Your North Myrtle Beach Summer: Thursdays on Main, Fridays at the Market, and What's New on Ocean Drive

The City of North Myrtle Beach's Music on Main concert series runs every Thursday evening from June through September, free and family-friendly bands at the Horseshoe on Main Street. The Horseshoe parking lot closes at 2:00 p.m. each Thursday for concert setup, and the Horseshoe itself isn't open for chairs before 3:00 p.m., which has changed the pre-show routine: drop chairs at three, peel off to eat, come back.

The North Myrtle Beach Farmers Market runs Fridays at 925 1st Avenue S from early April through mid-December, a longer season than most residents realize. Friday morning at 1st Avenue S, then a slow walk to the beach, is a routine a lot of Cherry Grove and Ocean Drive households have quietly adopted this year.

A stretch of Ocean Drive and Highway 17 that has run on the same handful of restaurants for a decade is being rewritten in one calendar year, largely by owner-operators rather than national chains. Sea Merchants Restaurant, a Highway 17 landmark for thirty years, is being gutted and reimagined as White Heron, an upscale coastal seafood restaurant at 1104 Highway 17 S. Two blocks over on Main Street, the Worley family has taken the former Fenway Grill space and opened OD Taco Co., a springboard into what son H.G. Worley Jr. calls a new era of owner-operated family businesses; he's heading up redevelopment of the northeast side of Main Street, listed in development plans as "Shag City USA," with phase one replacing the former Duffy Street Seafood Shack space with a two-story restaurant and a relocated Melt ice cream shop.

Up in Cherry Grove, The Grove House has arrived alongside longtime favorites like The Shack, Snooky's Oceanfront Restaurant, and Duffy Street Seafood Shack. And over in the Grande Dunes area, 357 Brewers is opening spring 2026 with indoor and outdoor bars overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway, a waterfront stage for live music, and a marina.

None of the weekly rhythm cancels the marquee weekend. With the Fourth falling on a Saturday in 2026, the whole weekend is packed: Salute From the Shore's military flyover on July 4, the 8th Annual Red, White, and Blue 5K on July 3 at Barefoot Landing, and Crooked Hammock Brewery's Freedom Fest on July 3 and 4. Two smaller pieces residents keep telling me they didn't know were still running: Yoga in the Yard at Crooked Hammock every Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m. in July, and Movies Under the Stars, free screenings with NMB Lions Club concessions. If you're thinking about what this kind of local detail means for a move here, get in touch and we'll talk through it.