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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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