Urban Cookhouse approved for drive-thru in Shandon
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COLUMBIA, S.C. (WOLO) — The zoning board approved a drive-thru for Urban Cookhouse Tuesday for its new location on Devine Street in Shandon. The Columbia Zoning Board of Appeals voted 4-1 to allow the restaurant to have a drive-thru window, for pick-up only. That means there cannot be a menu board or call box. The location at 3000 Devine Street, across Sims Avenue from Eggs Up Grill, has some Shandon residents worried about how a drive-thru window will affect those entirely-residential streets off Devine. “They want to be successful, they want to draw the traffic, so that will inherently change the traffic in the area,” Shandon resident Heather Hahn says. Hahn spoke out at the meeting Tuesday. She was one of a handful to do so; dozens of residents wrote in their disapproval before the meeting. “The drive-thru indicates that we’re going to be encouraging is the traffic that’s coming through, doing their business, and leaving again and going somewhere else,” Hahn says. Urban Cookhouse president Will Gillespie says the window will help with traffic. “Most of our business in terms of carry out is gonna be through that window, so that alleviates the need for parking down the street or so on.” Gillespie, a lifelong Columbian, says opening his restaurant in the Capitol City has always been a priority. He says doing so in Shandon was a no-brainer. “This is absolutely the perfect fit for our brand and we hope for the market,” Gillespie says. Urban Cookhouse serves up meat smoked in-house and locally-sourced produce, made to order. The restaurant has four locations throughout the southeast. With this Columbia location, it will expand by four spots next year. The restaurant’s headquarters will stay in Columbia, and this new restaurant will serve as the brand’s flagship location. Gillespie says they’ll finalize designs in the next few months and he hopes to be open by fall of 2016.
