Lowes Foods Opens First Spartanburg County Store In Lyman Thursday

A new Lowes Foods opens its doors in Lyman, South Carolina, at 8 a.m. Thursday, marking the grocery chain's fourth Upstate location and its first in Spartanburg County. The 42,000-square-foot store at 12189 West Greenville Highway takes over the site formerly occupied by KJ's Market.

The opening was detailed in a report by Greenville News, which noted the store's arrival gives Lowes Foods a foothold in a county it hadn't previously served. The Carolinas-based grocery chain has been steadily building out its presence across the region, and Lyman represents the next step in that expansion.

Behind the rebrand is a bit of corporate consolidation. Lowes Foods and KJ's Market share the same parent company, Hickory, North Carolina-based Alex Lee Inc., which announced in September 2025 that all existing KJ's Market employees at the Lyman location would keep their jobs through the conversion, according to Greenville Business Magazine. Because both grocery banners operate under the same corporate umbrella, the switch didn't require a workforce overhaul.

A Site With Some Grocery History

The West Greenville Highway location has changed hands more than once. The property originally operated as a BI-LO supermarket until September 2020, when Alex Lee Inc. acquired it during Southeastern Grocers' store divestitures and converted it into a KJ's Market, per the Upstate Business Journal. That means the site has now cycled through three distinct supermarket banners in under six years.

Lowes Foods had already built a presence elsewhere in the Upstate before landing in Spartanburg County, with stores in Greer opening in 2016, Simpsonville in 2017, and Greenville's Pelham Road corridor following soon after, the outlet reported. Lyman's opening rounds out that four-store Upstate footprint and gives the chain its first Spartanburg County address.

Beer Den, Sausage Bar, and a Barn-Wood Community Table

Shoppers walking into the converted Lyman store will find several of the chain's signature “Lowes Foods Originals” concepts built into the space. The Shelby Report detailed features including The Beer Den, which pours craft beers on tap, along with SausageWorks, Boxcar Coffee, The Cakery, and a Community Table constructed from reclaimed barn wood, according to The Shelby Report. Those concept departments are part of how the chain tries to set itself apart from more conventional supermarket competitors.

The Lyman store also taps into Lowes Foods' regional supply chain. The company maintains active partnerships with more than 200 farmers across North and South Carolina to source fresh produce and other regional goods for its stores, the same report noted, underscoring local sourcing as a core piece of its brand identity across the Carolinas.

Roots Going Back to 1954

Lowes Foods traces its history to 1954, when it was founded in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, by Jim Lowe, whose father founded Lowe's Home Improvement. The chain was acquired in 1984 by Merchants Distributors, Inc., a division of Alex Lee Inc., and has operated under that parent company for four decades since, according to company history cited by the grocer itself.

Alex Lee Inc. itself dates back to 1931, when it was founded in Hickory, North Carolina. The company now operates nearly 85 Lowes Foods locations alongside wholesale distributor Merchants Distributors LLC, employing roughly 15,000 to 16,000 people, per Forbes. That scale puts Alex Lee among the largest privately held food distribution and retail companies in the Southeast.

Growth Driving Grocery Demand

The timing of the opening lines up with rapid growth across the region. Spartanburg County's population reached 380,857 in 2025 after growing 3% from the prior year, ranking it the fourth fastest-growing county in South Carolina and helping make the Spartanburg metro area the third fastest-growing in the nation, according to The Post and Courier.

Lyman itself has grown even faster on a percentage basis. The town's estimated population reached 7,296 in 2026, an 18.8% increase from its 2020 U.S. Census baseline of 6,140 residents, per World Population Review. That local expansion mirrors a statewide trend: South Carolina gained nearly 80,000 residents between July 2024 and July 2025, a 1.5% growth rate that made it the fastest-growing state by percentage in the country for the second consecutive year, according to the South Carolina Department of Employment and Workforce. That kind of in-migration has continued to fuel retail and real estate demand across the Upstate, setting the stage for a grocery chain looking to plant its flag in a county it hadn't reached before.