New ‘swell experience’ grocery store will bring nostalgia to Fort Mill
As construction continues on one long-awaited and highly visible grocery store site off Fort Mill Parkway, a new kind of grocery store could go in nearby.
Mount Pleasant-based pick-up grocery store OPIE submitted plans to open a location in Arden Mill. Customers will place orders online and stop by to pick them up. There’s no shopping in the store itself.
That location is on the opposite side of Nims Village and a town fire station from the more than 45-acre Catawba Ridge Market, where a new Harris Teeter will anchor a shopping center with outparcel spaces.
The OPIE store at 5529 Arden Mill Dr. would go in a 7,700-square-foot building that’s already built. It’s beside two other commercial buildings just west of the neighborhood entrance at Arden Mill Drive. Those buildings have Emilio’s Pizza Kitchen, Live Hydration Spa, Zoom Room dog training, a UPS store, dentist and nail salon.
“They’re probably several months out from opening,” said Lindsey Mayes with York-based 993 Architecture, who is helping OPIE design its new space.
OPIE will take up about 5,700 square feet, leaving room for one more tenant in the building.
About OPIE grocery stores
The grocer carries name-brand products, but also partners with farms and vendors on specialty items.
OPIE carries the typical range of grocery store fare from meat and seafood to bakery, beer and baby care items. There is only one current location listed, in Mount Pleasant, on the company website.
OPIE has a drive-thru concept it bills as “the future of grocery” on its site, but the Fort Mill space won’t have a drive-thru. There’s also an OPIE Cafe with coffee shop or soda fountain shop style drinks, plus baked goods. Signs for the new Fort Mill store market it as OPIE Grocery and Cafe.
“They will bring the groceries out to people, and they’ll have a small cafe inside,” Mayes said.
Even with its tech-forward concept, OPIE has a nostalgic twist, too.
The local independent grocer’s logo is a character wearing a soda jerk hat reminiscent of old-time diners and soda counters. The website shows employees wearing them, too.
OPIE’s mission statement is to provide the “Swell Experience” and a phone call to the Mount Pleasant store ends with, “you have a swell one.”
One more bit of nostalgia, whether intentional or not, the name recalls Ron Howard’s youthful character Opie in the old “Andy Griffith show” set in North Carolina.
This story was originally published May 27, 2025 at 5:20 AM with the headline "New ‘swell experience’ grocery store will bring nostalgia to Fort Mill."
