Spice Palette Is Expanding to Nexton, Bringing Its Contemporary Indian Menu to Summerville

Nexton’s rapidly growing restaurant scene is getting another Charleston-area name — and this time, it’s coming from Mount Pleasant.

Spice Palette Indian Cuisine is preparing to open a second location in the Nexton community, expanding the restaurant beyond its original home at 1220 Ben Sawyer Boulevard in Mount Pleasant.

The expansion was confirmed on Sept. 12, with a Spice Palette representative saying the new restaurant is expected to open within the next few months. An exact opening date — and, importantly, the exact storefront — have not yet been publicly confirmed.

For Nexton, the announcement adds another locally established restaurant to an area that has quickly developed into one of the Charleston region’s busiest new dining corridors.

For Spice Palette, it marks the next step for a restaurant that has built its identity around going well beyond the most familiar Indian restaurant staples.

What Spice Palette Brings to Nexton

Spice Palette describes its food as contemporary Indian cuisine, combining traditional recipes and spices from across India with modern cooking techniques. Its Mount Pleasant restaurant currently serves lunch and dinner Tuesday through Sunday.

And the menu is extensive.

There are familiar dishes such as chicken tikka, lamb rogan josh, biryani and vegetable samosas, but Spice Palette also goes deeper into regional Indian cooking.

Its current menu includes masala dosai, Malabar pepper shrimp, Kerala fish curry, fish cooked in banana leaf, Alleppey meen curry and several Chettinadu and Nilgiri preparations. There are also substantial vegan and vegetarian sections, multiple biryanis, tandoor dishes and a weekday thali lunch program.

That variety is part of what could make the Nexton addition especially interesting.

Rather than simply adding another broad casual-dining concept to the area, Spice Palette gives Nexton a restaurant built around a cuisine that remains relatively underrepresented compared with the burgers, pizza, Mexican, sushi and Southern concepts already operating throughout the development.

This Isn’t Just Another Spice Palette Location

The Nexton expansion also says something about where the restaurant has reached.

Spice Palette’s Mount Pleasant location presents itself as a modern take on Indian dining, using authentic Indian spices and ingredients while combining traditional dishes with newer techniques. Its food program stretches from South Indian dosai and Kerala seafood preparations to North Indian curries, tandoor cooking and Indo-Chinese dishes.

There’s also a full beverage program in Mount Pleasant built to complement the food, including Indian beer, wine and cocktails incorporating flavors such as tamarind, mango, ginger, cardamom and Indian whiskey.

Whether every element of the Mount Pleasant experience will carry over to Nexton has not been announced. That distinction matters: at this stage, the restaurant has confirmed the expansion, but it has not released a Nexton-specific menu, hours or full concept details.

That gives us something to watch as opening day gets closer.

Why Nexton Makes Sense

Nexton isn’t just adding restaurants for its current residents.

The Summerville development is being built as a major residential and commercial center around the I-26 and Highway 17A corridor. Nexton says the community is planned for roughly 7,000 homes and 3,000 apartments, eventually representing more than 30,000 residents. Its dining and retail district also sits within five miles of the large Cane Bay and Carnes Crossroads communities.

That growth has attracted a steadily expanding roster of restaurants.

Nexton currently highlights names including Halls Chophouse, Page’s Okra Grill, Taco Boy, D’Allesandro’s Pizza, Carolina Ale House, Fuji Sushi and Vicious Biscuit, among others.

The newer Marketplace at Nexton development has been filling in as well, adding businesses including Rotolo’s Craft & Crust Pizza, El Patron, Somm Wine Bar, sweetFrog and Dunkin’.

That makes Spice Palette part of a larger story: Nexton is increasingly becoming a dining destination instead of simply a place where residents happen to have restaurants nearby.

And locally established Charleston-area operators are clearly seeing the opportunity.

Where Exactly Will Spice Palette Open?

This is where we need to separate what is confirmed from what is merely suggested.

Spice Palette has confirmed that the new restaurant is coming to Nexton.

What Now Charleston reported that a Nexton reference appears to associate the restaurant with Marketplace at Nexton, but the actual site has not been officially released by Spice Palette.

So, for now, we would not consider a specific Nexton storefront confirmed.

That also means any address circulating before an official announcement should be treated cautiously.

When Is Spice Palette Nexton Opening?

The current timetable is more specific than “coming soon,” but not specific enough for a calendar date.

A Spice Palette representative said on Sept. 12 that the new location was a few months away from opening.

If that timetable holds, Nexton could potentially see the restaurant debut around late 2026 or early 2027, but Spice Palette has not announced an official opening month or date, so we’re not putting one on it yet.

That’s one of the details What’s Going On In Charleston will be watching.

What We’ll Be Watching Next

The expansion is confirmed. Now the interesting part is what Spice Palette brings with it.

We’re watching for the official address, opening date, Nexton-specific menu, hours and whether the new location will duplicate the Mount Pleasant restaurant or introduce anything unique to Summerville.

For people who already know the Mount Pleasant restaurant, the expansion means Spice Palette’s food is moving considerably closer to Summerville, Cane Bay and the growing Berkeley County side of the Charleston metro.

For everybody else, it may be an introduction to one of the more extensive Indian menus currently operating in the Charleston area.

We’ll update this story as Spice Palette releases more information about its Nexton location.