The hot trends in Charlotte retail and hospitality

A discussion with retail/restaurant experts — Plus the latest on the Brooklyn Village saga and land deals

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Welcome to another pulse-quickening installment of Charlotte Commercial Real Estate Whispers, our occasional column that takes you inside Charlotte building sales, construction permits and developers’ plans. It offers unrivaled insights and the freshest local real estate information, leaving you tantalized, delighted and eager for more.

You can add and drop newsletters from The Charlotte Ledger — including this one — on your “Manage Your Subscriptions” page.

In today’s edition:

1. The highlights of a discussion with Charlotte retail and hospitality experts about emerging trends — from “eater-tainment” to the flight to the ’burbs to rapidly changing customer expectations.

2. The latest on the delayed Brooklyn Village project — the county’s lawyers have fired back at The Peebles Corp. … and a default could be looming. 🍿

3. Land deals and other Charlotte real estate news of note.

Let’s get to it!

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How Charlotte is evolving from a ‘sleepy little banker town’ to a retail and restaurant hotspot

New retail ideas keep popping up all over Charlotte — like Blinders in South End, which opened in March with a 60-foot-wide TV to appeal to sports fans. (Photo courtesy of Blinders)

Just about every week in Charlotte, there’s news of a new restaurant, or a retailer on the move — all over town.

Say one thing about Charlotte: It has a robust information network chronicling new coffee shops, breweries, restaurants, retailers and things to do.

But what does it all mean? What are the larger forces at play? And what will we see in the years ahead as Charlotte continues to grow?

The Charlotte Ledger talked recently with a panel of experts to explore some of the trends in hospitality and retail, including:

• What changing customer expectations mean for the hospitality industry

• The rise of “eater-tainment” — the blending of dining with activities such as pickleball

• How new businesses in Charlotte should think about where to locate

• How some of the influences in South End are now moving out to suburban locations

• How shifting work patterns are changing neighborhood retail

You can find the full conversation — a discussion with Daniel Gibson of marketing agency NiceDay, Adam Williams of urban retail advisory firm Rebel Rebel and Bryan Southwick of architecture and interior design firm Southwick Architecture + Interiors — on the latest episode of The Charlotte Ledger Podcast. We discuss a new 30-page report their companies produced called the Charlotte Hospitality and Retail Guide 2025.

It’s an engaging and fascinating conversation that includes observations on The Bowl at Ballantyne, Jim Noble, South End, Jon Dressler, the so-called “retail apocalypse,” coffee shops, pickleball, breweries, Chili’s, Moosehead Grill and ax-throwing. (And a ton more.)

Here are some of the highlights of the discussion, edited for brevity and clarity:

Q. How is the hospitality industry in Charlotte doing these days?

Southwick: I think it’s definitely emerging and growing. There have been a lot of longtime restaurateurs. But I think there’s a lot of out-of-market or regional players that have come into the market that are fighting for space here.

Williams: I would actually double down on what Brian just said. Charlotte has very recently — in the last five, six years — been put on a totally different list than it ever has been in my entire life. I’m born and raised here.