The Quiet Corner Near Bonfire Is About to Become Downtown Conway's Busiest Stretch

If you've walked the Conway Riverwalk any evening this summer, you've passed the same landmark without thinking much about it: the wide wooden boardwalk that curves past Bonfire Taqueria, where the Waccamaw slides by dark and slow and somebody is usually fishing off the rail near the floating docks. It's the kind of stretch that's been part of the background for years. Pretty, familiar, unremarkable.

That's about to change, and not because of one project. Three separate things are converging on that exact same corner this year: a new ferry landing, two new restaurants from people who already run the two most talked-about kitchens in town, and a fall calendar dense enough that you could walk down there most weekends through December and find something happening. None of these are random. They're all stacking up on the same few hundred feet of riverfront, and understanding why tells you more about where downtown Conway is headed than any single headline would.

A Ferry Is Coming to the Same Landing

In late July, Conway's city council approved a $2,486,088 contract with H, K & W Marine Construction to build the Kingston Boardwalk Trail and Ferry Project. The plan adds ADA-accessible floating docks near the Bonfire Restaurant landing, where a ferry called Spirit will carry pedestrians and cyclists across the Waccamaw. Right now, getting to the other side on foot means using the Waccamaw River Memorial Bridge, a crossing that's raised enough safety concerns that the city has been discussing an alternative for years.

Construction hasn't started yet. City officials estimate about a year to finish once work begins, which puts a realistic opening somewhere in mid to late 2027. But the location isn't incidental. The landing sits at the same spot where the Riverwalk already ends its walkable stretch near Bonfire, meaning the same corner that currently marks the edge of the accessible waterfront is about to become the departure point for reaching the other bank entirely.

A longtime Conway resident who brings her grandchildren to the Riverwalk told a local news crew she's been waiting for exactly this kind of expansion. Her reaction was simple: "It's the best thing Conway can do."

Two Restaurants Are Rising Right Next Door

The ferry isn't the only thing landing at Bonfire's doorstep. Developer Tripp Nealy has spent more than five years trying to build on the lot beside the restaurant, a property that once held a 19th-century structure called the Lower Warehouse, originally a lumber supply building for the Jerry Cox Co. Nealy disassembled the building himself after acquiring the property in 2017 and stored the salvaged lumber at his farm in Green Sea. His plan has been to use that same wood in a new structure on the site, a restaurant built quite literally from the corner's own history.

On the other side of Bonfire, Darren and Cyndi Smith, who already own both Bonfire and Rivertown Bistro on Third Avenue, are pursuing a second project of their own. City records indicate the plan includes a new restaurant, an event facility, and up to 15 apartments built above it. The city sold the Smiths a series of riverfront parcels for $130,000, land that wasn't generating tax revenue while it sat vacant. Darren Smith, a Charleston native who opened Rivertown Bistro in his wife's hometown back in 1994, was named one of South Carolina's chef ambassadors last year, a role that has him traveling the state promoting Palmetto cuisine at festivals and culinary events.

City Administrator Adam Emrick made the logic plain when the council was weighing the sale: having someone with two proven restaurants already on that block take on a third project isn't a gamble, it's a bet on someone who's already shown the model works there.

Why This Particular Stretch, and Not Somewhere Else

None of this is happening in isolation. Downtown Conway spent decades with its historic Main Street district and its riverfront treated as two separate places, connected only loosely by a short walk. That changed in February 2025, when the city finished a $2.3 million Riverwalk extension that finally linked the two, adding a 1,150-foot boardwalk over the old railroad trestle with elevated decks and new floating docks. It was the fourth phase of a Riverwalk that first broke ground back in 1993, and the first time the path actually reached Main Street.

That single connection changed the math for anyone deciding where to invest next. Once foot traffic could move freely between the shops on Main and the restaurants on the water, the land near that junction, right around Bonfire, stopped being an edge and became a center. The ferry project and both restaurant plans are all clustering around the same corner because that corner is now the hinge between two districts instead of the far end of one.

It also explains the pricing. A less-than-acre parcel selling for $130,000 only makes sense if the city expects that land to start generating real hospitality fees, business license revenue, and building permits almost immediately, the kind of return that comes from foot traffic, not from holding vacant riverfront for another decade.

The Fall Calendar Gives You a Reason to Go Look

None of the construction will be visible yet this season. What will be visible is a run of events dense enough to make the walk worth it on its own.

Burger Week is the one worth planning around if you haven't done it before. It's now in its fifth year, run by Conway Downtown Alive, with no sign-up required. You just show up, scan a QR code at each participating spot, and vote for your favorite. Past winners have come out of Bonfire and Rivertown Bistro, the same two kitchens now expanding their footprint on that corner, which makes this year's competition a reasonable preview of what the new restaurant might eventually bring to the table.

The Horry County Museum program on October 27 is worth a special mention if you haven't been inside the building before. It sits in the old Burroughs School, built in three phases between 1905 and 1923, and the ghost stories program that month is presented in partnership with the AVX Foundation. It's a short walk from the riverfront and free to attend, with donations appreciated.

What This Means If You Already Live Nearby

If Lakeside Crossing is home, none of this requires a special trip. It's a short drive down Highway 501, past the same grocery stores and medical offices you already use, into a downtown that's quietly consolidating a decade of separate plans into one working corner. The Riverwalk extension gave people a reason to walk between Main Street and the river. The ferry project will give them a reason to cross it. And two restaurants from operators who've already proven their menus work on that block are building the reason to stay once they get there.

None of it happens overnight. The ferry is a year out at minimum, and neither restaurant has a confirmed opening date yet. But the fall calendar doesn't wait for construction to finish. Burger Week starts next month, and by the time the Ghost Walk wraps up in mid-October, you'll have had more reasons to walk that corner by Bonfire than most years give you in an entire season.

If you're curious how any of this connects to the community you're already part of, or you know someone thinking about what daily life near the Waccamaw actually looks like, I'm always happy to talk through what's changing and what it means locally. Brendan Danna has spent the better part of two decades learning these Grand Strand communities one street at a time, and that includes the ones that aren't for sale, just worth understanding. Let's Connect.