Dank Burrito, a fast-growing franchise with locations in Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina, is getting ready to open a new site in Myrtle Beach.
Currently, the company only has one location in South Carolina, in Rock Hill, at 343 Technology Center Way, Suite 108, but that’s about to change. Franchise owner Ben Austin tells What Now Charleston that he is looking for locations in Myrtle Beach and hopes to open a site by the end of the year. The franchisee hopes to open even more locations following the Myrtle Beach site and will likely stay within the area. Dank Burrito is also opening in Florence this year.
Austin tells What Now Charleston that he is originally from California and decided to become a franchise owner with Dank Burrito because he realized the state didn’t have authentic burritos like on the West Coast. Austin says he also wanted to invest in something unique, passing up on the opportunity to invest in other big-name corporations due to the high cost of launching with them. As a result, he is getting ready to open the first coastal location of Dank Burrito in South Carolina.
Dank Burrito started as a passion project by Chef Clarke Merrell. Having spent his entire life in the restaurant industry, beginning with his father’s establishment while growing up in Emerald Isle, NC, he later opened his own fine dining restaurant at 28. After several successful years, Chef Merrell sought something new and radically different. As a fan of global street food, he aimed to reinvent some of his favorites, creating “flavor bombs”—a concept well-suited for burritos and tacos.
In 2014, Dank Burrito was launched as a food truck and quickly gained recognition, winning the National Food Truck Rookie of the Year award. Due to its instant success, the company opened its first brick-and-mortar location in Morehead City the following year. Today, the company has locations in Morehead City, Raleigh, and Greenville in North Carolina, while additional sites are being developed in the state at Fayetteville, and Florida’s first Dank Burrito is coming to Ponte Vedra/ Nocatee.
