¡THE QC LOCAL!

Charlotte’s a busy place. Here’s the best of it.

🎢 So, here’s the deal.

Last Friday, had 900 words written at 4:58. I’m not lying to you. I dedicated a couple portions of last Friday to last week’s version and stuck to it. I was about to click send and accidentally clicked about of the tab I had it on.

For some reason, Beehiiv had other plans. When I tried to reopen my near completed newsletter, I found that everything had been completely scrubbed. When I tried to go to recently closed tabs, it was completely gone. So, that is my somewhat good reason for skipping a week. While there have been some new developments in Charlotte this past week, I’m going to do my best to regurgitate this as best as I can, so here it goes.

🌹ROSE

• The weather has been absolutely beautiful these past few weeks and is supposed to get better this weekend. Shoutout whoever controls that. The rail trail has been absolutely wall-to-wall with people. You never quite realize how many people have dogs until it’s nice outside.

🪷BUD

• The Charlotte Knights have kicked off their season and sunny nights at Truist Field never disappoint. Tickets are never more than $15 or so, and they even started serving Co-Op’s famous Frose, or so I am told. If you’re ever bored with your friends or family, this is a great way to spend a weekend evening.

DEAL OF THE WEEK

🍕The Penguin runs great drink deals every week but has $6 Starters during the weekdays from 3-6pm. Make sure to grab their awesome Bang-Bang shrimp or Fried Pickles for an after work Happy Hour.

‼️Lebowski’s shutting down

‼️I guess I should have seen this coming, but beloved Dilworth staple, Lebowski’s shut down this week. After JJ’s Red Hots closed a couple of weeks back, it would make sense that the restaurant in the same building would close down as well.

However, this one hurts a bit more. Lebowski’s was a staple in the Malloy family takeout rotation. We ate the “Dilworth Bowl” so much that my mom and I started buying the ingredients to make them at home, which we still make to this day. While none of my high school friends or I were Bills fans, we would still go watch Bills playoff games at Lebowski’s, which would be packed to the gills with Buffalo locals drinking Labatt Blue.

When beloved neighborhood spots like Lebowski’s close down, it’s easy to villainize the incoming tenants, although we probably shouldn’t. If you haven’t heard, a Nashville taco chain is planning to take the spot of Lebowski’s, which will make 3 taco spots (plus Moe’s) on East Blvd alone. So, why do we need another overpriced Tex-Mex spot? We’d be much better off if our guy Frank reopened East Blvd Bar and Grill, so that there could be a decent gathering spot on East again. Anyways…

PROPERLY RATED IN THE 704

Although I may not seem this way, I’m incredibly indecisive when it comes to picking restaurants. However, whenever anyone wants to go somewhere nearby, Southbound is always high on my list.

Great vibes, live music in the summer and some of the best tortilla chips in the city, in my humble opinion. The food is phenomenal, there’s always plenty of tables and some of the best Margaritas in the city. I highly recommend the Birria tacos or the Adobe Chipotle Chicken Burrito, but you can’t go wrong.

other goings on 🔥

• The Charlotte Brew Fest is this Saturday, April 5th, with $30 tickets that boast unlimited beer tastings. If you’re a beer snob, I’d highly recommend getting the best of the Charlotte beer scene and grabbing tickets here.

• The first Front Porch Sunday of the year is this Sunday, April 6th. Make sure to check out all the new and old vendors that CLT has to offer. Maybe I’ll open up a QC Local tent to tell everyone about my mediocre ideas for Charlotte.

Let me know of anything you hear about or wanna hear about!

Hit me up at [email protected] for any q’s or debates you may have.

— Jack