Co-Working Space in Murrels Inlet, SC

MURRELLS INLET, S.C. (WPDE) — The rumbling of motorcycles along the Grand Strand is back! The 2023 Myrtle Beach Bike Week Fall Rally is in full throttle.

Inlet Crab House manager Mandy Coyner has been working bike week for the last six years.

"We absolutely make sure we have enough staff on hand, we order some more t-shirts, get more apparel in for everyone. We have plenty of people ready to work and provide the hospitality we need to give to the people coming in," Coyner said.

She said they see a huge spike in business each year.

"It brings in a great, huge crowd and it’s great for the economy, we love that. You have to plan for a little bit of extra travel time, because of the traffic, but without these people, we wouldn’t thrive the way we do, so we’re grateful for all the business," she said.

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Right next door, multiple vendors set up shop in the parking lot of Barnacle Bills.

Chad Fuller is an attorney who works closely with the bar to prepare for bike week.

"You have to make sure, you know parking lots are cleared off, clean, you have traffic flow coming in and out. Obviously, motorcycles and their low-speed maneuvers can be pretty tricky if you don’t have a safe environment for them to ride on. So that’s one of the things we want to make sure," Fuller said. "We also want to make sure vendors are set up to where they are in a safe place, they are not going to impede traffic, we’re not impeding visions in and out of the road, entering roadways.”

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Lori and Ed Dukats from Tennessee have been traveling for Bike Fest for the last 10 years.

"We have friends from all over and this is where we all come with our RVs and we meet up together and we ride and we have a wonderful time," Lori Dukats said.

They love it so much, that they’re celebrating their 38th anniversary together at Bike Fest.

"If you ask anybody, this is us, that we ride motorcycles and we’re very outgoing and traveling and this is what we like to do," she said.

The businesses asked the public to be mindful and aware of the bikers when they’re out on the roads this week.

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The festivities wrap up on Oct. 8.

A Pennsylvania brewery known for such beers as Good Vibes and Voodoo Love Child will soon bring its funky flair to Grand Strand taps.

Voodoo Brewing Co. plans to welcome a Murrells Inlet franchise in October and a Myrtle Beach location in early 2024. The new pubs, which don’t brew on site but offer beer from Voodoo’s Pennsylvania brewery, mark the latest addition to the Grand Strand’s growing craft beer scene.

“They want you to create the vibe,” said Mike Dapolite, the Murrells Inlet Voodoo franchise owner. “So it’s wood, it’s barrels. Their signature thing is tables made out of pallets. … Same colors, same attitude.”

The hippie aesthetic is a key part of the Voodoo brand, which bills itself as focused on “crafting the best beers and dankest food you’ve ever tasted.”

The staple Voodoo beers run the gamut from West Coast IPAs and traditional American lagers to sour ales and hard seltzers. There are also seasonal offerings and “spontaneous releases,” according to Voodoo’s website.

The Murrells Inlet pub will be at 3453 U.S. Highway 17 Business in the former home of a seafood market. The Myrtle Beach location is planned for Broadway at the Beach near Dave and Buster’s.

Founded in Meadville, Pennsylvania, in 2005, Voodoo didn’t open its first tap room until 2012 but quickly expanded in Pennsylvania. Franchises now operate in states across the country, including Colorado, Nevada, Ohio and Tennessee.

Voodoo arrived in South Carolina last year with the opening of a pub in Fountain Inn, a town on the southern edge of Greenville County. Murrells Inlet and Myrtle Beach will be the second and third franchises in the Palmetto State, though the company is considering at least three other South Carolina cities for expansion.

“South Carolina has great demographics to support our pubs,” said Tony Lang, the Voodoo franchise group’s chief marketing officer, in an email. “South Carolina also embodies an entrepreneurial spirit which is part of the reason we are finding great franchise partners in the state.”

Unlike a traditional brewery, Voodoo pubs simply carry the company’s signature beers.

“This actually goes back to Voodoo Brewing Company’s original model for their corporately owned pubs in Pennsylvania,” Lang wrote. “All of the beer is brewed in Meadville, PA, which is a relatively small town, but they opened additional tap rooms in Erie, Pittsburgh and State College and found great success in those spots. The beauty of owning a Voodoo Brewing Company Franchise is that you are able to enjoy the fun of owning a brewery tap room without the headache of brewing the beer. It’s a unique model but we’ve had wonderful success in Fountain Inn and are really looking forward to the pubs we are opening in the Myrtle Beach area and South Carolina as a whole.”

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The brewpub-without-the-brewing model appealed to Dapolite. He knew wouldn’t need a ton of extra space or expensive equipment to start his business.

After vacationing on the Grand Strand for about 30 years, he retired in 2021 and decided to move from the Northeast to be closer to family. Dapolite has never run a bar, though he has experience in the restaurant industry and spent years in the corporate world.

He was looking for a way to semi-retire when he read online about Voodoo’s franchise opportunities. He decided to tour a Voodoo brewery in Pennsylvania and was sold.

“They had really awesome beer,” he said. “I tasted most of their beers. … [They have] every version: so sours, stouts, West Coast IPAs, East Coast. … And they make it all.”

Dapolite also liked the Voodoo atmosphere, which is modeled after European beer halls. That means community tables and plenty of outdoor seating.

Dapolite plans to offer 24 taps at his pub. There will be no bottled beer.

Although the beer selection will mirror other Voodoo locations, Dapolite said the menu allows for some regional flexibility.

“They give you freedom,” he said. “Obviously in Pennsylvania, nobody’s serving shrimp and grits.”

MURRELLS INLET — The effects of sea level rise have already been seen as South Carolina’s barrier islands experience more frequent flooding. Salt marshes are feeling the heat, as well, according to coastal researchers.

During a recent Murrells Inlet’s Community Creek Talk event, a packed crowd listened as researchers laid out the present and future of the inlet’s natural geography that gives it one of the most iconic views in South Carolina.

“I wish I could give you a more uplifting report, but there is no question that estuaries are being stressed both by changes in environmental conditions and by human activities,” said Dennis Allen, research professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina and resident director of the Baruch Marine Field Lab near Georgetown.

Effects of sea level rise have already been seen in South Carolina with more frequent flooding of barrier islands and the stress on trees from saltwater encroachment, Allen said. Salt marshes like those of Murrells Inlet have generally not been able to keep up with current rates of sea level rise, as they must acquire sedimentation at a similar rate to rising waters.

Allen told the crowd at Murrells Inlet Community Center that the key to the future of South Carolina’s coastal salt marshes is expansion to the west onto higher land. There has been indication that the salt marshes have been able to do this on the South Carolina coast, Allen said, except in places where the higher land has already been taken over by development.

USC research associate professor Erik Smith, also of the Baruch Marine Field Laboratory, said during the talk that Murrells Inlet has significant water quality concerns, especially with fecal bacteria contamination from pets and wildlife.

“Some of the shellfish beds have been closed for quite some time,” Smith said. “For much of the open water portion of the bay, have at it, it’s fine. But for a good bit of the north, the south, and right along the inner coast, those areas are closed. And those areas are closed entirely due to the potential for microbial pollution.”

Katie Finegan of the S.C. Sea Grant Consortium and Maeve Snyder of the North Inlet-Winyah Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve told the audience what can be done to improve the inlet’s health, including reducing polluted runoff, recycling and the use of non-toxic products.

Finegan also noted that the consortium received a $500,000 grant to conduct a four-year study of “thin layer placement,” in which sediment removed during dredging is sprayed over existing marsh instead of being removed offshore or placed on a beach.

“What this technique is doing is helping them keep up with sea level rise artificially by introducing sediment into the system, so they’re not drowned out,” Finegan said.

The technique has not been tried in South Carolina, but has been the subject of experimentation in North Carolina, Finegan said.

MURRELLS INLET — A local business owner wants to assist those going through stressful situations in life after she previously navigated similar challenges without the necessary resources to help her.

Charlene Blanton opened Caring Transitions of Myrtle Beach 12 years ago after researching the Cincinnati-based company, which specializes in helping older adults and their families with relocation services, downsizing and decluttering, estate sales and home clean-outs.

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“I previously had to walk this walk three different times with my family and each time we were out of town,” Blanton said. “And it was overwhelming, emotional and just incredibly difficult not having the right resources.”

She felt it was a franchise that a popular retirement destination like the Grand Strand needed. Her clients are typically folks in their 60s to early 90s.

Situated in the midst of one the state’s fastest-growing counties and anchored by tourism hub Myrtle Beach, Blanton’s business has benefited from the influx of homebuyers as well as vacationers who later may decide to buy.

“We get referrals from a lot of Realtors who need support for their clients and their families who are looking to move,” Blanton said. “When it was booming a year ago, we were having three-week closes. So, we were trying to get people packed up and moved out of their house, getting the house completely empty and ready for closing in three weeks.”

Before starting the franchise in June 2011, Blanton had a career as a hotel executive working in national sales. She said she was part of the hotel group that renovated the historic Francis Marion Hotel on King Street in Charleston.

“I stepped away when my first child was born and then as my children got older, we stepped back into the business world by starting this franchise,” Blanton said. “I realized that there needed to be some kind of resource to just support families when they are having to move and relocate for whatever reason, whether that be divorce, death, changes in life or just being proactive.”

Blanton said her franchise can help those facing a relocation, either to another state, locally or to an independent senior living community. She also assists those who have lost loved ones and are faced with the hectic process of settling their estate. Some of her techniques have resulted in her winning company-wide awards.

“We come alongside of them and provide them the tips and tricks and tools such as floor planning to make sure that not too much furniture gets moved to their new home, and it’s age-friendly and safe for mobility reasons,” Blanton said. “We actually place the furniture in their new home, unpack the boxes, put the sheets on the bed, the cups in the cupboard. We hang their clothes in the closet and we haul off all of the packing material so they are literally live-in ready to step into their new lifestyle.”

Blanton offers each potential client a free consultation, which lasts nearly an hour and a half inside their home. She doesn’t have a typical storefront, allowing her to provide more personal service.

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“It is a turn-key service and they don’t have to start over and make all of these 600 different phone calls,” Blanton said. “We bring all of the resources to the table for them.”

Blanton is a licensed auctioneer in South Carolina, but you won’t find her holding auctions where potential buyers show up in person. For those who have items left over at their residence, or if the house has a closing and it needs to go on the market, Caring Transitions offers online auctions through its site CTBids.com.

“There are a lot of gated communities along the Grand Strand,” Blanton said. “If your house were sold, would you want 300 people through your house on a rainy Saturday morning? Would you want to have 300 people parking in your neighborhood?”

Blanton said she recently moved a couple from Pawleys Island to Florida. After their house was sold, her staff circled back to get it ready for closing. They didn’t have a lot of stuff left, but they did find a group of watches with some of the faces broken.

“We watch our auctions very closely,” Blanton said. “It turns out one of them was a rare Swiss dive watch ... only 2,800 were ever made. Because of the photos we took, it went for almost $20,000. We would have never gotten anything close to that. That is an amazing phone call to make to someone.”

For her efforts over the past 12 years, Blanton was recognized as the company-wide franchise of the year in 2020. Caring Transitions President Ray Fabik said Blanton continues to be a model for the entire company.

“That was coming off of COVID,” Fabik said. “She really led the way in terms of restructuring her business and really sharing a lot of her strategies with the rest of the network. So, she has really had a big impact on the rest of the owners and her peers.”

Blanton said she was honored, but it was a shock to win the award. She said shortly after COVID began, her staff held a team meeting to decide how to operate. It was a difficult time, especially with a lot of senior living communities either restricting access or shutting down.

“We made a relocation team and all they do is help people move,” Blanton said. “They pack them up, they help the right-size and then we have a liquidation team that can come in and sell what’s left. And the two teams can piggyback and support each other. I realized that we could better serve if we were specialized because not everyone enjoys doing everything.”

Blanton said her team also wrote a manual of operating procedures, which then were shared with the entire network of Caring Transitions franchises. She now uses the experience to do coaching calls with new franchisees.

Being a small business entrepreneur is never easy, Blanton said, but it is all about adaptability. She said what they do is personable and they get to know their clients by their belongings.

“When our client family walks into their newly set-up home and the sheets are on the bed, the cups are in the cupboard, the artwork is hung, the television is working, they are live-in ready and they say, ‘Wow, it feels like home,”’ Blanton said. “That is the best feeling in the world. It’s like Super Bowl times a thousand.”

MURRELLS INLET, S.C. (WBTW) — It’s an event that is as annual as the Fourth of July.

Each year, on the day after the holiday, community members in Murrells Inlet come together on the MarshWalk to clean up their little slice of paradise.

“Generally, [there are] a lot of people here in the area for the July 4th week,” said Stacy Johnson, executive director of Murrells Inlet 2020, a nonprofit group that aims to promote the conservation of the inlet’s natural environment. “So on [July 5], we always like to go out and clean up the inlet itself. So if you have a boat, Hey, it’s a great opportunity to jump on the boat [and] help clean up some of that firework debris, not just from the fireworks that Merle Ziland puts on, but also from individuals shooting off fireworks as well.”

Volunteers were set to gather at about 9 a.m. Wednesday to begin cleaning up the trash left behind after Tuesday’s festivities that included the annual boat parade and fireworks displays. They’ll be working along the roads, on the boardwalk, and even in the water.

Johnson said cleanup crews never know what they’re going to find.

“You get your normal plastic cups, plastic straws, firework debris, but there’s also a lot of other debris,” Johnson said. “I think we’re gonna see this year just from the hurricane, shoes, clothes, I mean, I found diapers before when I’m doing it.”

Johnson also said that anyone with a boat who wants to help to join in can bring it out and help pick up trash out of the marsh area.

Hannah Simchock, who is studying sustainability at Coastal Carolina University and is a Murrells Inlet 2020 intern, said the area’s ecosystem is unique and needs to be protected. If it isn’t kept clean, it can affect more than the environment.

“If we don’t take care of the inlet, then it will just continue to build up,” she said. “It could impact all of the great seafood that you get when you come to the restaurants, making it impossible to eat”.

Taylor Maresca is the weekend morning anchor and morning reporter at News13. She joined the team in June 2022 after graduating from the University of Arizona. Taylor is from Houston. Follow Taylor on Twitter and read more of her work here.