Bar Fly takes over the rooftop deck above Room Service at Camp North End on weekend nights, from the same founder. The landlord's page describes bold and playful decor, cocktails, bites, dancing and music, with a rotating schedule of events each weekend. The drinks list runs to cocktails, wine, sangria, beer and rotating slushies.
Bradshaw is the neighborhood-bar choice when you want a burger, wings or a game on TV. Its covered patio gives groups another place to sit. The weekly calendar includes trivia, music bingo, live-band karaoke and Friday music, with DJs on Saturdays. Later visits can be lively, so check the lineup if you are choosing between a conversation over dinner and a night of music.
Chasers is a gay dance bar on The Plaza that runs drag performances, resident DJs and karaoke on Wednesdays and Sundays. It has pool tables, a coat check and free parking, and it stays open to 2am. Queen City Nerve counts it among the city's continuously operating queer rooms.
El Puro serves upscale Cuban food with cocktails and live entertainment on South Boulevard, in a room styled after 1950s pre-revolutionary Havana. There is a stage and a dancefloor. It runs to midnight on Friday and Saturday and is closed on Mondays.
9 spots
Bar Fly takes over the rooftop deck above Room Service at Camp North End on weekend nights, from the same founder. The landlord's page describes bold and playful decor, cocktails, bites, dancing and music, with a rotating schedule of events each weekend. The drinks list runs to cocktails, wine, sangria, beer and rotating slushies.
Bradshaw is the neighborhood-bar choice when you want a burger, wings or a game on TV. Its covered patio gives groups another place to sit. The weekly calendar includes trivia, music bingo, live-band karaoke and Friday music, with DJs on Saturdays. Later visits can be lively, so check the lineup if you are choosing between a conversation over dinner and a night of music.
Chasers is a gay dance bar on The Plaza that runs drag performances, resident DJs and karaoke on Wednesdays and Sundays. It has pool tables, a coat check and free parking, and it stays open to 2am. Queen City Nerve counts it among the city's continuously operating queer rooms.
El Puro serves upscale Cuban food with cocktails and live entertainment on South Boulevard, in a room styled after 1950s pre-revolutionary Havana. There is a stage and a dancefloor. It runs to midnight on Friday and Saturday and is closed on Mondays.
Jeff's Bucket Shop is a below-ground bar on Montford Drive that calls itself Charlotte's number one karaoke spot and runs a free song-selection app for the room. It is closed Mondays and open to 2am the other six nights. Charlotte Magazine's dive bar survey calls its karaoke legendary.
Petra's is a piano bar and small stage on Commonwealth Ave in Plaza Midwood that opened in 2007. Queen City Nerve describes it as one of the city's queer-friendly rooms, with drag shows, the TutuTonight variety showcase, the Ultraviolet Sapphic Dance Party and Wednesday karaoke. Its own calendar runs karaoke nights, jazz sessions, bands and solo performers most weeks.
Snug Harbor is a small pirate-themed room on Gordon Street in Plaza Midwood that has been booking national, regional and local bands since 2007. Doors are at 8pm and the show is at 9pm Monday through Saturday. Karaoke runs to 2am on Thursdays and Sundays, and DJ nights sit alongside the live bookings.
Soul opened in Plaza Midwood in 2009 as one of Charlotte's first small-plate restaurants, in a 68-seat upstairs room with no reservations and a waitlist that regularly ran two hours. Its own origin story says it was the first in the city to make local house deejays an integral part of the dining experience, and the house music has stayed. It lost the Plaza Midwood lease in 2022 and owner, chef and DJ Andy Kastanas spent three years building the replacement, reopening in August 2025 at 4110 Raleigh Street near the Sugar Creek station with roughly triple the seats, a semi-private dining room and a patio. The original interior designer, Scott Weaver, did the new room too.
The Scorpio is Charlotte's oldest gay club, operating since the 1960s. It spent decades on Freedom Drive before that building closed in 2023, and Queen City Nerve reports it reopened on Fairwood Avenue in 2024.
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