29575 · Horry County
Surfside Beach
“The Family Beach” — an incorporated town of 4,155 with no high-rises, no nightclubs, and a pier it waited seven years for.
Surfside Beach incorporated in 1964 and has spent sixty years protecting what makes it different: two miles of low-rise beach, no high-rise hotels, no nightclubs, and ordinances that keep cars and alcohol off the sand. It is small — 4,155 people, median age 57 — and it is its own town with its own council, police and fire department, which matters more than people expect when something needs fixing. In 2016 it became the first autism-friendly travel destination in the United States, and it marked ten years of that in 2026.
Where you’ll eat
- Crabby Mike’s — thirty-six years in, opens at four every day, and won best seafood buffet again in 2026.
- Bubba’s Fish Shack — Calabash-style fried fish on Ocean Boulevard, a block from the sand.
- Gracious Pig Smokehouse — meat smoked twelve to sixteen hours, run by a Surfside native. Big patio.
- Griffin’s Public House — opened in 2025 in the old Borgata space and kept the building’s “lady in the hat” mural, which has quietly become the town’s photo spot.
- Pizza Hyena — ten-inch Neapolitan pizzas out of a 700-degree oven shipped over from Italy.
- Casa Mia’s — New York brick-oven pizza and Maryland crab cakes, from an owner who moved the recipes down from Baltimore in 2024.
- The Whistling Duck — wine and charcuterie out on the pier, with a sommelier behind the bar.
- Dagwood’s Deli — here since 2006, breads baked in-house, and more than fifty televisions.
What you’ll do here
- The pier, finally — Hurricane Matthew took it in 2016 and the town went seven and a half years without one. The rebuilt concrete pier opened on 14 March 2024, the town’s sixtieth birthday, and runs more than 800 feet out. Ice cream, bait and tackle, a wine bar and a diner on it now.
- Thirty-six beach accesses and twelve parking lots — four accesses are wheelchair accessible and the town lends beach wheelchairs free, seven days a week.
- All Children’s Park — at 10th Avenue South and Hollywood Drive, built so physically challenged and able-bodied children play in the same place.
- The Thursday market — the Festival of Arts, Crafts & Farmers Market runs 10 to 3 in Memorial Park.
- The October Family Festival — the town’s big one. Free, 125-plus craft vendors, two stages, and a shuttle so you are not hunting for parking.
- Myrtle Beach State Park — shares the ZIP code, and protects a mile of undeveloped beach plus six 1930s cabins two hundred yards from the water.
Where you’d look
Vicki doesn’t list leased-land communities, so you won’t find Oceanside Village or Ocean Lakes here. If you’re considering one, ask her first — there are questions worth asking before you make an offer.
Two of the best-known communities with a Surfside Beach address — Oceanside Village and Ocean Lakes — sit outside the town limits, which changes your taxes, your services and the rules you live under. Ocean Lakes is a leasehold community rather than fee-simple ownership, and buyers misread that constantly. Ask which side of the line a property is on before anything else. The market is soft and in your favor: a $608,695 median in July 2026, 69 days to sell, homes closing about 4% under asking — though on fifty-odd sales a month, one oceanfront closing swings that number, so read it as a direction and not a price. Short-term rental permission depends on your zoning district, and I would not trust the third-party sites on this one; call the town’s planning office. And the beach is actively managed — the Army Corps renourished Surfside and Garden City through the summer of 2026, which means stretches fenced off with dredge pipe on the sand while it happens.
Neighborhoods
How Surfside breaks down
Live from the MLS
What is for sale in Surfside Beach right now
Straight from the Coastal Carolinas MLS and updated as listings change. Active listings only — nothing under contract, nothing already sold.