Driving School in Blythewood, SC

COLUMBIA — For more than 17 years, Scottie’s Cafe and Grill has been serving up American, Greek and Italian fare next to a gas station on Wilson Boulevard. But on Dec. 14, the popular Blythewood restaurant will close its doors.

Owner Scottie Opolyn made the announcement in a Facebook livestream on Nov. 7, expressing gratitude for people visiting the cafe over the years, and to Larry Sharpe, who first gave him the opportunity to open in Blythewood.

Opolyn told the Free Times that he first heard wind that the Sharpe Shoppes, where Scottie’s is located, would be sold to new owners last week. He thought a sale and transfer of ownership was months down the line, but things ended up being finalized sooner , and the new owners told him on Nov. 6 that the restaurant’s lease would not be renewed.

Thinking about the closure over the last few days has been a little surreal, Opolyn said.

“You don't think about what you're going to do when you're not doing the restaurant anymore, because I've been doing it for 20 years,” Opolyn said. “I never thought about slowing down or retiring and moving on, what it's going to be like. So, you know, yesterday was kind of a weird day to think I'm going to be unemployed in two months.”

Scottie’s Cafe and Grill was open in Chapin for three years before moving to Blythewood, where the restaurant has operated for about 17 years. He said the impending closure has made him think a lot more about the future.

Opolyn said while he would have liked to sign another five-year short-term lease — which ended up not being an option — he realized that if he was offered a long-term lease, it could have been a problem.

“The big thing is that I'm 65 years old, and if they wanted me to sign a long-term lease again, I probably couldn't have, you know,” Opolyn said. “So was it God forcing me to retire? Probably.”

While Opolyn isn’t sure what is in store for the future, he has considered bringing out the restaurant’s food truck, which hasn’t been used in a few years due to lack of staffing , a few nights a week.

“Maybe do lunch, a couple nights a dinner, and just hang out with everybody and just relax and semi-retire,” he said.

Community support for what’s next

Opolyn said the saddest, but also most uplifting part of the closure announcement has been talking to customers and seeing their responses on social media.

Opolyn’s wife, mom and daughters all work at Scottie’s, and the cafe owner said over the years he has become deeply involved and invested in the community. He has employees he now sees as sons. He’s catered and donated to high school and church events for years and said he is like Blythewood’s Bruce Springsteen for his charismatic personality around town.

Scottie’s and its owners are such a staple in the community that when the restaurant announced it was closing in 2022, customers rallied around Opolyn and his family and helped them reopen within a week.

“It keeps my heart so warm that people just love you that much that they want you to stay,” Opolyn said. “But it just wasn't in the cards for us.”

Especially after COVID, Opolyn said costs have been increasing, and it is hard to run things the way he used to. He said the sale of the shops makes him think that “maybe it was time for me to change as well.”

In the next few weeks, Opolyn asks that people keep coming into the restaurant and encouraged people to reach out to him by phone at 803-608-8885 if they have any ideas for next steps for Scottie’s Cafe and Grill in Blythewood.

“ We're going to be open till mid-December, we ask everybody to come in and say goodbye and pray,” Opolyn said. “I'm not giving up hope that I will be back in the restaurant business anytime soon. I just don't think I'll be at as big of a restaurant.”

South Carolina “Republican” lawmakers awarded crony capitalist carmaker Scout Motors – a subsidiary of über-woke Volkswagen – a whopping $1.3 billion in taxpayer-funded incentives two years ago (despite the company receiving precisely zero credible offers from other states).

The boondoggle came at the absolute worst time for the electric vehicle market, although Scout still envisions a massive manufacturing facility near Blythewood, S.C. which it insists will one day employ as many as 4,600 people.

Will these lofty projections come to pass? Probably not… as we noted in a recent assessment.

This week, Scout – which sought additional taxpayer largesse from Palmetto State politicians earlier this year – made another big “economic development” reveal. Only this time, the company stiffed South Carolina in favor of its neighbor to the north.

On Wednesday (November 12, 2025), Scout announced its intention to locate its new corporate headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. The deal will bring 1,200 high-paying, corporate jobs to the Queen City – along with a capital investment of approximately $200 million. The average expected minimum wage of these positions – which are scheduled to come online between 2026 and 2030 – is a whopping $172,878.

North Carolina taxpayers will have to shell out at least $46.5 million worth of corporate welfare in connection with the deal – which is clearly intended to send a message to South Carolina leaders.

“Charlotte beat out sites in South Carolina and Virginia,” reporters for The Charlotte Observer noted, referring to the Scout corporate headquarters as “one of the biggest job creation announcements in Charlotte over the past decade.”

Scout’s rebuke of South Carolina for its corporate headquarters is a humiliation for status quo S.C. governor Henry McMaster, who has been the company’s biggest cheerleader. Earlier this year, McMaster championed legislation which would have given the EV maker an undeserved leg-up on its competitors by ensconcing it as the only vehicle manufacturer permitted to bypass the Palmetto State’s established dealer marketplace.

This still-pending bill – H. 3777 – would allow direct auto sales in South Carolina for companies which “own and operate a manufacturing factory or assembly plant” in the Palmetto State, companies which “manufacture or assemble vehicles propelled wholly or in part by an electric motor” and companies which have “no franchised dealers in this state in the ten-year period before this item became effective.”

In other words, just Scout.

To their credit, lawmakers refused to advance this bill – prompting McMaster to seek an end-around via the federal courts.

Sources close to McMaster’s administration are blaming lawmakers for failing to approve the company’s latest demands – including $10 million in one-time funding for “EV training” at South Carolina’s technical college system and nearly $100 million in annual funding for EV industry scholarships from the S.C. Education Lottery.

“Had they anted up, Scout would have come,” a source familiar with the negotiations told FITSNews.

Wait… what?

“Had they anted up?”

Unbelievable… Scout got an insanely (and we mean insanely) good deal from South Carolina lawmakers two years ago, one no government in its right mind should have ever offered up based on prevailing market conditions. In fact, an estimated $400 million of that $1.3 billion boondoggle – which was drafted and rushed through the legislature in just twelve days – was cold, hard cash.

And this is how the company repays the Palmetto State?

“When we gave Scout $1.3 billion to make things in South Carolina, why did we not treat it like a business contract?” one veteran economic development expert told us. “How the hell did we let them go put 1,200 professional jobs in Charlotte?”

Keep it tuned to FITSNews as we continue to track the progress of the Scout deal, which is looking more and more like previous failed boondoggles with each passing day.

is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.

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A longtime Midlands restaurant along a busy road announced plans to close its doors.

Scottie’s Cafe and Grill, which has been located at 10400 Wilson Blvd. in Blythewood for more than 16 years, announced in a Nov. 7 social media post that it is planning to shutter the location.

The cafe is attached to a BP gas station. Restaurant owner Scottie Opolyn said in a lengthy Facebook video that the gas station recently has been sold, and the lease for Scottie’s won’t be renewed.

Opolyn said in the video that Dec. 14 will be the last day at the Wilson Boulevard location for Scottie’s Cafe and Grill.

“It’s been a great 16-year ride,” Opolyn said. “We love it. I certainly was not ready to retire, and not sure yet what the future is going to hold for us, but it will not be at 10400 Wilson Blvd. anymore.

The Nov. 7 post about Scottie’s coming closure drew a big reaction on Facebook. As of Monday afternoon it had drawn more than 81,000 views, with nearly 700 reactions and more than 300 comments.

“HUGE loss to Blythewood community,” Facebook commenter Helen Watkins Johnson noted. “Loss of a great family restaurant with good, affordable food and loss of much service to the community!”

Scottie’s Cafe and Grill has been known for a diverse menu with various types of cuisine, including Greek, American, Italian and other fare. They have burgers, subs, salads, steaks, gyros, pasta, pizza and more.

Opolyn said on social media that hours will remain the same from now through the Dec. 14 closing. The restaurant is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

“What I want y’all to do is come in,” Opolyn said to customers in the video. “Come in and have some lunch with us, share the last few weeks that we have together. It will be about six weeks, come share them with us and keep us in your prayers.”