New Businesses

Walk in and the case does the work: rows of gelato in bright colors lined up behind the glass. The room is well-lit and kept notably clean, with enough seating that a family can spread out and linger rather than grab a cup to go. On a hot Upstate afternoon it works as much as a place to sit and cool off as a quick sweet stop. The gelato is made in-house the traditional Italian way, from a brand that began in Rome before opening in Poland, Dubai, Egypt, and Texas. It runs small-batch and seasonal, and customers describe it as balanced rather than overly sweet. Beyond the gelato there is a real spread of Italian sweets: cannoli, tiramisu, affogato, milkshakes, crepes and waffles, plus espresso drinks. A large cup comes as four scoops, enough for three people to share. A few things come up again and again in reviews: the Dubai Chocolate flavor, the cannoli that one visitor swore beat the ones she had in Italy, and the affogato, a strong shot of espresso poured over a scoop of gelato. Several people mention the chunks of dessert folded through the flavors, so most bites turn up something extra. It sits right on Woodruff Road near Five Forks, an easy stop on a shopping run or an after-dinner treat when you are already out that way.

Clare’s Creamery sits right on Laurens Road, an easy pull-off for a scoop on the way home or after dinner. It runs as more than an ice cream counter, with a dessert-and-confection side and a few sweets you can carry out. The shop stays open until 9 most evenings and until 10 on Friday and Saturday nights, so it holds up as a late treat, not just an afternoon one.

In Greenville's Overbrook neighborhood, an easygoing residential pocket just east of downtown, Clare's Creamery makes the kind of ice cream that started life as a downtown cart before it had any walls at all. Sisters Caitlin and Molly grew up scooping at a shop back in Ohio, and after Caitlin spent about a decade away in digital marketing and then went through Penn State's Ice Cream 101, the two circled back to what they loved and began selling small batches from a cart around town. It caught on fast enough to earn this storefront. Everything is churned in-house in small batches, and the care lives in the specifics. The base is super-premium, running around fourteen percent butterfat, and each batch takes roughly two days to make. They rotate through sixteen core flavors alongside seasonal specialties, keep the recipes their own rather than a supplier's, and carry dairy-free options for anyone who needs them. It plays as a genuine family spot, unhurried and easy with kids, the kind of place people fold into a weekend without much planning. Ask around and the lavender honey keeps coming up, rich and lightly floral without tipping too sweet, and it is the one worth ordering first.

Hester Store & Co. is a general store and cafe out on Hester Store Road in Easley, the sort of country spot that shares its name with the road it sits on. Come in early for coffee, browse the general-store shelves, and stay for ice cream, confections, and dessert, all at country-store prices.

Pistachio Cakery is a cake and dessert shop in Easley, turning out cakes and sweets for everyday treats and the occasions worth marking. It keeps a short, focused week, open Wednesday through Saturday, so a visit is worth planning around those days. For anyone in the western Upstate after something made fresh rather than pulled off a grocery shelf, it is an easy local pick.

This Simpsonville bakeshop works as much like a small food shop as a traditional bakery, so a single visit can cover fresh baked goods and a few everyday items at once. Its weekday, daytime schedule makes it a practical fit for a workday-morning treat or a lunch-break pickup rather than a weekend outing. For people nearby, it is a close-to-home option for baked goods without the drive into Greenville.

Baked Cookie Shop is exactly what the name says: a cookie specialist in Simpsonville rather than a full-line bakery. Where a general bakery splits its attention across bread, cakes, and pastries, this Upstate shop puts everything behind cookies, which is the whole point when a fresh cookie is what you came in for. It runs as a walk-in stop as much as a bakery, so grabbing a few on the way through is as easy as ordering ahead.

Every cheesecake here is made in small batches in the New York style and finished with a Southern twist, which shows up in flavors like banana pudding, peach cobbler, and strawberry crunch. You can order it by the slice or take home a whole ten-inch cake, and the crust is part of the choice too, from a golden cookie base to chocolate cookie or Biscoff. The shop sits on Main Street in downtown Simpsonville, an easy stop for something sweet after dinner or a coffee in the afternoon. What is now a storefront began as a cheesecake tricycle cart selling slices around the Upstate, which may be why the flavor list keeps growing: turtle, salted caramel, cookies and cream, and a signature cake layered with strawberries, blueberries, wafers, and housemade whip. Banana pudding and classic strawberry come up again and again from customers, usually next to a note about how generous the slices are. If you are bringing dessert to a celebration, a whole cake can be cut into as many as twenty slices or built as a sampler of seven flavors, which makes it an easy pick for a gathering or the end of a night out downtown.

The Corner Cookie keeps its specialty right there in the name. Based in Greer, it works as both a bakery and a food store, so you can pick up fresh-baked cookies and other sweets or grab a few food items to take with you. A simple, local stop for a sweet fix in the Upstate.

Domenic Anastasia founded Domination Extermination in 2025 after more than a decade of hands-on pest control work across South Jersey. Born and raised in the region, he built the company around a behavioral approach to pest elimination: understanding how each pest species moves, breeds, and survives, then cutting off every option. The result is a method that goes beyond surface treatment to eliminate infestations at the source. In 2026, Domenic purchased Monster Stompers from his father, continuing the family business founded by Bobby and Linda Anastasia in 1989. Today, Monster Stompers proudly operates as a division of Domination Extermination, bringing together more than 35 years of the Anastasia family's trusted pest control service across South Jersey.

Katie's Cupcake Emporium is a cupcake bakery on East Wade Hampton Boulevard in Greer. As the name suggests, cupcakes are the specialty, which makes it a simple stop when you want a small treat for yourself or a little something sweet to bring along. It sits among the storefronts on one of Greer's busier commercial stretches, an easy detour for anyone in this corner of the Upstate with a sweet tooth to satisfy close to home.

Mak & Cheesecakes puts its specialty right there in the name. It's a bakery and dessert shop on Augusta Street in Greenville, with cheesecake as the headline and the rest of the case built around it. The hours tell you how to use it: closed Mondays, then open from midday into the evening through the week and a little later on Friday and Saturday. That makes it an after-dinner or late-afternoon treat rather than a morning bakery run.

Old Europe brings a European-style coffee and dessert house to Bridgeway Station in Simpsonville. Alongside the bakery counter, it runs as a full cafe: pastries, cakes, and confections on one side, espresso and coffee on the other. It sits at the sweeter, slower end of the Upstate's coffee scene, the kind of place meant for a slice of something and a good cup rather than a quick drive-through order.

Benny's brought ice cream back to downtown Fountain Inn when Logan and Emily Davis took over the old Steam Coffee & Cream space on South Main, rebuilt the coffee bar, added an ice cream dipping cabinet, and reopened in the summer of 2026. They named the shop after their young son, Bennett, and it found its footing fast, with more than 500 people coming through in the first weekend alone. On a revamped stretch of historic Main Street, it has become the kind of place people drop into on the way through downtown. The menu runs on the pairing in the name. Handcrafted coffee sits alongside hand-dipped Chocolate Shoppe ice cream, with baked goods and breakfast-and-lunch sandwiches rounding things out. It makes an easy morning-coffee stop or an after-dinner scoop, and the later Friday and Saturday hours give Fountain Inn somewhere to walk to once the rest of Main Street has closed up. The Chocolate Shoppe flavors rotate, so the playfully named ones are worth asking about. The shop has scooped a bourbon-spiked espresso called Exhausted Parent, a fitting pick from two people who had never worked in coffee before and have been learning the business on the fly.

Kaleo Coffee House sits on South Main Street in downtown Fountain Inn, an easy stop for meeting someone or working through a quiet morning. It runs as a full cafe rather than a plain coffee counter, with food and a small retail side alongside the coffee, so there is a reason to linger and something to take with you on the way out.

Coffee Corner is a coffee shop and cafe on West Main Street in Easley, with a food-store side to it as well, so it works as much for picking something up as for settling in with a cup. It keeps weekday hours from early morning into the mid-afternoon, which makes it an easy daytime stop for anyone working, running errands, or passing through this corner of the Upstate.

Extended Cup is a coffee shop and cafe on East Main Street in Easley, a low-key, budget-friendly spot where the draw is a good cup and something small to eat. Along with the coffee, it keeps a bit of a food-store side, so a visit can mean grabbing something to take with you as easily as sitting a while. Its hours are compact, running mornings into the early afternoon, which makes it more of a start-to-the-day or midday stop than an evening one.

Higher Ground Coffeehouse is a coffee shop and cafe in Easley, over on the western side of the Upstate. Along with the coffee, there is a food menu and a small food-store side, so it works as more than just a counter to grab a cup and go. Prices sit at the easygoing end, and the doors open early on weekday mornings for anyone who needs that first cup before the day gets going.

Downtown Easley's old federal post office, built in 1940, found a second life as this organic coffee bar, run by a mother-and-daughter team who restored the building. Much of the original architecture is still in place: terrazzo floors, pink Tennessee marble in the front room, and a terra cotta relief from Roosevelt's New Deal art program for federal buildings. It's a coffee shop that feels like a piece of local history you can sit down inside. The focus is organic, with coffee and tea alongside house-baked goods and hot breakfast added later in the week. Indoor and outdoor seating make it an easy place to work for a while or catch up with a friend. One thing to know before you go: the building doubles as a wedding and event venue, so the coffee bar closes to the public on private-event days, which they post ahead of time. In their reviews, visitors keep returning to the same few things: the coffee, the warmth of the old building, and staff who make it feel personal. The basement even holds rentable artist studio space, the 'create' in the shop's name. Between the restored rooms and the original post office safe, you will find your own favorite corner once you go.

Coyote Coffee Cafe sits on the Easley side of the Greenville-to-Clemson corridor, an independent stop a lot of Upstate coffee drinkers reach for instead of the drive-thru chains. The room stays calm and easy even through the early-morning rush, with a clean, current look and enough seating to settle in rather than just grab and go, plus a drive-thru for the crowd passing through. The menu runs well past a plain cup of coffee. Alongside fresh-roasted coffee and espresso there are smoothies, protein shakes, and a long list of flavored and seasonal drinks, including the sugar-free options reviewers call out by name. The kitchen turns out breakfast bowls, bagels, muffins, pastries, and a full sandwich menu, with gluten-free choices that come up often in the reviews. There is also a rewards program through the Clover app. What people come back for tends to be specific: the White Coyote, the Mud Slide Frosted, a sugar-free frappe, and the fall run of pumpkin cheesecake. Locally owned since 2009 by a veteran family, the Easley cafe has the settled, lived-in feel a place earns over that long. It suits a standing coffee date with friends as easily as a quick stop on the way to or from Clemson.

Anthem Coffee sits on South Pendleton Street in Easley, over in the Upstate. It works as both a cafe and a food store, so a stop can mean a coffee and a bite in the shop or something to carry back home with you. The hours run early here, open mornings into the early afternoon with the doors closed on Sundays, which makes it more of a start-your-day or midday spot than an evening one.

Joybird began as a trailer coffee stand before settling into a permanent brick-and-mortar spot with a drive-thru. The owners are upfront about the thinking behind the move: after six years running a coffee shop, they wanted one place that treated the food as seriously as the coffee. The space they built out leans into a cheerful, 1950s vintage look with room to sit and linger, and the drive-thru handles the mornings you would rather not leave the car. The coffee is Counter Culture, poured alongside a rotation of breakfast and lunch sandwiches and a case of fresh pastries. The sandwiches are where reviewers get specific, and the focaccia comes up the most; the turkey focaccia gets singled out for tasting fresh and being built generously. The overall feel is unhurried and easy, the sort of place that works as well for a quick coffee as it does for sitting down to a real lunch.

D'Cafe pairs a coffee shop with a small food store on Main Street in Travelers Rest. It is a relaxed, budget-friendly stop for a coffee, a bite to eat, and a few items to take home in one visit. Opening early and running through the afternoon most days, it makes an easy morning cup or a midday break in the heart of this Upstate town.

Bridge City Coffee sits on South Main in downtown Travelers Rest, a coffee shop and cafe built for both a lingering morning and a quick stop while you are moving through town. Come in for a coffee or an espresso drink and a seat, or use the store side to take beans and a few things home rather than only carrying out a cup.