when Wood grew up in Conway, she and her friends would drive into Myrtle Beach for prom dinner. Now, downtown Conway fills with high schoolers on prom night.

The local restaurants are also less competitive. Each restaurant has their niche, with farm-to-table food available at Crooked Oak Tavern, Italian cuisine at Leone’s and Jamaican curries at Caribbean Jerk Cuisine Restaurant to name a few. There is also a variety of price points, from a $3 slice of pizza at Anto’s Pizza Romana or a $47 ribeye at Rivertown Bistro. This allows restaurants to build into their niche and not compete as intensely with each other.

“I’ve always been a big proponent of if we’re busy, they can go somewhere else. If someone else is busy, they can come here or they can go somewhere else,” Snyder said.

Come October, the trees in downtown Conway are filled with pumpkins, there is a haunted boat floating in the marina and the streets are lined with skeletons and other scary creatures.

The city leaned heavily into events, such as Halloween, Burger Week, the city’s Christmas decorations and the Riverwalk Festival, to draw people into Conway multiple times a year. The city’s Halloween decorations seem to be the most successful.

“October and December, with Halloween and Christmas, is just, that’s our busy time,” Snyder said.

Beginning in the early 2020s, Conway stopped trying to be nationally known for its Christmas displays and put more effort into Halloween, Wood previously told The Sun News. Over the years, the city has spent over $500,000 on Halloween decorations, The Sun News reported.

Conway also changes its name to Halloween for the month of October.

Multiple restaurant owners said October is their busiest month of the year, attributing the increase in business to the city’s celebration.

“The city officials in the last several years have really put an effort to making it feel like small town USA. The addition of the riverwalk, and then the extension of that subsequently, has just really dumped people down here,” Smith said. “All the little festivals that we do and the celebrations of the different holidays have put Conway on the map everywhere you go.”

Looking forward, Conway is working to offer experiences that appeal to the next generation, not just the current population.

“There used to be this mantra amongst us, locals, when we were in high school, that we would graduate and leave and go find bigger things for ourselves in other cities,” Wood said. “The city tries to appeal to (younger generations) so that they have fond memories here. Then after their studies, if they stay local, or whether they go away, that whenever they decide to call a place home that we want them to come back to Conway.”