Owner Aimee Cheek, right, and assistant director of events Joy Robinette, stand ready to welcome you to a special event at Carolina on Southport. Photo courtesy of Carolina on Southport.
If you've attended a wedding, fundraiser, corporate gathering, or special event in Spartanburg over the past several years, chances are that Aimee Cheek has had a hand in helping make your special day memorable.
Now the owner of Carolina on Southport, which she opened in April 2026, Cheek is not only part of the area’s thriving entrepreneurial community, but one who weathered a long, uncertain storm to realize a dream.
"We handle everything from catering and bartending to staffing and event coordination," said Cheek, who spent 25 years in corporate leadership before becoming her own boss. "My favorite part is handling all the details so that the people who come here can spend time enjoying each other and creating memories.”
Her path to those memories, however, and to realizing her own business came only after a COVID struggle that seemed to last a lot longer than six years.
“I was actually approached by the people who own the Citizens and Southern Bank building in downtown Spartanburg with this opportunity, right at the start of COVID in March 2020,” Cheek said. “And I wasn’t really worried because there were a lot of details to handle in the meantime before I could open.”
The details included obtaining a business license, sanitary clearance through a DHEC inspection, renovating the building and its interior, and securing occupancy permits, food vendors and an alcohol license, and fire marshal approval.
"On paper, it probably wasn't the smartest idea, but I thought by the time I finished, COVID would be over,” she said. "And the biggest part of why I kept going is my constant belief that people always need connection."
Instead, the pandemic lingered for two more years while Cheek held on, hoping with each passing each month that the COVID cloud would finally lift.
But by 2025, with her lease running out, she suddenly saw a chance to create something permanent with her own place – and thought expanding the vacant Carolina on Southport would be perfect.
So she sought help from people with Power Up Spartanburg, a venture created in 2023 to help small businesses succeed.
"They brought the right people to the table at the right time,” she said, “and helped move this project forward with permitting, construction schedules, and building renovations when it could have easily stalled.”
And that project moved fast.
Carolina on Southport’s renovation was fully realized within five months – from December 2025 to April 2026, through holidays and even a snowstorm, to its reopening.
And now, with COVID all but a distant memory, Cheek’s dream has become bigger than even she imagined.
“We now cater more than 100 events a year, and our mobile catering has grown to 50% of our business,” she said. “The building used to be a Fatz Café – You would never guess that to look at it now. We gutted it from top to bottom, and the kitchen alone now has three times the space.”
But more than the food, the ballroom, the type of events, and even her own compelling story of how she beat COVID to create her own business, Cheek said the driving force behind it all was the same as when she handled her first catering event not-so-long-ago: to bring her patrons some long-lasting joy.
"For me, it's about people," she said. "They may not remember every detail of an event, such as what they ate or what songs they danced to, but they remember how they felt, who they were with, and the memories they made. Being able to create a place where those moments happen is incredibly rewarding."
