Columbia greens seekers rejoice: Charleston-based fast-casual restaurant Verde is bringing salads and wraps to town early next year.
The restaurant will fill a spot in Trenholm Plaza, the Forest Acres retail center at 4840 Forest Drive. The space most recently housed 32 Degrees Yogurt Bar.
Focusing on healthy food, Verde sells most meals for $10 or under, and also offers delivery and catering.
“We have been always looking at Columbia because it’s a natural extension of Charleston,” Verde co-owner Jennifer Ferrebee tells Free Times.
The chain’s Columbia expansion was announced via social media yesterday.
The restaurant focuses on healthy food in the form of create-your-own salad bowls or pre-designed options. The restaurant’s salad bases range from a typical romaine to a mesclun mix, which can then be topped with a variety of proteins and other veggies and dressings.
Ferrebee says that While some health-focused restaurants have opened in Columbia recently, she feels Verde will be a welcome addition.
“I do think that we’re helping fill a need,” Ferrebee posits. “We’re fast-casual that focuses solely on healthy food.”
Ferrebee started the restaurant chain with her husband Sam in 2011 on Charleston’s King Street. The two are from Virginia and had seen healthy fast-casual restaurants sprout successfully in their home state, but noticed a lack in Charleston.
Pairing her experience in hospitality and Sam’s experience in horticulture, they came up with the Verde concept.
“Really it just sort of came from the fact that we knew fast-casual existed in other places,” Ferrebee says. “We just didn’t see anything similar in Charleston or the southeast.”
The strategy appears to have paid off. They now own four locations in Charleston and another in Charlotte, which opened last year.