SouthPark or South End, DaBaby's new spot and a NoDa deli debut
Monday’s CharlotteFive newsletter is loaded — a SouthPark deep-dive, a sugar-coma birthday experiment, a brand new NoDa walk-up window, DaBaby’s restaurant sign finally going up and a verdict on one of Charlotte’s buzziest new cafés. Here’s the rundown. 👇
🍸🛍️ Is SouthPark the new “grown-up” South End?
Heidi heard a line at a recent food event that wouldn’t leave her alone: “SouthPark is like South End for grown-ups.” After thinking it over, she leaned in. South End still owns the rooftop-bar, see-and-be-seen crowd, but SouthPark is quietly stacking luxury shopping, gourmet dining and cultural experiences in a way that hits different once you’ve outgrown $4 shots and 2 a.m. pizza slices. ✨
The neighborhood even has a free car service — the SouthPark Skipper — that ferries about 5,000 passengers a month. 🚗 You can hit Steak 48 for A5 Kobe, share crudo at Peppervine (yes, the spot that hosted the “Top Chef” Season 23 finale 👨🍳), then walk into RH Rooftop for $55 chips and dip with caviar. “There are very few places where you can go get great dinner, go to an art gallery, go to church, go to the grocery store, go shopping,” said Maddie Chase of SouthPark Community Partners. Oh, and the parking? Free. 🅿️
🎂🍰🍭 Evan ate 11 days of sugar in 3 hours — for $3
Turning 31 hits different when you decide to weaponize every birthday freebie in the city. Evan made the rounds — Starbucks for a trenta salted caramel cream cold brew, Baskin-Robbins for chocolate chip cheesecake, Culver’s for vanilla custard with sprinkles (which required a nearly $3 apple juice purchase 🧃), Nothing Bundt Cakes for a red velvet bundtlet, 7-Eleven for a Slurpee mash-up and Publix for a bar cake that turned out to be roughly four times bigger than expected. 🎉
The damage? Roughly 3,500 calories, 530 grams of carbs and about 400 grams of sugar in three hours. For context, the American Heart Association recommends no more than 36 grams of added sugar per day for men — so Evan packed about 11 days’ worth into one afternoon. “Free is the best price, but I had no idea what I was getting myself into,” he writes. “I may sleep for a couple of days after this.”
😴 👉 Read the full freebie tour here
🥪🍦 Olivelli Deli opens this week in NoDa
NoDa’s getting a walk-up window glow-up, Tanasia reports. Olivelli Deli debuts Wednesday, July 1 at the corner of 35th and North Davidson — yes, the old Reigning Doughnuts spot, which closed in February. It’s the latest from the Tonidandel-Brown Restaurant Group (the team behind Supperland, Haberdish, Leluia Hall and Growlers Pour House), and it’s slinging Italian sandwiches on housemade benne seed rolls plus fresh soft serve in chocolate, vanilla and swirl. 🍨
“We’re excited to serve the NoDa neighborhood in a new way,” owner Jamie Brown said in a news release. “Olivelli Deli is all about delicious food made with exceptional ingredients, from our housemade benne seed rolls to our fresh-made soft serve.” Breakfast sandwiches go from 8-11 a.m., with lunch and dinner running 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Tuesday-Sunday.
📍 3120 N Davidson St STE 100, Charlotte
🧇🐔 DaBaby’s chicken and waffles spot — the sign is up
It’s officially happening. Charlotte rapper DaBaby is opening No Knife Chicken & Waffles, Joe reports, and as of Saturday all the signs are up at the new spot. “New Landmark Just Landed in the City!” he told his 19.5 million Instagram followers Thursday night with a music video showing a worker on a lift next to the towering new sign. 🎤
“‘No knife’ is my alter-ego when I’m in the kitchen,” DaBaby — real name Jonathan Kirk — said recently on Queen City News’ “Positively Charlotte” show.
“No Knife Chicken & Waffles, brought to you exclusively by me.” It’s his first franchise location, with hours running 7 a.m. to 4 a.m. daily except Mondays — yes, that includes a 4 a.m. closing time, which is very much built for the post-club crowd.
🌙 An opening date hasn’t been announced yet.
🎧☕ Eva tried Audire — one of Charlotte’s 10 hottest restaurants
Audire — Latin for “to listen” — is a new listening café near NoDa that landed on CharlotteFive’s June list of the 10 hottest restaurants in town. Eva went in with $25 and a craving for something old-school. 💿 The cozy, orange-painted space sits near the Independent Picture House and comes with a collection of records and two record players with headphones. On her visit? The Best of Gladys Knight and the Pips was already cued up on the table.
She ordered an iced ginger latte (with the café’s new ginger syrup), a spinach and feta pastry and a chocolate croissant — total damage $23.54 with a 20% tip. The pastries come from Copain, a local boulangerie. Her verdict: the ginger latte is a “convert” and the vibe is the real star — leather chairs, plants above the bar, a glittery painting on the back wall adding “a touch of disco.”
🪩 📍 4090 Raleigh St #143, Charlotte
💬 Quote of the day
“Jeff Chamer giving us the news we need ❤️” — Kayla Huynh via Instagram, about the neighborhoods with the most Pride in Charlotte. 🏳️🌈
📚 A few more reads worth your time
- 🍔 Brooks Sandwich House will be closed July 2-12 for annual vacation.
- 🫂 How you can help Venezuela’s earthquake survivors.
- 👯 Axios Charlotte has a guide to making friends in Charlotte.
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This is the kind of stuff CharlotteFive drops every single day — new openings, hot lists, food adventures and the occasional sugar-coma confession. ☕ Sign up for the free CharlotteFive newsletter and never miss a Charlotte food story. Follow along @cltfive on Instagram, Threads and TikTok, plus @charlottefive.com on Bluesky. 📱
This report was produced with the assistance of a proprietary tool powered by artificial intelligence and using our own originally reported, written and published content. It was reviewed and edited by our journalists. To learn more about how The Charlotte Observer is using AI in our newsroom, see our policy here.