A regional chain that makes bagels, not to be toasted and schmeared but to be loaded with meat and toppings and steamed, is headed to Lexington, with other county locations to follow.

Sully’s Steamers, which opened its first Midlands location on Devine Street in Columbia last week, is set to take over the spot formerly occupied by Kitty's Hallmark Shop, nestled in the small Kitty’s Corner shopping center at 5580 Sunset Blvd.

Brandon McCullough, an operating partner for Sully’s Steamers Columbia, said the franchise group owned by Michael Stuckey won’t be done expanding when the Lexington shop opens, hopefully between late October and early November. 

Stuckey, the executive chef for Southern Way Catering, is also looking to expand to Irmo, Forest Acres and West Columbia, along with adding a second Lexington location, in the near future, though McCullough noted that exactly where those additional locations will end up is still up in the air.

The operating partner, who will take on direct leadership of the Lexington location once it opens, said he believes the chain’s emphasis on quality ingredients sold at an affordable price — about $7-$10 a sandwich at the Devine Street location — help set it apart amid a fast food and casual dining landscape that increasingly offers lesser food at escalating prices.

But explaining why people shouldn’t expect a bagel with a spread when they come in can still be a challenge, he admitted.

“It's the constant challenge,” McCullough said. “We are a sandwich shop that happens to use bagels. We take pride in all of our products. We have cream cheeses on a lot of our different sandwiches. And at the end of the day, we want people to be happy with what they got. But we just feel like our product is different. In that a toasted bagel with the smear is something you can find someplace else, but a steamed sandwich makes us unique.”

The chain — which lists nine current locations in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia on its website (with five of those locations being in the South Carolina Upstate) — offers a variety of sandwiches. There are breakfast options, but the menu emphasizes “Legendary” lunch-leaning sandwiches like The Griswold (which comes with turkey, bacon, provolone, paper jack, lettuce, barbecue and parm-peppercorn sauce).

While Sully’s moved into a newly erected building in Columbia, McCullough said he’s excited to be able to renovate a pre-existing space in Lexington, explaining that the franchise wants to become a part of the neighborhood wherever it goes.

To wit, he said they’ve identified parking as something that’s sometimes lacking in Lexington, which is why they went for a shopping center that he said will soon improve its lot to include 60-70 spots.

“We really liked the Lexington area kind of because it's its own thing,” he said of why the town made sense for the group’s second location. “It's its own kind of part of Columbia but not, it’s in the suburbs. [We] just felt like hit Columbia on Devine Street, get the other side with Lexington and all the locals over there, and it would just be the best of both worlds.”