131 MAIN is a Blakeney dinner option for steaks, seafood and American dishes cooked over a hickory wood fire. The covered porch and fire pit give you another way to enjoy the evening. Dining-room reservations are available through Resy; the bar and patio take guests first come, first served. The restaurant is cashless, so bring a credit or debit card.
300 East has been serving East Boulevard in Dilworth for more than 35 years, in the Street Car Station Shops. The kitchen works seasonally with an emphasis on seafood and local sourcing. It runs weekend brunch from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. There is patio seating, weather permitting, and patio tables cannot be reserved. Guy Fieri filmed it for the Indulgent Dishes episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.
Abugida is a family-run Ethiopian room on Central Avenue that describes itself simply as a 'Family owned authentic Ethiopian restaurant'. The food is eaten the traditional way, scooped with injera rather than cutlery, and the kitchen keeps a wide range of vegan, vegetarian and gluten free dishes on the board because Ethiopian fasting cooking is built that way. The cafe also serves a full coffee ceremony, poured at the table with frankincense burning alongside it.
Alexander Michael's has been a Fourth Ward neighborhood tavern since 1983, inside the brick Crowell-Berryhill Store that opened in 1897. The room kept pieces of Charlotte with it: the bar and back bar were made from solid oak doors taken from the old Independence Building, and the beer cooler came from a Charlotte grocery store around 1920. Come for a burger, a beer and a building that survived when much of the neighborhood did not.
BellyUp! Charlotte / Over 50
Good places to eat and drink in Charlotte, minus the nightclubs. When a spot gets loud later or draws a lot of kids, the card tells you.
7 spots
Abugida is a family-run Ethiopian room on Central Avenue that describes itself simply as a 'Family owned authentic Ethiopian restaurant'. The food is eaten the traditional way, scooped with injera rather than cutlery, and the kitchen keeps a wide range of vegan, vegetarian and gluten free dishes on the board because Ethiopian fasting cooking is built that way. The cafe also serves a full coffee ceremony, poured at the table with frankincense burning alongside it.
The Dilworth room on Scott Avenue, the Charlotte original of a wood-fired pizza company that now runs twenty locations across four states and still keeps its corporate office on East 7th Street in Charlotte. It publishes a kids menu and a separate gluten-free menu as downloadable PDFs, along with an allergen sheet.
Flower Child serves bowls, wraps and salads at The Bowl, with clearly marked vegan and gluten-free choices. The menu also has a Healthy Kids section with a choice of protein and two sides. This is the Bowl Street branch in Ballantyne.
Mellow Mushroom's Ballantyne restaurant serves stone-baked pizza with a draft beer and cocktail selection. Its own branch menu offers vegan and gluten-free pizza choices, and the location has a patio. This is the Ballantyne Village Way restaurant.
A fully vegan fast-casual room on North Davidson Street that calls itself Charlotte's first vegan restaurant in the Arts District. The menu runs to waffles, wraps, burgers and pastries, and the kitchen leans on South African dishes alongside soul food. CLTure names Tallulah Duffin as the owner. A second grab-and-go counter, Oh My Soul On The Moo've, is mentioned on the site without its own address.
A scratch bakery and cafe that calls itself a local, family owned bakery and keeps a standing plant-based and gluten-free line rather than occasional specials. The Elizabeth shop on East 7th Street is the room proposed here; the company also runs Dilworth, NoDa, Ballantyne and Harrisburg shops. Its own site is careful to say the bakeries are not gluten-free facilities.
Town Brewing sits on Grandin Road in FreeMoreWest, a block off West Morehead, and runs a full kitchen alongside the beer. The taproom keeps a standing weekly calendar: open mic every Monday, trivia, a run club, trail talk meetups and a kids-eat-free night. Indoor and outdoor seating both run to a decent size.
Live music some nights. Go before the band starts if you want to talk.
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