TV Restaurants

What Happened to Sweet Tea After Restaurant: Impossible (Food Network)?

Closed verified

As of September 2026, Sweet Tea has closed — confirmed via Google, September 8, 2026.

Primary source
Google ·

Last verified

What the source shows: Google Places lists the business as permanently closed at 145 Chapin Rd, Chapin, SC 29036 as of 2026-09-08.

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What happened after Restaurant: Impossible (Food Network)?

This record covers the Southern-style restaurant in Chapin, South Carolina that aired in the show's season-two episode "Sweet Tea" on July 20, 2011; a similarly named restaurant, Sweet Tea's Restaurant and Catering in Pineville, North Carolina, appeared in a later, unrelated season-five episode and is a separate business. Restaurant: Impossible (Food Network) visited Sweet Tea, a Southern-style restaurant in Chapin, South Carolina open only about nine months, for the third episode of season two, which aired July 20, 2011. As shown in the episode, owners Christine and Jeffrey Spence had no restaurant experience before buying the business, financed largely by Christine's father's retirement savings; the restaurant was losing about $10,000 a month with only enough money to stay open about one more month. Robert Irvine found torn carpeting, a dated dining room, canned and frozen ingredients presented as fresh, and food-safety issues including unsafe holding temperatures for the kitchen's macaroni and cheese. Irvine's team retrained the kitchen on made-from-scratch cooking, including a base stock and sauce to replace canned soup and pre-made sides, refreshed the dining room, and rebuilt the sweet tea recipe and drink menu ahead of a relaunch night that drew a line out the door. According to an account carried by the fan site Reality TV Revisited (unverified), the owners posted on Facebook in the fall of 2011 announcing they were closing Sweet Tea. The same tracker account describes a restaurant called Ava's Copper Pot Bistro as having opened in the same location afterward, receiving good reviews before its closure was reported for 2014 by the same source; that detail has not been independently confirmed through a dated, named primary source. No current, dated 2026 listing for the address in Chapin, SC could be located to confirm the property's present-day status, and the fall-2011 closure claim rests on a single unverified fan-tracker account rather than a named news outlet or the owners' own statement. Because of that evidentiary gap, this record's status is coded unknown rather than closed, and its confidence coded unverified, pending a stronger dated source.

Featured on Restaurant: Impossible

Season / episode
Season 2, Episode 3
Original air date
Episode title
Sweet Tea
What was featured
from-scratch cooking and drink-menu overhaul for a struggling nine-month-old restaurant
Role
Featured restaurant
Name on the broadcast
Sweet Tea

Frequently asked questions

Is Sweet Tea still open in 2026?

As of September 2026, Sweet Tea has closed — confirmed via Google, September 8, 2026.

What happened to Sweet Tea after Restaurant: Impossible?

This record covers the Southern-style restaurant in Chapin, South Carolina that aired in the show's season-two episode "Sweet Tea" on July 20, 2011; a similarly named restaurant, Sweet Tea's Restaurant and Catering in Pineville, North Carolina, appeared in a later, unrelated season-five episode and is a separate business. As of September 2026, Sweet Tea has closed — confirmed via Google, September 8, 2026.

Is Sweet Tea permanently closed?

As of September 2026, Sweet Tea has closed — confirmed via Google, September 8, 2026. We publish a closure only with a dated source behind it, and we say plainly when it has not been independently confirmed.

Where is Sweet Tea located?

Chapin, SC. That is the address on the record as of September 8, 2026.

What season and episode of Restaurant: Impossible featured Sweet Tea?

Season 2, Episode 3 of Restaurant: Impossible, first aired July 20, 2011. The episode is titled “Sweet Tea”.

Did the makeover last at Sweet Tea?

The episode first aired July 20, 2011. Our most recent check was September 8, 2026 — 15 years later —: As of September 2026, Sweet Tea has closed — confirmed via Google, September 8, 2026.

What do reviews say since Restaurant: Impossible?

The same tracker account describes a restaurant called Ava's Copper Pot Bistro as having opened in the same location afterward, receiving good reviews before its closure was reported for 2014 by the same source; that detail has not been independently confirmed through a dated, named primary source. We summarise what dated sources report; we do not publish our own rating.

Is Sweet Tea still using the Restaurant: Impossible menu or branding?

Irvine's team retrained the kitchen on made-from-scratch cooking, including a base stock and sauce to replace canned soup and pre-made sides, refreshed the dining room, and rebuilt the sweet tea recipe and drink menu ahead of a relaunch night that drew a line out the door. Anything newer than our last check on September 8, 2026 may not be reflected here.

Every status on this site carries a confidence label and a date, and names the source it rests on. Read the Editorial & Corrections Policy for what each label means and how quickly we act on corrections. The questions above are generated from this record's own published fields — we never publish a question we cannot answer from the data.

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Visit info

Address
Chapin, SC
Venue type
restaurant
Official website
None found

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