Starting Friday, new Camp North End spot Leah & Louise to offer pick-up and delivery
Editor’s note: Leah & Louise’s new public grand opening date for its dining room is TBD, but it announced via Instagram that it will offer curbside pick-up and delivery via Postmates and Uber Eats starting 5 p.m. March 20.
“While we are so disappointed to not be able to welcome the public inside Leah & Louise as planned this week, the health and safety of our employees and the public is a priority,” chef Greg Collier said in an earlier statement. “We’re not in this alone — it’s scary and uncertain for everyone right now, not just small business owners,” he said. “But we’re doing what we can to make sure we’re straight, to make sure our employees are taken care of, and we’ll go from there.”
Get ready, Camp North End. The new Leah & Louise restaurant is opening on March 20, and it’s everything you hoped it would be.
With the dream team Greg and Subrina Collier behind the Memphis-style modern juke-joint-themed restaurant serving Southern food (by way of the Mississippi River), you already knew you’d be in for a treat.
One step into the cozy, comfortable space and you’ll feel a little like you’re at your grandparents’ house (but you can sit on the fancy furniture), a little like you’re at a backyard shack for you and your buddies to hang, and a little like you’re a guest at an exclusive event in Memphis, Tennessee.
You’re at home here.
“We wanted something reminiscent of home,” Subrina said — she and Greg were born and raised in Memphis. “We’ve been doing that since we got here (to Charlotte). We want to add to the melting pot.
“I coined it modern juke, short for juke joint,” Subrina said.
“I’m not going with that for the food,” Greg said.
“He’s not going with that for the food,” she repeated with a smile.
“The food is Southern by way of the Mississippi River,” he said. “All of the inspiration is Delta/South-based. Memphis to New Orleans to Northern Louisiana to Mississippi. We’re trying to bring deep Southern cuisine into 2020.”
Leah & Louise: The interior
Subrina’s pallet wall is the first thing you’ll see, and it makes just the right statement above an intricate mirror. The mirror is placed so you can always see the entire restaurant — no missing the action here, even if you’re facing the wall.
Notice the church pews along the back. Also Subrina’s design, thoughtfully curated — a juke joint plays blues music, and blues music is derived from gospel music, she explained. (Plus, this is the South so a lot of people are at home among church pews, she said). The red and yellow pillows nestled between each table on the pews also have their purpose. If you have short arms, slide one behind you while you eat. If you have long arms, leave them to the side — they make a great holding spot for your purse.
A little early for your reservation? There are two couches just for you. There’s a pink one right behind the host stand, making a statement with its velvety texture and wooden framing. There’s a gold one to the left of the door with the same material. A side table with a living room-style lamp adds to the cozy feel.
“This is Grandma’s house, except at Grandma’s house, you couldn’t sit on the fancy furniture. Here, you can hang your coat on the coat rack, sit on the furniture and charge your phone while you wait for your seat,” Subrina said.
Notice that the tin bar is actually made of tile (you practically have to touch it to even know the difference, it’s so realistic) and the thoughtfully selected denim half walls in the bathroom are actually tile, too.
And even among all these detailed elements, once you sit down to eat, it’ll just be you, the experience, the company you keep — and the food in front of you.
JUKE JOINT ON BEALE STREET
If you’ve visited Beale Street in Memphis, Greg said you have a decent idea of what the restaurant’s vibe will be.
“You’re gonna walk in the restaurant, you’re gonna be in Memphis. You’re gonna eat and you’re gonna walk back out, you’re gonna be at Camp North End, then you’re gonna leave Camp North End, you’ll be in Charlotte. I don’t feel like I’m in Charlotte right now,” he told CharlotteFive last year, when the adaptive reuse space was still just a shell of a restaurant, ready for a vision realized. “This feels like a whole other area of the country, this is like Pittsburgh or New York or something — something different.”
“People who haven’t been to juke joints can experience that here,” Subrina said. Juke joints were created as black-owned clubs in the Southeast during the Jim Crow era. They were known as eating and drinking establishments full of music and dancing.
When you walk into Leah & Louise, you’ll hear the blues — “actual sad blues, not this upbeat, happy blues,” he said. “Blues blues — broke, poor, just got off the farm, sharecropper blues. It’s going to be so fun.”
Leah & Louise: The food
Leah & Louise will feature foods from The Colliers’ hometown of Memphis. “It’s going to be Southern food the way we like to do Southern food, but from a Memphis/Mississippi River Valley perspective (rather) than a Carolinian perspective,” Greg Collier told CharlotteFive over the summer. “The team we’re putting together is going to be all about creating a different experience.”
But whatever you do, don’t call it soul food. “There’s this misconception that if you see a black chef, you automatically assume it’s soul food,” Subrina said. Asian chefs, Latin chefs face the same stereotypes, she said: Just because a chef is Asian does not mean he/she has to cook Asian food, and just because a chef is Latin doesn’t mean he/she is cooking Latin food.
“A lot of people box chefs in,” she said. But you know who doesn’t get stereotyped? White chefs. “When people meet white chefs, they say, ‘Oh, what are you cooking?’”
What’s on the menu
CharlotteFive was invited to stop in and try a few menu items earlier this week. Here’s a look at what we sampled:
(1) Gourdgeous — Squash soup, smoked pecan buttermilk, pickled pepper seed vin, apple. $8
(2) Dirty Grits – Slow roasted corn grits, trinity, smoked mushrooms, time. $7
(3) Momma nem — Sweet potato yassa, yellow raisin sofrito, spiced pepitas. $8
(4) South(far)East – Turkey wing, sorghum chile, turnip, smoked peanut, sweet potato rouille. $12
(5) wit’ cheese — Beef patty, pickles, cheddar fondue, lettuce, G.T.M sauce, brioche w/chip. $12
(6) River Chips - Chicken skins, Voodoo chip style, Granch. $6
(7) Arthur Lou – Tang tart, oatmeal crust, ginger meringue, dried and fresh fruit. $8
(8) Farro Cookie – Smoked pumpkin, white chocolate. $6
Greg said he’s most excited about the catfish soup, grits and chicken skins on the menu. “Everyone should have the chicken skins,” he said. “They are a little different but not crazy different — very Memphis in thought and very modern.”
Full disclaimer: I don’t eat meat, so I didn’t try the chicken skins, burger or turkey. So for what it’s worth, my favorite dish was the Dirty Grits. I was pleasantly surprised to learn these were vegetarian — if I hadn’t heard it from the Colliers themselves, I wouldn’t have believed it. “Come to think of it, there are a lot of vegetarian menu items,” Greg told me. “Hang on, I gotta go add more meat to the menu,” he said, his famous grin spreading across his face.
The Colliers have a long history with good grits. While the grits at Uptown Yolk are not vegetarian, they are also special: Greg prepares them there the same way his grandmother did, with a hambone stock. “When I went to culinary school, I wanted to pay homage and show love to my granny,” he told CharlotteFive last year when we visited Uptown Yolk before it opened.
Greg’s grandmother remains part of Leah & Louise, too, starting with the name. The restaurant will be named after Greg’s late sister and grandmother. His sister passed away five years ago and his grandmother a couple of years before that. They were taken too soon, he previously told CharlotteFive.
‘Tis the season to open a restaurant
Speaking of Yolk, Leah & Louise will open almost exactly 8 years to the day that the Colliers opened The Yolk in Rock Hill (which was renamed Uptown Yolk when it moved to 7th Street Public Market last year). “This is our season,” Subrina said. “It’s been a journey. I wouldn’t do it any other way. There’s a freedom to owning a restaurant, and it’s always hard.
“We’ve been training for the playoffs for a while. The Beard thing (Greg was recently nominated for the second consecutive year for a James Beard), this restaurant — now we are in the Super Bowl.”
This will be the first dinner restaurant for the couple, which somehow feels just right being the first restaurant at Camp North End. “They gave us a blank canvas at Camp North End. They trusted our vision. A lot of people aren’t going to let you do that.”
There are several reasons the couple was drawn to Camp North End, Subrina told us last summer. “Camp North End is one of the few spaces I see in Charlotte that took effort to make the space very diverse. You have different people, different ethnicities, different jobs,” she said.
“You have this little community of people that we’re building. Now, it’s scary to come in here at the beginning — it’s so new, you’re being the pioneer. But I’m excited about it, and the space is beautiful.”
LEAH & LOUISE
301 Camp Road, Suite 101
Note: The restaurant is cashless, so bring your card, your Apple Pay or your first born. Just kidding about the first born.
Open Wednesday-Sunday, 5-10 p.m.. The restaurant will serve dinner only at first and then later expand hours to include Sunday supper and lunch hours.
The restaurant seats 42 indoors and 16 outside on its sidewalk cafe. Get reservations via Resy.
This story was originally published March 12, 2020 at 12:15 AM.
