Sandy Green had run Gifts For All Seasons on North Main Street for 30 years when a reporter caught up with her in 2024. For most of that run, if a customer wanted lunch after browsing her shop, there was nowhere downtown to get it. "We have gone years without restaurants," she said at the time, calling the new wave of dining spots a real lifesaver for foot traffic on her block.
That drought ended for good in the five years since The Crepe Factory relocated to Main Street in 2021. Today the same stretch has crepes, craft beer, brunch, barbecue, and now Mexican food, all within a few blocks of each other. That kind of change usually gets chalked up to vague momentum. In Inman's case, the timing lines up with something a lot more specific: a 31.5-mile rail corridor that is about to run straight through downtown.
The Main Street reopening, in order
Here's what actually landed on Main Street, and when.
| Business | Location | Arrived |
|---|---|---|
| The Crepe Factory | 12 S. Main St. | Relocated from downtown Spartanburg in 2021 |
| Holliday Brewing | Downtown Inman, on nearly 4 acres | Moved from its original Drayton Mills taproom in October 2023 |
| Dutton's Family Restaurant | 11030 Asheville Highway, former Big Daddy's Drive-in | Opened by February 2025 |
| Cafe on Main | 15 N. Main St. | Opened mid-December 2025 |
| El Conquistador Mexican | Downtown Inman | Grand opening celebrations recently concluded |
Add in Kempson Rexall Drugs, the old-fashioned soda fountain that has been scooping ice cream downtown long before any of this started, and you get a Main Street that finally has a full day's worth of reasons to park the car and walk.
The map underneath the menu
Ask any of the newer owners why they picked Inman, and the answer keeps circling back to the same unfinished project: the Saluda Grade Trail. Roughly three miles of the planned 31.5-mile route will run through the heart of downtown Inman, and the Saluda Grade Trails Conservancy closed on the $28.5 million purchase of the old Norfolk Southern rail corridor in June 2025.
Mike Okun, who opened Cafe on Main with his wife Deana at 15 N. Main St., wasn't shy about the connection. "We will have the trail at our front door within two years," he told the Post and Courier when the restaurant was under construction. The building's entrance faces the same corridor the trail is slated to follow. Jackie Dutton, who opened her family restaurant in the old Big Daddy's Drive-in space, cited the coming trail as one of the factors in her decision too.
That's the part a quick drive down Main Street won't tell you. The restaurants opening now aren't scattered around town. They're clustering along the exact line a trail hasn't finished being built yet, which means the people writing checks for build-outs and equipment are betting on foot traffic that doesn't officially exist yet.
The comparison everyone in town keeps making
Inman City Administrator Joe Lanahan has a specific reference point for what he expects to happen next, because he watched it happen once already. Before coming to Inman, he worked for Greenville County's Parks, Recreation & Tourism Department when the Swamp Rabbit Trail was still a 12-mile idea connecting Travelers Rest to downtown Greenville. That trail has since grown into a network credited with reshaping the small towns along it.
At an April 2026 community forum on the Saluda Grade Trail, Lanahan put the choice in front of Inman plainly: "The question is not whether the trail is coming. The question is, are we ready for the trail?" The numbers being floated at that same forum give some sense of what "ready" might mean. Organizers have secured $6 million for the design phase, and early estimates suggest the completed corridor between Inman and Zirconia, North Carolina, could bring in up to $22 million a year in visitor spending once it's finished, according to reporting from Blue Ridge Public Radio.
None of that money has landed yet. Construction on the trail itself isn't expected to begin until 2027. But the city has already started acting like the trail is a certainty rather than a proposal. Back in 2024, the city was already planning a new City Hall for the corner of Highway 292 and Howard Street, with construction originally targeted for late 2025 or early 2026. By late 2025, the city had also opened a small pocket park downtown, giving residents a patch of green space to sit in between errands. The restaurants got there first, but the infrastructure has been catching up.
What's actually happening on the ground this month
Set the trail talk aside for a minute, because none of it changes what a Saturday in Inman looks like right now.
Anchor Park at Lake Bowen remains the easiest way to spend a summer morning outdoors. The lake covers 1,534 acres with about 33 miles of shoreline, managed by Spartanburg Water, and the park itself has two dedicated fishing piers, three motorized boat ramps, and a separate access point for paddlecraft. You can fish straight off the rocks or launch a kayak without driving anywhere else.
For anyone free later this month, a few things are worth putting on the calendar:
- Lakeside Cars & Coffee, Saturday, August 29, at Bowen's Landing. A casual morning gathering, no entry fee mentioned.
- Music on Mill, the outdoor concert series at the Mill Street Pavilion, closes out its summer run with The Tams playing beach music followed by a fireworks show, before the series shifts into its fall lineup.
- Harvest Day 5K, Saturday, September 26, kicking off Inman's biggest annual event hosted by the Inman Chamber of Commerce, with Market on Mill returning the same season for local vendors and makers.
None of that requires knowing anything about rail corridors or design phases. It's just what living in Inman looks like on a given weekend, and it happens to be getting fuller by the season.
Watching a small town place its bet
Sandy Green has spent three decades watching Main Street's foot traffic rise and fall. What she's watching now is different from a normal upswing. It's a town's business owners, one lease at a time, betting that a trail that doesn't physically exist yet is worth building a restaurant around. Whether or not you ever set foot on the finished path, the wager is already visible every time you walk into Cafe on Main for a coffee or order a milkshake at Dutton's. Main Street isn't just busier. It's arranged around a line on a map that most people driving through wouldn't notice.
If you're keeping an eye on how downtown Inman keeps changing, or you're curious what any of this means for property values along Main Street or near Lake Bowen, the team at C. Victor Lester & Associates tracks these shifts closely across the Upstate. Get your free home valuation and consultation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.
