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Another bar/restaurant bites the dust


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Blue has been sold and it's closing it's doors for good tomorrow night.

About time. Kinda felt like they hadn't acclimated or innovated in today's food scene. Everyone talked about them 10 years ago, hadn't heard a mention in years.


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  • 2 weeks later...

Queen City Q in Ballantyne (-ish) has closed.  This is shocking to me.  Yes, there were 6 BBQ joints on 521, conveniently spaced every mile....so it probably wasn't sustainable....but I never dreamed Queen City would be the one to go.  This location must be just horrible.....I think that was the 3rd BBQ place in the same spot.  

Moving into the same spot will be La Unica, which I'm very excited about.

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Looks like Meat & Fish Company on Morehead has officially closed. I was holding out hope that the paper on the windows was just part of an interior overhaul. It may have been too expensive for me to buy product from most of the time, but their lunches were pretty reasonable for how top-notch they were. It was always empty though. Not sure why we simply can not keep a butcher shop in business. 

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5 minutes ago, nonillogical said:

Looks like Meat & Fish Company on Morehead has officially closed. I was holding out hope that the paper on the windows was just part of an interior overhaul. It may have been too expensive for me to buy product from most of the time, but their lunches were pretty reasonable for how top-notch they were. It was always empty though. Not sure why we simply can not keep a butcher shop in business. 

I loved that place but the location was bad for me plus they didn't do enough to promote the whole butcher side of things. "get whatever cut you want" kind of thing.

I often went to the one at 7th street market and liked them quite a bit. I was surprised they left as they always seemed busy when I was there.

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14 minutes ago, nonillogical said:

Looks like Meat & Fish Company on Morehead has officially closed. I was holding out hope that the paper on the windows was just part of an interior overhaul. It may have been too expensive for me to buy product from most of the time, but their lunches were pretty reasonable for how top-notch they were. It was always empty though. Not sure why we simply can not keep a butcher shop in business. 

I think getting a butcher shop started from scratch is tough in today's retail environment. In many cities the local butcher shops are institutions / a part of the community and have that going against the big corporate grocers. They also already have the momentum of loyal shoppers. Here you have a new shop open that people have no connection to and they ultimately find the prices too high for what they feel like they can purchase at the grocery store. A butcher also needs to build a following VERY quickly of people coming in 2-3 times per week for ALL their meat needs (not just specialty cuts). Fresh meats begin spoiling rapidly and once the butcher opens that vacuum bag the sub-primal cut is in, the meat has limited shelf life. They need to sell through all of that meat within 2 days ideally. If foot traffic is low (like Meat & Fish), they are throwing out more product than they are selling likely and taking a big loss. The losses build up fast and it just doesn't become sustainable, especially if people only want "niche" cuts (they still have to sell the rest of the meat that isn't "niche").

The grocery stores are not typically doing much "butchering" on site these days. The products are already portioned and the vacuum sealing technology at the meat processing plant extends the shelf life for a couple of days. So while the grocery store can go 1.5 weeks with a Smithfield pork tenderloin in a vacuum bag on the shelf, the butcher needs to sell their tenderloin within 2 days or put it in the freezer, since they don't typically have the equipment for a vacuum sealing bag on site like the food factories. 

A local butcher is also competing with grocers that are making maybe 1-2% profit margin on the meat they sell, and much higher profit margins on all the other goods they sell like greeting cards, beer/wine, fresh flowers, magazines, batteries, toilet paper, etc.... A local butcher is a 100% meat though and it isn't just the "hook" to lure people into the store (which is why meat is always in the back, forcing you to walk past the high margin items) and unless they do a restaurant portion where they can charge higher prices to get some better margin, it becomes tough to compete with the grocery at 1-2%.

Edited by CLT2014
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1 hour ago, CharlotteWkndBuzz said:

Some of my friends that work at Enso at the Epicentre told me it may be closing...this was a few weeks ago.  If so, this will be a very big retail spot opening up.  Enso layout is massive.  It used to encompass, what is now Rocket Fizz too.   

Saturday is last day per CBJ

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2017/09/20/end-of-line-for-epicentre-restaurant.html

Seems like lots of turnover that the Epicenter recently, is it just lease expiration time or are their bigger issues?

 

Edited by kermit
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20 hours ago, kermit said:

Saturday is last day per CBJ

https://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/news/2017/09/20/end-of-line-for-epicentre-restaurant.html

Seems like lots of turnover that the Epicenter recently, is it just lease expiration time or are their bigger issues?

 

I know Enso did really well in the beginning years.  Large private/corporate events, Hosted CNN's production crew during the DNC, and really the only upscale Sushi spot Uptown.  In recent years, I just think profits were slowly declining, while expenses were rising.  Talked to the GM a few times and he told me the rent there was outrageous.  The owners own multiple restaurants in Charlotte (Essex) and Myrtle beach and I think they just wanted to not renew and focus their resources on other ventures.  I have no doubt they will come up with another concept Uptown though.  I know there are sushi joints popping up everywhere it seems, but Enso was a nice upscale kind of place that uptown no longer has.  EMZY, Room 112, Red Ginger, Fujo, Hasaki are the only sushi places left (I don't count K.O sushi or Bonsai).  None of those are at the level of Enso, Nikko, CO, O-Ku, Baku, etc.  

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