When the weekend rolls around you might be in the mood to go out for some entertainment. But what about “eater-tainment?” Not familiar with that term? Well it’s one of the hot new trends in Charlotte. For more on this, and other business stories, I’m joined now by Tony Mecia, of the Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter, for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: So "eater-tainment," as its being dubbed, is one of the hot new trends in dining and hospitality businesses. What exactly is that, and what's driving it?
Tony Mecia: Yeah, Marshall. It's one of these phrases that's kind of been coined to describe a phenomenon that we see, I think that's been emerging a lot in Charlotte and around the country. And it's this sort of blending of experiences. You also have "shoppertainment," right? Where you go to the mall, and it's not just stores, but there are things to do. Same with "eater-tainment."
I talked to some experts this week about a new report that they have out on Charlotte's retail and hospitality industry, and they say that's one of the trends. This idea that when you go to a restaurant, you're not just going to sit there and eat your meal, necessarily, but you're going to do things like you could play pickleball.
These are really all over the city. I mean, you think of axe-throwing places, [or] it could just be a brewery that has a large Jenga game or cornhole. I mean, so it's a lot of these blurring between the entertainment, the dining and the things to do. And it's really, kind of, taking off not just in the center city, but it's also moving out toward the suburbs.
Terry: Now, some of the folks you talked to about new retail and hospitality development said that even though overall construction is slow, developers and businesses aren't walking away in some kind of death-of-retail scenario. It's about quality, not quantity. What do they mean?
Mecia: Yeah, I mean, if you do look at the numbers of new retail construction, they are down from the last few years. But there is a focus on the ones that are opening up. And we see them opening up all over the city every week, all kinds of new things. It's really about creating different types of experiences.
So it's not like the Chili's of the 1980s where you go and sit and eat, but it's more different kinds of experiences — because particularly the younger generations, Gen Z — they place a lot of premium on experiential sorts of things. And so we're seeing all different kinds of experiences. The experts I talked with said that in order to be successful nowadays, if you're opening up something new, it really needs to be distinctive — not just the way things have been done for a long time.
Terry: Onto some arts news now. Nearly $2 million in funding will finally make its way to arts organizations and artists in Charlotte after being tied up for almost a year. Why the delay?
Mecia: This is part of an ongoing saga about arts funding in Charlotte and sort of how to distribute money that's there. There was a delay with the city. The Arts & Science Council was trying to determine what it would do. It wound up merging with Foundation For The Carolinas. The city sort of held off on determining who was going to distribute this $2 million in funding, but the grant applications for that are coming open finally next week. It's going to be administered by an arts group called Charlotte is Creative. And so, a lot of the arts groups we've spoken with are happy that that funding spigot is going to be turned back on.
Terry: Let's end this week on a story you've been following for a few years now — that is efforts to preserve an almost 200-year-old home near the airport. Remind us, what makes this home special? And, also, what's the latest on those preservation efforts?
Mecia: The article we had this week was on the William Grier House, which is an old plantation house that dates to 1828. It was designated by the Historic Landmarks Commission as a historic landmark in 1978. It's on property owned by the airport near Steele Creek, near the Charlotte Premium Outlets. And it's kind of fallen into disrepair in the last 10 or 15 years. The city's owned it for the last 10 years.
The airport wants to use a lot of this area in the future for warehousing and logistics. Preservationists would like to have properties like this old house restored [and] moved. But there hasn't apparently been a lot of willingness by the city to invest some money to make that happen. They did try to find private partners that could do that, but now that there's a demolition permit that's out there for this house. It looks like it's about to be torn down.
Support for BizWorthy comes from the law office of Robertson and Associates.
