Columbia's first Culver's restaurant won't be serving ButterBurgers this week after all. The chain has pushed back the opening of its Clemson Road location to Nov. 9, 2026, after earlier signs pointed to an opening as soon as October.
The rescheduled date was confirmed in a company statement reported by Yahoo News, which noted that the Culver's at 2744 Clemson Rd. in northeast Columbia will be the first in the Midlands region once it finally opens. Culver's said only that it needed a little more time to get everything just right, and the company did not provide an exact cause for the delay, according to the same report.
The back-and-forth has been going on for weeks. The Columbia location's Facebook page shared a graphic on Oct. 17 teasing an opening that month before the caption was changed to point to a November date instead, per the report from Yahoo News. Social posts from the Columbia Culver's accounts had also urged followers earlier in October to save Oct. 26 as a possible opening day, according to HereColumbia.
From June Announcement to Repeated Delays
Culver's first revealed plans for the Columbia location in June 2026, and the project has been inching toward opening ever since. At the time, The State reported that construction had begun at the Clemson Road property and that Ryan Gabel, who will be the owner/operator of the Columbia unit, anticipated the restaurant could open in October.
The planned site sits near the intersection of Clemson and Longtown roads, just east of Interstate 77, according to the same report from The State. State transportation data cited in that reporting put daily traffic on that stretch of Clemson Road at about 27,100 vehicles, a number that underscores why the corridor was picked for a high-visibility restaurant launch.
What Columbia Diners Can Expect
Culver's is a Wisconsin-based burger chain known for its ButterBurgers, cheese curds and frozen custard, as the Post and Courier Columbia has reported. The chain's own history, detailed on Culver's website, traces back to 1984, when the very first Culver's restaurant opened in Sauk City, Wisconsin, serving Midwest classics like ButterBurgers and fresh frozen custard.
Menus at the chain highlight ButterBurgers, chicken sandwiches, seafood, salads and fresh frozen custard desserts, per HereColumbia's reporting. Culver's has grown into a sizable national operation, with the company's own site stating it has grown to 1,000 locations across 26 states, while a separate report from Yahoo News put the figure at over 1,000 locations in 26 states. Either way, the Columbia restaurant will join 11 other Culver's locations already operating elsewhere in South Carolina, according to data cited by HereColumbia.
For now, Midlands fans of the ButterBurger will have to wait a little longer. Culver's has set Nov. 9 as the new target, closing out a string of shifting dates that stretched back to that first June announcement.
