Shop Around: New taco restaurant coming to Vista this spring

A new Tex Mex eatery will open in the Vista in April.

Texas-based Sure Fire Tacos & Tortilla Grill will be opening its first location in South Carolina in the Vista in the former Salsarita’s location at 916 Gervais St., the restaurant’s operating manager said Wednesday.

Sure Fire’s only other location opened in Killeen, Texas, two years ago, according to co-owner and operating manager Dylan Stump, making the Vista location only its second location.

“We wanted to expand out of Texas and we looked all over the U.S.and we just really liked Columbia and especially the Vista area,” said Stump who will be relocating to Columbia to manage the new location. “It’s just a beautiful town.”

Sure Fire is represented by Carolinas Retail Partners, who will also help the eatery with expansions planned later this year and next for locations in Greenville and Charlotte, Stump said.

And the space formerly occupied by Moe’s Grapevine at 4478 Rosewood Drive will soon be a pizza eatery owned and operated by Columbia restauranteurs Jane Fishburne and her son, Gabrielle Williams. Fishburne and Williams previously operated Mojitos Cuban restaurant on Gervais Street and Salsa Cabana on Beltline Boulevard. Both establishments closed recently—Salsa Cabana following damage from Columbia’s October flooding and Mojitos from separate water damage issues in 2014.

Moe Baddourah closed his Moe’s Grapevine Dec. 31 after accepting a position as director of the University of South Carolina’s McCutchen House dining facility, located in the School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management. The Columbia city councilman had operated Moe’s for more than a decade.

This story was originally published January 20, 2016 at 5:01 PM.