New Businesses

La Abejita Michoacana is a Mexican ice cream shop in Taylors, carrying the paletería tradition that takes its name from the state of Michoacán. That heritage runs on bright fruit flavors, paletas, and other frozen treats made in a style you will not find at a standard American scoop counter. Beyond the frozen case, it works as a dessert and sweets stop for the east side of the Upstate, with confections and snacks to round out a visit. The name means "the little bee," and by the reviews, it has built a loyal local following in the Taylors area.

Houni's Italian Ice serves Italian ice from a storefront on North Main Street in Simpsonville, the water-based, dairy-free frozen treat that stays lighter than a scoop of ice cream and holds up well through an Upstate summer. Beyond the Italian ice, the shop works as a small neighborhood dessert stop, with ice cream and other sweets on hand. It keeps afternoon-into-evening hours Tuesday through Sunday and closes on Mondays.

Ice Cream Station has been scooping in downtown Simpsonville for more than a decade, working out of the old train depot beside the Main Street clocktower. The name is not just branding: the rail line still runs right past the building, and half the fun is taking a cone outside to watch a train roll by just steps away. The menu goes well past a plain vanilla cone. Soft serve is the backbone, but the counter also turns out thick milkshakes made with local Happy Cow dairy, floats, fruit smoothies, and a long list of build-your-own sundaes. Dole Whip comes in pineapple and orange for anyone skipping dairy, and reviewers say the non-dairy soft serve holds its own against the regular scoops. The sundaes are where it gets playful: a Dirt Digging Sundae buried in Oreos and gummy worms, a Hound Hog stacked with bourbon-roasted bacon and hot fudge, and a rotating Hot Cobbler served warm in a waffle bowl. When fall arrives, the seasonal SkyTop apple cider slushie is the one people wait for. Lines can get long on a warm evening, but customers keep pointing out how fast they move and how generous the staff are with samples and toppings.

Pop's Cabin Creamery works out of the historic Gosnell Cabin on the grounds of the Mauldin Cultural Center, a log cabin relocated into downtown Mauldin and given a second life as an ice cream stand. You order through the cabin's front windows and pick up where the front door used to be, then carry your cone to one of the umbrella-shaded tables set out under the trees in front. Alongside scoops there are snow cones, Italian ice, milkshakes, sundaes, coffee, and pound cake, plus cornhole and a few yard games to keep the kids busy. Reviewers tend to single out the friendly service and the generous portions, the kind where you feel you got your money's worth in the cone. A few also note the ice cream is a familiar Southern brand rather than churned on site, which is fair to know going in. The shop is named for Pop Dorsey, the owner's wife's grandfather, who ran a small ice cream shop over in Marion, South Carolina.

Dillard's is a longtime Greer fixture, an ice cream parlor that shares its lot with a working farm stand, so a scoop and a flat of just-picked strawberries come from the same stop. The building itself is small, with a covered porch and picnic tables out front where families settle in on warm evenings, and in summer the line runs long but moves quickly. The flavor list is deep and shifts with the seasons, and the staff hand over spoonfuls to sample before you commit. Reviewers keep circling back to the banana pudding and the Charleston sea salt caramel, and there are a few Splenda-sweetened options for anyone watching sugar. Past the cones, the counter turns out banana splits built for sharing, hot fudge brownie sundaes, thick milkshakes, and seasonal treats like apple cider doughnuts once fall arrives. One practical note before you go: it's cash or check only, no cards. Come in warm weather and you can pair dessert with whatever the farm has ripe that week, from spring strawberries to late-summer melons and tomatoes. With a list that deep and spoons on the counter for sampling, the real question isn't whether you'll land on a favorite but which one, and that's yours to settle on the next visit.

Pink Mama's sits right on the Swamp Rabbit Trail in downtown Travelers Rest, the kind of stop you roll up to on a bike or wander into after a walk down Main Street. The shop leans all the way into its name, done up in pink inside and out, with a selfie wall that gets plenty of use and rocking chairs by the front window for working through a cone. The scoops are Hershey's, with more than two dozen flavors on the board alongside floats, milkshakes, and dirty sodas. What sets the place apart is what comes around the ice cream: the pink waffle cones are made in-house and carry a faint cinnamon note that reviewers keep mentioning. There are vegan, dairy-free, and gluten-free options too, and dogs get their own Paw Sundaes, which is a rare thing to find at a scoop counter. The building is small and the lot fills up on warm weekends, but the line moves quickly and the scoops run generous.

Dillard's is a family dessert spot on Mauldin Road, the kind of place you go for ice cream after dinner rather than something you grab on the way past. It reads more sit-down than a walk-up window, which makes it an easy call when the kids want a treat and the grown-ups want to sit for a few minutes. Evenings are its natural window. It stays open well past dinner through the week and a little later on Fridays and Saturdays, so it fits the after-supper run more than the midday stop.

Houni's is built around Italian ice, the fruit-forward, water-based cousin of ice cream that stays lighter and brighter on a warm Upstate afternoon. That is the real draw here, and it is what sets the shop apart from a standard scoop counter. The counter does not stop at Italian ice, though. It also runs to ice cream, dessert-shop treats, and confections, so a group that cannot settle on one craving can still walk out happy with something cold and sweet in hand.

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.