Summer Moon Coffee is planning to open a drive-thru shop at 3534 Highway 153 in Powdersville in early 2027, marking the Texas-founded chain's fifth footprint in Upstate South Carolina. The company said it is planning to open in early 2027 and join the Powdersville community, adding another stop to a coffee corridor that already stretches across Greenville, Simpsonville, Clemson, and Mauldin.
News of the planned cafe was reported by WYFF, which cited Summer Moon Coffee's own announcement about the site. The Powdersville shop would round out a five-store Upstate lineup that has taken shape at a fast clip since the brand's South Carolina debut a little over three years ago, according to the Upstate Business Journal.
From a Greenville Mill to a Five-Store Cluster
Summer Moon's first South Carolina location opened May 20, 2023, when franchisee Charles Garcia and his family launched a drive-thru at The Shops at Mills Mill on Mills Avenue in Greenville, according to the Post and Courier. From there, the chain expanded quickly, opening stores in Simpsonville and Clemson, followed by a downtown Mauldin store in January 2025, the Upstate Business Journal reports.
That expansion has included drive-thru locations. The Powdersville site sits along a stretch of Highway 153 within the Powdersville Plaza shopping corridor. According to an Anderson County Planning Commission document dated Nov. 24, 2020, Highway 153 is classified as an urban principal arterial road, with no maximum average vehicle trips per day requirement.
Why Powdersville Fits the Growth Pattern
The planned shop is in Powdersville, adding another location to the chain's Upstate presence.
Behind the Upstate expansion sits a much larger national operation. Summer Moon Coffee was founded as a family-owned shop in Texas in 2002 and roasts all of its coffee beans in Texas Hill Country brick ovens, using seasoned Texas post oak burned over open flames, according to Summer Moon Coffee's own materials. The company says the wood-firing process is intended to produce coffee with lower acidity and a smoother body than beans roasted on gas-fired equipment.
Moon Milk and a National Franchise Model
The chain's best-known menu item is Moon Milk, a proprietary sweet cream made from seven secret ingredients. Moon Milk drinks are customizable by sweetness level, each named after a phase of the moon, per the company's own descriptions.
As of August 2026, Summer Moon operates more than 70 locations across roughly a dozen states, generating an estimated $125 million in annual revenue through corporate cafes, franchise stores, and direct sales, according to YesPress. That scale runs through a centralized supply chain: all beans are roasted in Texas, then supplied to franchise-run stores, a structure that keeps roasting consistent while out-of-state operators handle day-to-day retail, according to LubbockEDA.
Despite that centralized roasting model, Upstate franchisees operate local shops, even as every bean they brew is roasted in Texas.
Open questions remain about the Powdersville build-out, including the exact construction timeline at 3534 Highway 153, the shop's square footage and drive-thru configuration, and whether local operators plan to push further into surrounding Anderson or Spartanburg counties. For now, Summer Moon has confirmed only that the Powdersville cafe is slated to open in early 2027, joining a fast-filling map of Upstate South Carolina drive-thrus.
