Food and Drink

These 2 Charlotte restaurants announced openings this week. Here’s what to know

Happy Friday, Charlotte! It’s Tanasia here with the latest on the metro’s ever-evolving food and drink scene.

I like my Friday mornings slow and easy — with someone else in charge of breakfast. Thankfully today is National Donut Day, so I grabbed my usual sour cream doughnut from Dunkin’ (be kind to me, Krispy Kreme fans).

You won’t find the deliciously sweet pastries at Concord’s newest all-day breakfast spot, but there are plenty of classics to choose from. Bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches, for instance.

Read on for more recent and upcoming restaurant openings in and around Charlotte:

Dank Bowls

Dank Bowls is a meal prep business at its core. Now, the Charlotte-based brand is bringing its hearty protein bowls to uptown.

The eatery opened Tuesday, June 2, inside Knowledge Perk Coffee Company at The Alley at Latta Arcade.

At Dank Bowls, you’ll find a rotating menu of hot-and-ready bowls made with fresh, whole ingredients. You can also snag one of their frozen dinners for later in the week, owner Daniel Richtand told me in a recent interview.

A directly overhead view displays a white bowl of shredded turkey and wild rice resting centrally on a wooden board. The dish is garnished with a sage leaf, rosemary, and dried cranberries, flanked by gold utensils on the left and fresh herbs on the right. A glass jar filled with uncooked wild rice sits in the top right corner against the black marbled background.
Dank Bowl’s “Danksgivng” meal is made with wild rice, turkey, celery, onion, rosemary, sage and cranberries. Dank Bowls | Daniel Richtand

“Customers can expect hearty portions, ancient grains and legumes they may have never heard of, and meals that taste home-cooked because we don’t use preservatives or artificial additives,” he said.

Every bowl comes with two toppings of your choice, plus Dank Bowls’ signature “CLG-1” sauce: Greek yogurt, cilantro, lime and garlic.

Wake Up & Eat - Concord

There’s nothing I love more than a breakfast sandwich: crispy bacon, cheese and scrambled eggs — preferably on a croissant, but I’ll take it on a biscuit, too.

You’ll find classic breakfast and more at Wake Up & Eat, which is set to open its second location in Concord on Monday, June 8. The family-run eatery also operates in nearby Harrisburg and previously had a spot in Charlotte’s University City area.

A plate of chicken and waffles is presented in a close-up, appetizing view. Three crispy, golden-fried chicken tenders are stacked neatly on top of a fluffy, Belgian-style waffle. The entire dish is lightly dusted with a fine layer of powdered sugar.
The chicken and waffles at Wake Up & Eat are a crowd favorite. Jenny Fuentes

“One of the items we’re most known for is our bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich,” co-owner Jenny Fuentes told me. “As New Yorkers, that’s a breakfast staple, and it was important to us to bring that authentic experience to North Carolina and share a taste of what we grew up eating.”

Expect omelettes, pancakes and lemon blueberry French Toast, plus classic lunch offerings. Think: bacon cheeseburgers and pastrami melts. Yum.

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Tanasia Kenney
Sun Herald
Tanasia is a service journalism reporter at the Charlotte Observer | CharlotteFive, working remotely from Atlanta, Georgia. She covers restaurant openings/closings in Charlotte and statewide explainers for the NC Service Journalism team. She’s been with McClatchy since 2020.
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