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.
12 spots
Dilworth Neighborhood Grille is a bar and grill on East Morehead Street that is open until 2 a.m. every day of the week, which makes it one of the few genuinely late kitchens in this part of the city. Wings and pizza are the signature items alongside sandwiches, burgers, salads and barbecue. The room calls itself family friendly and has outdoor seating.
Open late. Go earlier if you want a calmer room.
Dunbar Social pairs a restaurant and bar with Topgolf Swing Suite games at The Ballantyne. Its simulator bays offer golf and other games for groups, and an outdoor terrace has seating and a bar top. Reserve a bay through the venue's site.
Frank Scibelli's first restaurant, open on South Kings Drive for more than three decades and the room the rest of his group grew out of. The dining room is built around large booths and tables, there is an enclosed patio with a fireplace, and a private dining room with exposed brick seats up to 30.
A self-pour tap bar off Carmel Road where the beer, wine and cocktails come from the wall rather than a bartender. Local craft producers fill most of the taps. Food comes from rotating food trucks parked at a covered outdoor space the bar calls The Port.
Optimist Hall fills the 1892 Highland Park Gingham Mill on North Brevard Street between Optimist Park and NoDa. The long brick mill and its 1895 smokestack now hold more than 25 food stalls, dine-in restaurants, a full-service bar, a brewery and shops. It is the kind of place where a group can split up for tacos, dumplings, barbecue, pizza or Ethiopian food and still eat at the same table.
Super Abari is an arcade bar on Seigle Ave with 105 machines on the floor: 64 arcade cabinets, 36 pinball tables and five rhythm games. It is 21 and over except Saturday and Sunday from noon to 6pm, when all ages are welcome. It posts a 2am close every night of the week and runs a pinball league every Tuesday.
Go early. It turns into a late-night spot later in the evening.
Known for years as 7th Street Public Market, this is Charlotte's original food hall and it now operates as a nonprofit small business incubator. The market says it has incubated more than 175 local businesses since opening. The 7th Street Station parking garage validates two hours free. The old domain 7thstreetpublicmarket.com now redirects here.
The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery opened in 2009 and calls itself Charlotte's oldest standing independent brewery. It brews German-style beer to the Reinheitsgebot, using only water, malt, hops and yeast. Its LoSo home sits on a one-acre biergarten shaded by mature oak, pecan and hickory trees, which the brewery calls the largest biergarten in the Southeast. A second room opened in Ballantyne.
Thomas Street Tavern is the kind of Plaza Midwood stop where dinner can turn into a longer evening. The brick building on Thomas Avenue opens into a bar with a roomy outdoor hangout behind it. Get something to eat, find a seat with friends and leave room for a game of ping-pong or cornhole.
Tipsy Pickle is the pickleball house at Camp North End, with professional-sized courts, golf simulators and cornhole, though its own site puts the food and drink first. The kitchen runs what it calls 'approachable Tex-mex with Margaritas, Cold beer & much more', and the bar keeps local beer, picklebacks and fried pickles. It opens at seven in the morning every day, earlier than anything else on the site.
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.
The Trolley Barn Fermentory & Food Hall is Legion Brewing's South End room, on South Boulevard beside the Rail Trail in the Atherton Mill area. Legion runs four rooms, all inside Charlotte: Plaza Midwood, this one, West Morehead and SouthPark. The company opened its largest production facility in west Charlotte in 2022.
The same over 50 spots, sorted by the reasons people actually pick them.
Recommendations from real Charlotteans, always attributed to whoever wrote them.
Nobody’s shared a over 50 recommendation yet. Be the first.
Every Charlotte spot here already has a free profile going, put together from what you publish publicly. If we have you filed wrong, or we are missing what you most want to be known for, tell us.
Get BellyUp! finds for your city and the things you love.
