Birdsong was founded in 2010 by husband and wife Chris and Tara Goulet with their friend Conor Robinson, after they decided Charlotte needed a neighborhood brewery pouring fresh, unfiltered American ale. The taproom sits on North Davidson Street between Optimist Park and NoDa, with a patio running fire tables and outdoor heaters through the cold months.
Craft Tasting Room & Growler Shop opened in 2014 on South Church Street in South End's Gold District, founded by the husband and wife team Alyson and Dan Davis. It pours local craft beer and draft cocktails next to regional cheeses, charcuterie, pizzas and flatbread sandwiches. It runs outdoor movie nights on Thursdays and hosts private parties.
Free Range is a family-run brewery on the lower end of North Davidson that works with Charlotte farmers, chefs and artists and says its beers are 95 percent made from locally grown ingredients. Its kitchen is a separate family-owned food program called Vivienne, which brings the flavours, traditions and hospitality of Scandinavia and the North Atlantic to Charlotte: Danish-style Rode Polser and Faroese-inspired seafood, with an emphasis on ingredients, regional relationships and a deep respect for tradition.
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.
16 spots
Birdsong was founded in 2010 by husband and wife Chris and Tara Goulet with their friend Conor Robinson, after they decided Charlotte needed a neighborhood brewery pouring fresh, unfiltered American ale. The taproom sits on North Davidson Street between Optimist Park and NoDa, with a patio running fire tables and outdoor heaters through the cold months.
Craft Tasting Room & Growler Shop opened in 2014 on South Church Street in South End's Gold District, founded by the husband and wife team Alyson and Dan Davis. It pours local craft beer and draft cocktails next to regional cheeses, charcuterie, pizzas and flatbread sandwiches. It runs outdoor movie nights on Thursdays and hosts private parties.
Free Range is a family-run brewery on the lower end of North Davidson that works with Charlotte farmers, chefs and artists and says its beers are 95 percent made from locally grown ingredients. Its kitchen is a separate family-owned food program called Vivienne, which brings the flavours, traditions and hospitality of Scandinavia and the North Atlantic to Charlotte: Danish-style Rode Polser and Faroese-inspired seafood, with an emphasis on ingredients, regional relationships and a deep respect for tradition.
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.
Growlers pairs a craft beer list with what its own site calls craft Americana food, built around oysters, burgers, sandwiches and wings. The kitchen closes at 11pm but the bar runs to 2am on Friday and Saturday, which makes it one of the few genuinely late rooms on North Davidson. It is run by Jeff Tonidandel, a Certified Cicerone, with Jamie Brown, the same pair behind Haberdish, Ever Andalo and Supperland.
Intermezzo has been on East Tenth Street in Elizabeth since 2007. It is a European-style cafe that makes pizza with handmade dough and house-made mozzarella and serves traditional Serbian dishes alongside it, from the owners' family recipes. There are specialty cocktails and craft beer on tap.
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.
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.
Mama’s Caribbean Grill serves Jamaican and Caribbean dishes in Plaza Midwood. Its menu includes jerk chicken, curry goat, oxtail and brown stew chicken. The yellow sign, bright windows and island-themed dining room give the place a lively feel before the food arrives. Check its public Facebook page for the latest restaurant updates.
A family smokehouse and saloon on Old Pineville Road, opened in 2006 by brothers Ryan and Jim Register with their father Namon. Its own account is that the family noticed how few scratch-made kitchens Charlotte had and started collecting the family's best recipes with the idea of opening their own room. The bar side is rustic, with beer signs and sports jerseys on the wall. Our State singles out the award-winning smoked ribs and the homemade coconut pie, and says the wings are smoked over pecan wood.
A Spanish restaurant on Community House Road that its own site says has been running for more than twenty five years. Paella and tapas are the centre of the menu, alongside a wine list and a weekday happy hour. The site says three families are now building what comes next, and that a SouthPark room is under construction for autumn 2026.
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.
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.
The Hobbyist is a coffee bar by day and a beer, wine and cocktail bar by night on North Davidson Street in NoDa. Owners Bryson and Julie Woodside run hand-crafted coffee and tea beside 14 draft beers, wine by the glass and custom cocktails. The food is North Carolina artisan pastries rather than a kitchen.
The Thirsty Beaver is the small brick dive bar on Central Avenue that a 323-unit apartment complex was built around. Brothers Brian and Mark Wilson opened it in 2008 and lease the building from owner George Salem, who turned down two offers from the developer that bought the surrounding land for 8.5 million dollars in 2015. The developer built the apartments in a horseshoe around the bar instead, and the Associated Press called it Charlotte's own version of the house from Up. There is live music on Sundays and a pool table.
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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