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.
11 spots
This is the original Amelie's, and the company says so plainly on the location page: the NoDa shop is the Original, the Icon, the Heart of Amelie's history. The room is decorated with Eiffel Tower legs peeking from the walls and local artwork, and the company's own description is a vibrant arts-district backdrop with just the right amount of quirky chaos. There is a full pastry case, a cafe menu, a barista station and outdoor seating, and it stays open to midnight on Friday and Saturday. Amelie's has since added Park Road, Carmel Commons, Uptown, Plaza Midwood and Rock Hill, South Carolina.
Bruce Moffett's first restaurant, open in the Foxcroft East shopping center since 2000 and named after Barrington, the Rhode Island town he grew up in. It is a small New American room and the anchor of Moffett Restaurant Group. Moffett was a James Beard nominee for Best Chef in America in 2009.
Blasian Asian Way started as a food truck in 2019 and now holds a stall in the Keswick building at Camp North End, where it took over the space Saru Ramen had held. The kitchen cooks Korean-inspired food from locally sourced and organic ingredients, and leads with bulgogi served alongside American-style plates.
Cuzzo's began in 2014 as a Southern food truck run by first cousins Andarrio Johnson and Anglee Brown, who were born and raised in the South Carolina Low Country, and became a west Charlotte restaurant in 2016. This is the second room, on North Tryon Street in University City. The motto on the wall is 'Where Everyone's Family', and the kitchen is known for lobster mac and cheese and shrimp and grits.
Deli La Cabana is a Salvadoran restaurant across from Garinger High School on Eastway Drive. Elba and Jose Villatoro built the menu around the food of Elba’s home village, Santa Rosa de Lima. The business page highlights pupusas, soups, pastelitos and Salvadoran breakfasts. Its latest visible reopening post is dated November 21, 2025; call before making a special trip.
Free Range Bar is the Camp North End sister to Free Range Brewing in NoDa, and the landlord's page calls it 'a labor of love from brothers, Jeff and Jason Alexander'. It sits on Camp Road inside the old missile plant complex.
La Caseta is a Latin American counter in the Keswick building at Camp North End, the redeveloped Ford plant north of Uptown. It describes itself as a place where 'we are all familia, and are welcome to take a seat at the table to create memories through a shared meal', and it was founded by the immigrant families behind Raydal Hospitality.
A Chinese restaurant on Elm Lane in south Charlotte that was a conventional one until its owner Jian Chen went plant based in 2017 and took the menu with him. CLTure calls it Charlotte's only completely vegetarian and vegan Chinese restaurant. The kitchen works in meat alternatives rather than dropping the dishes people came for.
The South Boulevard Mac's Speed Shop brings barbecue, a published kids menu, and a casual room to South End. The official recurring Kids Night listing ended May 26, 2026, so this profile does not treat the former Tuesday price as a current offer.
Sugar Creek Brewing sits on Southside Drive off South Boulevard, and it is the Charlotte brewery that went all in on one style. Its own line is that it is 'dedicated to crafting Belgian-inspired ales for the Carolinas and beyond', with a philosophy that 'combines the watchful eye of a Trappist Monk with the technical precision of a nuclear engineer'. Co-founders Joe Vogelbacher and Eric Flanigan are named on the site.
Yunta is a Nikkei restaurant in South End, cooking the Peruvian food that came out of Japanese immigration to Peru. It was opened by Randy Garcia and chef Bruno Macchiavello, the pair who earlier started Viva Chicken, the Peruvian rotisserie that began in Charlotte. They describe Yunta as the next step in showing the depth of Peruvian cooking rather than a second Viva Chicken.
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