Whataburger may open first Asheville location on Smokey Park Highway

A city permit filed May 18 put Asheville’s first Whataburger one step closer to Smokey Park Highway, where the Texas burger chain would remodel a former Popeyes at 275 Smokey Park Highway, Suite 400.

The site sits in West Asheville along one of the city’s busier commercial corridors, near The Madness and other national brands including IHOP, Apple’s and Starbucks. Buncombe County tax records list 275 Smokey Park Hwy #400, Asheville, NC 28806 as an active parcel owned by SKS Partners, LLC, underscoring that the project is tied to an existing retail property rather than a new greenfield build.

Whataburger’s move into Asheville is still in the permitting stage, but the filing matters because it identifies a specific address and a specific building that would be repurposed. In a corridor already shaped by chain restaurants, heavy traffic and constant turnover, the proposal signals another round of reinvestment in an established commercial strip west of downtown rather than a brand-new development footprint.

The company has deep roots in the South but no Asheville location yet. Whataburger says its first restaurant opened on Aug. 8, 1950, when Harmon Dobson opened the original shop on Ayers Street in Corpus Christi, Texas. The chain now says it operates more than 700 locations nationwide and lists North Carolina stores in Archdale, Charlotte, Garner, Gastonia, Greensboro, Hickory, High Point, Kernersville, Mebane, Mooresville, Raleigh, Southern Pines, Wake Forest and Winston-Salem.

For Asheville, the key detail is not the brand’s history but the market entry pattern. Whataburger has been expanding in North Carolina through metropolitan corridors, and Smokey Park Highway would place it squarely in a well-traveled part of Buncombe County with easy access for drivers coming from West Asheville and the city’s western edge.

The chain’s operating model also suggests what kind of use Asheville could be getting if the project advances. Whataburger says most restaurants are open 24/7, 364 days a year, except for limited-hour venues, and its holiday-hours page says locations close at 6 p.m. on Dec. 24 and reopen at 6 a.m. on Dec. 26. It is not yet clear whether that schedule would apply in Asheville, but the company’s standard format points to a high-volume, drive-thru-friendly operation.

City transportation pages describe Asheville Transportation Department traffic engineering as responsible for the safe and efficient movement of vehicles and pedestrians on city streets and right-of-way. That makes the Smokey Park Highway filing more than a restaurant headline: it is another test of how Buncombe’s commercial corridors absorb national chains, reuse older buildings and handle the traffic that comes with both.