If you’ve been out to eat in Charlotte recently, you might have noticed a bit less elbow room. Smaller dining rooms are one effect of delivery apps and a preference for efficiency that are changing Charlotte’s restaurant real estate. For more, Tony Mecia of the Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter joined WFAE’s Marshall Terry for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: So are the days of going out and sitting down at a restaurant coming to an end?
Tony Mecia: I don't think they're coming to an end. You'll still be able to go out to your favorite restaurant and be waited on. Really, this is a trend about restaurants that are adapting their buildings and moving into buildings that are maybe a little bit smaller. This is for a couple of reasons. One is that real estate prices are going up and it's more efficient to have a smaller space.
It’s also that consumers really want that on-the-go convenience. There are more delivery services like DoorDash and Uber Eats. It's really kind of a shift in how restaurants are approaching the idea of their physical space. The article that we had in The Ledger looked at Amelie’s, the French bakery, which has a number of locations around town.
They're usually around 4,500 square feet. Amelie’s is opening one in Plaza Midwood that's only about 450 square feet to try to capture that grab-and-go consumer.
Terry: Technology has always changed real estate. If this delivery boom fades, are restaurants going to be caught out with too little dine-in space, as preferences may shift again?
Mecia: It's hard to predict the future. Is it possible that in the future we will all have more leisure time and want to go sit down and have leisurely lunches and dinners more than we are now? I suppose that's possible, but the restaurant owners we talked to say that the theme really seems to be right now convenience, speed and efficiency.
Terry: To the airport now. American Express is planning to build a new lounge at Charlotte Douglas. How do I get access?
Mecia: You'll need a pretty expensive credit card. The way to get into these American Express lounges at Charlotte's airport requires an American Express Platinum card, which is an $895 annual fee. Worth noting they're planning to open what they're calling a sidecar lounge on Concourse A. This sort of fits in with that grab-and-go convenience of wanting to get people sort of in and out faster.
Terry: There are more lounges at Charlotte's airport, right? But they're pretty crowded a lot of the time. Will this help resolve that?
Mecia: I don't know if this is going to take pressure off of other lounges because, while these lounges compete with each other, you'd have to have a whole bunch of different premium credit cards to get into them all. While these were traditionally by concourses C and D, including the main American Express lounge, you're really seeing sort of a flight toward A, where there are more flights, so that people can access those a little bit easier.
Terry: Over to South End now, where, despite its moribund appearance, The Ledger found the former Mr. K’s Soft Ice Cream site is not being torn down. So what are the plans?
Mecia: If you drive by it, it looks like it's in disrepair because the roof is kind of falling in. This is a building that was built in 1970. It was known as Mr. K's, a popular ice cream and food spot in South End. It closed five years ago and it is on the market. Our Ashley Fahey talked to the broker, who said it's on the market for $500,000. It's not being torn down. It's just kind of in disrepair. They're hoping to kind of get somebody in there to buy it.
Terry: Finally, the co-founder of what was formerly known as Sycamore Brewing has been indicted on nine felonies, including statutory rape, in connection with a 13-year-old girl in December. Is there any new information about this story and its effect on the business with this indictment?
Mecia: There really weren't a lot of new details that emerged in this indictment in this case against Justin Brigham, the co-founder of Sycamore Brewing. Sycamore is rebranding and is now calling itself Club West Brewing. This is really just a procedural step toward an eventual trial.
Support for BizWorthy comes from the law office of Robertson & Associates.
