We happened upon a fun web site the other day that is loaded with all sorts of interesting data about cities. It is appropriately named City-Data.com, and the site includes numerous lists of Top 100 cities for one thing or another. The topics are wide-ranging and diverse.
One that caught our eye was "Most restaurants per zip code." After scanning the top of the list which, not surprisingly, included really big cities like New York, whose zip codes held the top 11 positions, and Chicago, San Francisco and Las Vegas in the next three positions, #15 was held by zip code 29577 in Myrtle Beach, SC. At 141 "full-service" restaurants, the Myrtle Beach zip offers just one fewer restaurant than the zip code in Las Vegas.
The 27 square mile 29577 zip code area includes the center of the town's beach area, including the former Myrtle Beach Pavilion, which was torn down last year to make way for a housing development overlooking the ocean. With a population of just 30,000 in zip code 29577, no one is going to go hungry with 141 restaurants available. However, these are not exactly gourmet food establishments. Most of the restaurants are seafood buffets, chains (like Olive Garden) or pancake houses, attractive to many of the beach tourists in the summer who do not have cooking facilities in their rooms. (Many of the 141 restaurants close down in winter because of lack of business.) But if you look hard, you can find the occasional decent eatery in the group, including the Carolina Roadhouse Highway 17 and 48th Street North, one of our family's favorites for many years.
The 29577 zip code comprises a few interesting golf courses, including the venerable Myrtlewood, with some holes that play along the Intracoastal Waterway; Whispering Pines, the underestimated municipal course favored by locals and a few visitors; and Pine Lakes International, currently closed for renovations but the "Grandaddy of Them All," the first course opened in Myrtle Beach and the site of the founding of Sports Illustrated magazine.
Click here for a map of zip code 29577.
