Sports & Game Day Charlotte

Uptown · american, pub food

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.

Elizabeth

Watch Charlotte Independence soccer in Elizabeth, then eat nearby, with restaurants and pizza within about half a mile.

Uptown · italian, new american, southern

Angeline's is the restaurant inside the Kimpton Tryon Park Hotel in Uptown, on Church Street across from Romare Bearden Park. It describes its cooking as traditional Italian with a Southern twist, with seasonal Southern ingredients handled by Italian technique. It serves breakfast on weekday mornings, brunch on weekends and a late-night menu from 10 to 11 p.m. every day. Valet parking runs a discounted $15 for up to two hours.

University City · beer

Armored Cow is the University City brewery, on JW Clay Boulevard near the UNC Charlotte campus. Dogs are a stated part of the house: 'Dogs are part of our family and part of our herd', provided they are leashed, friendly and respectful. Chewy named it one of the Top Dog-Friendly Breweries in the USA for 2025.

Uptown

Make a Panthers or Charlotte FC game a full day out, with Uptown restaurants close by and a pub nearby for more sports on TV.

Plaza Midwood · vegan, comfort food, southern

One of Charlotte's oldest vegan restaurants, in an unassuming building off Independence Boulevard, with a long menu of fully vegan comfort cooking: barbecue, cheesesteaks, bratwurst, reubens, meatloaf and crab cakes.

Historic West End · cajun, creole, seafood

Bite Your Tongue is a carryout New Orleans kitchen on Beatties Ford Road serving po' boys, red beans and rice and bread pudding. QCity Metro reported in July 2024 that it works out of a commercial kitchen Historic West End Partners opened in the corridor specifically to add food options to Beatties Ford Road, after the group bought the building.

Catch Checkers hockey at Bojangles Coliseum, then eat near the arena or drive into Plaza Midwood for more sports on TV.

Dilworth · pizza, italian american

The Dilworth room on Scott Avenue, the Charlotte original of a wood-fired pizza company that now runs twenty locations across four states and still keeps its corporate office on East 7th Street in Charlotte. It publishes a kids menu and a separate gluten-free menu as downloadable PDFs, along with an allergen sheet.

Plan a NASCAR weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord. The closest food and drink stops here are in University City, a drive away.

Uptown · new american

Church and Union sits at the corner of 5th and Church Streets in Uptown Charlotte, which is where the name comes from. Top Chef alumnus Jamie Lynch is the chef partner and Aaron Dearing is executive chef. The restaurant describes itself as being in Uptown's historic district, a few blocks from its sister restaurant La Belle Helene. Both are run by the Charlotte-based 5th Street Group.

See Royals basketball or volleyball at Curry Arena, then drive down Selwyn Avenue for a pub or a sit-down meal.

Elizabeth · new american, italian, latin

Customshop sits on Elizabeth Avenue in the Elizabeth neighbourhood and is run by chef-owner Andres Kaifer, who cooks Latin and Italian influences into North Carolina seasonal produce. The menu is printed fresh each day around whatever the farms have sent, alongside a rotating craft cocktail programme and a curated wine list. It made the inaugural MICHELIN Guide American South as a Recommended restaurant in November 2025. It serves dinner Tuesday to Saturday and is closed Sunday and Monday.

University City · southern, soul food, seafood

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.

Midtown · pub food, pizza, bbq, american

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.

LoSo · american, pub food

Catch a game, shoot pool or play darts at Dom's Dive Bar in LoSo. This neighborhood bar on South Boulevard pairs beer and cocktails with wings, flatbreads and a brisket grilled cheese. It stays open until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. Check the menu before heading over, or call to ask about the game you want to watch.

Uptown · seafood, new american

Fin & Fino calls itself a social seafood house and is part of Charlotte's Rare Roots Hospitality group. The menu is built around shared plates drawn from seafaring cultures of the Atlantic. The kitchen offers a chef's-choice option called The Treatment, where guests hand over the course selection. A second room opened at Birkdale Village.

University City

See 49ers basketball or volleyball at Halton Arena, then eat on North Tryon Street or at a brewery near campus.

Elizabeth · pizza, italian american

A New York style pizza room on East 7th Street in Elizabeth, established in 2004. The company's own site invites guests onto the patio, calls the restaurant family and dog friendly, and publishes a kids menu with pizza, chicken, pasta, ravioli and macaroni and cheese. Its current specials page does not publish a kids-eat-free offer, so this profile does not treat the older Tuesday promotion as current.

Historic West End

See Golden Bulls football at the Irwin Belk Complex, then eat on Beatties Ford Road or head into Uptown for more sports on TV.

University City

Watch 49ers soccer on the University City campus, then drive to a nearby restaurant or brewery.

University City

See 49ers football at UNC Charlotte, then eat at a family-owned restaurant or a brewery near campus.

Uptown · french, brasserie

La Belle Helene is a French brasserie on South Tryon in Uptown, serving French classics with a modern sensibility. It is run by the Charlotte-based 5th Street Group, whose principals are Patrick Whalen, Alejandro Torio, Chef Jamie Lynch and Chef Adam Hodgson. Jamie Lynch, a Bravo Top Chef alumnus, is the chef partner. Its sister restaurant Church and Union is a few blocks north.

bbq, southern

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.

Uptown · cocktails

Merchant + Trade is a rooftop bar on the 19th floor at 303 Church Street in Uptown, with an indoor bar, an outdoor terrace, a private terrace and a lawn. It calls itself Charlotte's premier skyline destination and it runs its own rooftop kitchen. Seating is first come, first served and the room is 21 and over.

Uptown · southern, new american

Mimosa Grill opened on South Tryon in Uptown in 1996 and is run by Burke Hospitality Group. The kitchen describes itself as global-influenced American built on local Carolina ingredients, and says it works directly with regional farmers and purveyors on seasonal menus. It closes early on Sundays, at 2 p.m.

NoDa · pizza

NoDa Brewing has been, in its own words, brewing craft beer for the Carolinas since 2011. It took its name from the NoDa arts district where it started, then moved its brewery and taproom to 150 W 32nd St off North Tryon; the old N Tryon address is still used for shipping. Pizza is served on site.

Beverly Woods

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.

Uptown

Petty Thieves is on Dalton Avenue in the Lower North End, and its beer garden looks straight at the Uptown skyline. The week runs trivia on Tuesdays, Stitch n' Bitch on Wednesdays and a run club on Thursdays. It closes Mondays.

Myers Park · new american

Rada is a small room on Selwyn Avenue in Myers Park that opened in 2025 with almost no announcement and was MICHELIN Recommended in the inaugural American South guide within months of opening. Charlotte Magazine credits chef Callan Buckles, who came from New York kitchens, with a tight European wine list and a Basque-influenced cocktail programme alongside the food. The New York Times picked it up in the same stretch. It takes bookings through Resy and runs a wine club.

Uptown

Resident Culture's second Charlotte taproom is inside the Market on 7th Street in Uptown, with its own posted hours that run earlier in the day than the Plaza Midwood brewery.

University City

Catch 49ers baseball at Hayes Stadium, then eat at a family-owned restaurant or a brewery near campus.

Uptown · seafood, oysters

Sea Level NC is an oyster bar and seafood room in Uptown Charlotte on East 5th Street. The bar runs an oyster happy hour Monday through Friday from 2 to 6 p.m. with house oysters at $1.50. The bar stays open later than the dining room, which closes at 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. It is one of four rooms in the Charlotte group that trades as eat704, alongside The Waterman Fish Bar, High Tide and Packard Tavern.

Myers Park · pub food

A neighborhood pub on Selwyn Avenue that has been serving the Myers Park side of Charlotte since 1990. Its own site leads with the outdoor space ... a large patio under a retractable roof, which is the reason most people name the place. The transfusion cocktail is the drink it is known for.

Plaza Midwood · burgers, seafood, american

South 21 has been on East Independence Boulevard since 1955 and still says so at the top of its own site: 'Serving Charlotte Since 1955'. It is a survivor of the drive-in era, working the same lot on the east side while the road around it turned into an expressway. The board runs to burgers, sandwiches, fish plates, onion rings and daily specials. CharlotteEAST notes it has been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

Uptown

Make a Hornets game a full day out, with Uptown restaurants and a brewery close by and a pub nearby for more sports on TV.

Elizabeth · vegan, caribbean, african, burgers

A whole-food plant-based kitchen on Elizabeth Avenue built on African and Caribbean cooking rather than imitation meat. Its own line is that this is true food cooking from Mother Nature, not fake meat substitutes. It runs partly as a subscription meal service: customers pick a monthly plan, choose entrees and sides by Saturday midnight, and the food is delivered Wednesday afternoon.

Elizabeth · new american, french, italian, seafood

The Fig Tree is a white-tablecloth restaurant inside the restored 1913 Lucas House in Elizabeth. Husband-and-wife owners Greg and Sara Zanitsch have run it here since 2005, with seasonal French and Italian influences, a deep wine list and an elk chop that has stayed on the menu for more than fifteen years. The veranda and residential-size rooms make dinner feel like a special occasion without pretending the building was ever anything but a house.

Myers Park · italian, mediterranean

A Mediterranean room on Selwyn Avenue from Noble Food & Pursuits, running handmade pasta, pizza and seafood. It keeps a heated patio open year round and splits the day into lunch, an aperitivo window from 2:30 to 5, and dinner.

Uptown · food hall

Known for years as 7th Street Public Market, this is Charlotte's original food hall and it now operates as a nonprofit small business incubator. The market says 80 percent of its vendors are women-owned, 60 percent are minority-owned and 100 percent are locally owned, and that it has incubated more than 175 businesses since opening. The 7th Street Station parking garage validates two hours free. The old domain 7thstreetpublicmarket.com now redirects here.

beer, german

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.

Uptown · irish, pub food

The Pub at Uptown is an Irish pub on West Trade Street in Charlotte's Third Ward, in the Gateway district near Truist Field, Bank of America Stadium and the NASCAR Hall of Fame. It is open from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. every day and runs its full kitchen menu until 1:30 a.m., which makes it one of the few genuinely late kitchens in Uptown. It added weekend brunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Parking is free in the garage attached to the building.

Plaza Midwood · pub food

The Workman's Friend is a Central Avenue pub that calls itself a friendly neighbourhood watering hole. It runs two rooms with different characters: a dark, cosy side and an open-air bar. It is the latest-closing room in Plaza Midwood on this list, open to 2am seven nights a week, and it opens at 10am on weekends.

Eastway

Tommy's Pub lost its original room in 2015 when the land it sat on was sold to developers, and it reopened on Eastway Drive in 2017. It is a moved bar rather than a closed one, which is a distinction worth keeping straight in this city.

Wesley Heights · pub food

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.

Uptown

Make a Knights game a full day out, with restaurants and a rooftop bar close by and a pub on West Trade Street for more sports on TV.

Grier Heights

Vaulted Oak opened on 9 June 2021 inside a refurbished BB&T bank building on Monroe Road in east Charlotte, which is where the name comes from. Outside there is a large patio, covered seating and lawn chairs around a fire pit, plus cornhole. There is no kitchen; food trucks run Wednesday through Sunday, Sal's pizza is across the street, and people are told they can bring their own food.

Plaza Midwood · american, pub food

Whiskey Warehouse sits on The Plaza across from Supperland and calls itself a top shelf pub: classic American dining, craft beer and cocktails, with a rooftop above the main bar. The rooftop keeps its own hours and runs latest of all, to 2am on Friday and Saturday.

South End · beer

Wooden Robot calls itself an urban farmhouse brewery and says it blends art and science to make its beer. The South End room at 1440 S Tryon is the original taproom and it runs a kitchen and a coffee bar alongside the beer, opening at 8 a.m. on weekdays. A second Charlotte room, The Chamber in NoDa, holds the wood-aging program and a rooftop bar.

NoDa

The Chamber is Wooden Robot's NoDa room, on E 36th St, and it carries a rooftop bar that the South End original does not have. It keeps its own hours and closes Mondays.