A Charlotte soul food brand is crossing the state line, with Sol' Delish Express set to open in Fort Mill by October, bringing crab cakes, ribeye and seafood mac and cheese to a stretch of Dobys Bridge Road that has become one of the region's busiest commercial corridors. The new location will occupy the former Sweet Dough space at 400 N. Dobys Bridge Road, Suite 106, inside a shopping center anchored in the shadow of a Walmart Neighborhood Market.
According to the Rock Hill Herald, the new spot sits about a mile east of Main Street and will mirror the takeout-only format Sol' Delish already runs at its North Tryon Street location in Charlotte. Chef and co-owner Lattel Brice told the paper the restaurant will serve Southern cuisine and seafood, and said customers wanted the brand to be closer to them while remaining close to Charlotte. Brice said demand from those customers is what drove the decision to pick Fort Mill for the expansion.
The Fort Mill outpost will lean on the same menu that has built Sol' Delish's following in Charlotte. Expect fried or grilled shrimp and fish, turkey and chicken wings, and nearly a dozen sides including cornbread, greens and candied yams, per the Herald's reporting. Burgers, salads and appetizers round out the lineup, alongside desserts like sweet potato and five flavors of pound cake, cheesecake peach cobbler and banana pudding. Entrees are expected to range from $15 to $25.
A Takeout Model Built in Charlotte
Sol' Delish first opened in Charlotte's University City in July 2023, according to Axios Charlotte, when its original North Tryon Street site seated roughly 50 people before shifting to a takeout format. That express model, which now operates independently from the brand's full-service dining room, is the template being replicated in Fort Mill. The company's main dine-in restaurant has since grown into a 4,700-square-foot flagship on J M Keynes Drive complete with two bars, live music, a patio and a boardwalk.
In Fort Mill, the express location will be open daily for dinner except Mondays, and will add lunch service starting at noon on weekends, the Herald reported. Orders can be placed online, by phone or through DoorDash. The company has been running its Charlotte operation for nearly four years and has said it plans to open additional locations across the region.
Why Fort Mill, and Why Now
The move lands in a town that Census data shows is growing faster than anywhere else in the Charlotte metro. Fort Mill's population expanded 6.8% between July 2024 and July 2025, reaching 38,673 residents, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released in May. The town's population has grown by nearly 48% since the 2020 census, a pace that has strained infrastructure enough that officials enacted a residential building moratorium and raised school impact fees, according to the Longleaf Group.
Fort Mill's median household income of $121,823 and a poverty rate of just 4.81% give local commercial corridors strong purchasing power, per World Population Review figures. That kind of spending capacity, paired with rapid population growth, helps explain why Charlotte-based restaurant brands like Sol' Delish are following residents across the state line rather than waiting for them to drive north.
A Corridor Already Reshaping Around Traffic
The Dobys Bridge Road site sits at the corner of SC Highway 160, a road undergoing a $160 million widening and interchange overhaul by the South Carolina Department of Transportation, where daily traffic is projected to hit 62,100 vehicles by 2045, Hoodline previously reported. That's a sharp jump from the 31,300 vehicles measured on the highway in 2015. The corridor has already drawn other food and retail growth, including the Harris Teeter-anchored Catawba Ridge Market across from Catawba Ridge High School, which brought in quick-service chains like Chipotle to capture heavy family and school traffic.
The area's institutional footprint is expanding too. Winthrop University opened a downtown Fort Mill satellite campus on North White Street this past May, bringing dual-enrollment, early childhood and adult education programs to the town, a project Hoodline noted follows the university's more than $200 million in regional economic impact in 2023. Between the university's arrival, the highway overhaul and now a growing list of restaurant openings, Fort Mill's commercial corridors are absorbing regional operators at a pace town leaders are still working to manage.
