New Latin restaurant opens at the former Le Peep location in the Vista

A Charlotte-based Latin food chain is going into the former Le Peep location in Columbia’s Vista.

The new Sabor Latin Street Grill is the first location in a franchise expansion for the company, Raydal Hospitality, which has a dozen of the restaurants in the Charlotte area. The Columbia store at 701 Gervais St. will be the first in South Carolina.

As its name implies, the restaurant, in addition to tacos and burritos, serves South American street food like arepas, Venezuelan-style white maize cake filled with shredded chicken, diced tomato, onion, cheese and rosada sauce and empanadas, fried pastry filled with cheese and a choice of ground beef, shredded chicken or chorizo.

“It should be a real hit in the market,” said Fred Delk, executive director of the Columbia Development Corp., which encourages and guides investment in the Vista and other areas of the city.

The company is also considering stores in Anderson, Clemson, Greenville and Spartanburg, according to a story in The Charlotte Observer.

Le Peep, which has a second location at the Village at Sandhill at 110 Forum Drive, Suite 7, closed earlier this month,

The popular brunch spot on the ground floor of the Vista Lofts apartments was the third restaurant in the Vista to close since February. All three are in the 700 block of Gervais Street.

Newk’s Eatery, known for its large sandwich and soup selection, closed in March. It was located between Grill Marks burger restaurant and Twisted Spur microbrewery and in front of the new smallSUGAR cafe.

Tin Lizzy’s Tex-Mex restaurant, which was located roughly across the street from Newk’s, closed in February.

Delk noted that the Vista now has about 90 bars and restaurants, and that three in such close proximity closing was probably just a “coincidence.”

“Just the turnover on (restaurants’) normal lease cycles means somebody is always coming out and somebody is always going in,” he said.

This story was originally published April 17, 2019 at 2:45 PM.

Jeff Wilkinson

The State

Jeff Wilkinson has worked for The State for both too long and not long enough. He’s covered politics, city government, history, business, the military, marijuana and the Iraq War. Jeff knows the weird, wonderful and untold secrets of South Carolina.