Newly announced Whataburger gets pushback in this SC city. Here’s what we know
Whataburger’s request to operate a drive-thru from midnight to 5 a.m. adjacent to a Greenville neighborhood should be denied, city planning staff have recommended.
The staff report posted Friday on the city’s website said “late-night use will not be compatible with surrounding lands” and has the possibility of adversely affecting neighbors.
The Board of Zoning Appeals will consider the application on Sept. 14.
It is likely residents will echo remarks made at a community meeting in July that traffic and noise overnight would be a problem.
Whataburger’s new unit project manager Anita Thomas did not respond to requests for comment.
The location on Laurens Road, a main thoroughfare into downtown Greenville, is replete with commercial businesses and other fast food restaurants, but the roads beside and behind the former Title-Max building are residences in a neighborhood established in the 1950s. Homes there are in the $300,000 range, according to property listings.
The Title-Max building would be torn down and another to be owned by the Whataburger company would be built. The closest residential property is 175 feet from the property line on Lindsay Avenue.
A summary of the July community meeting, filed with the city by an engineer with BL Company, said neighbors were concerned with overnight traffic, especially people taking shortcuts through their neighborhood. They said drive-thru speakers would be noisy while people are trying to sleep. They also were concerned that Whataburger would become a hangout spot for teenagers like Cookout across the street.
Company officials agreed to get typical traffic from its other locations. Also, they think teens would not drift over to their side of the street because Whataburger does not have outside tables.
They said they would contact Business Sound to see how loud the speakers are and may use only the inside drive-thru lane for late night.
Landscaping at the rear property lines would be evaluated and trees and plants possibly upgraded, Holly Linder, senior engineer at BL, said in her report. BL is the agent for the company.
A document filed with the Board of Zoning Appeals says the Laurens Road Whataburger expects to do $3.4 million in sales a year. All Whataburgers are open 24 years a day, seven days a week except Christmas.
Whataburger is planning other South Carolina restaurants in Irmo, Boiling Springs, Duncan, Anderson and two in Spartanburg.
The company was founded in 1950 as a roadside burger stand by Harmon Dobson in Corpus Christi, Texas.
Dobson died in a private plane crash in 1967, and his wife Grace took over the company. By the time she died in 2005 at age 80, the company had grown to 600 stores.
The family sold its majority interest in the company In 2019 to Chicago-based investment firm BDT Capital, which began the expansion program.
