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
Bonterra is a restaurant and wine room inside a converted church at Cleveland and East Worthington in Dilworth. The building went up in the late 1800s as Atherton Methodist Church, the first permanent place of worship in the area, got its brick exterior in 1914 and was renamed Dilworth Methodist Episcopal Church South. It later housed the First Church of Nazareth and Greater Providence Baptist Church before it became a restaurant. Chef Blake Hartwick cooks classic American food from local farms and says he wants the food to speak for itself. The wine room and cellar host wine pairing dinners, and the phone number spells out 704-333-WINE.
Copain's Ballantyne brasserie starts the day with pastries and coffee, then serves French dishes through the evening. The Stream Way location offers full table service with bar seating and a patio. Dinner reservations are available through the restaurant's own site.
The room that started the company. It opened in 2004 as a small wine shop in the Foxcroft East Shopping Center, next door to Barrington's, and grew into a full restaurant and wine bar in 2006. Over thirty wines are poured by the glass and hundreds of bottles sit on the retail shelves. The patio is heated through the cold months.
A small restaurant and wine market on Park Road cooking what it calls contemporary, seasonal Carolina Piedmont food with global influences. It is run by Eric and Cat, who are named on the site. Sunday Supper is a single 5:30 seating and takes reservations only; the wine market is open midday Wednesday through Saturday.
Napa makes wine part of the meal at StoneCrest, with small plates and full dinners in a carefully designed dining room. The menu includes salmon, filet and frites, and mushroom pasta, alongside cocktails. Sunday brunch gives you another reason to visit. This is the Rea Road location at StoneCrest at Piper Glen, separate from Napa on Providence and the Kingsley restaurant in South Carolina.
Postino pairs wine with bruschetta boards, panini and shareable plates at The Bowl. More than 400 vintage headphones form an art installation inside this Ballantyne room. Its Board + Bottle offer runs after 8 p.m. on Mondays and Tuesdays.
The newest Reid's, in Ballantyne, described on the company's own site as recently opened. Same format as the other stores ... premium meat, wine, local provisions, produce and prepared meals.
The Selwyn Avenue store, in the same short Myers Park row as Rada, The Jimmy and Selwyn Avenue Pub. Reid's sells premium meat, wine, local provisions, produce and prepared meals, and calls itself Charlotte's original hometown specialty food store.
A specialty grocer that also runs a deli, a hot bar and a full restaurant with lunch and dinner service. Its own site calls Reid's Charlotte's original hometown specialty food store. The company now runs five stores across the city.
An Indian restaurant and wine bar in Ballantyne Village, serving lunch and dinner every day with a break in between. Its own site records Reader's Choice wins in Charlotte Magazine's 50 Best Restaurants in 2014 and 2016.
The Bohemian is a wine bar on Pecan Avenue, a block off the Central Avenue strip, pouring by the glass and the bottle with cheese and charcuterie boards to go with them. It opens at noon most days and closes at 11pm on Friday and Saturday, which makes it one of the quieter rooms in a loud neighbourhood.
Zinicola makes pasta by hand and serves seasonal Italian dishes in Ballantyne Village. The menu brings regional Italian food to the table with wine and cocktails. Its location is on Ballantyne Village Way, across from The Ballantyne hotel.
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