Sneak peek: 13 photos of the new Amelie’s coming soon to uptown

If you drive up Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard toward College Street you’ll see the sign for Amelie’s French Bakery.

The beloved Charlotte bakery will return to uptown this fall, with an expected opening date Dec. 1.

[Related: Get inside the new uptown Amelie’s before it opens at this C5 Underground event Tuesday!]

I got a chance to take a look inside of the massive new location Monday afternoon and got a tour from managing partners Brenda Ische (who also designed the interior) and Bruce Willette.

First, some facts:

– The uptown location, in the Two Wells Fargo building, is about 11,300 square feet. To compare, the NoDa location is about 6,000 square feet.

– It will serve pastries and coffee (of course), breakfast, lunch, dinner, and beer and wine. It will also house a production kitchen, which you can see through huge windows near the entrance. “I want it to be entertainment,” Ische said.

– At first, it will be open from 6 a.m.-midnight through the week and 6 a.m.-2 a.m. Friday and Saturday. Eventually Willette plans to have it open 24 hours on the weekends.

– The location has previously been a cafeteria and a parking deck. If you look closely, you can still see bits of paint from parking space lines on the floor near the door.

– This will be Amelie’s fifth location, with others in NoDa, south Charlotte, Rock Hill and Atlanta.

Now let’s take a look around.

Like with other locations, Ische designed the interior of the new space. Most of the furnishings come from local Habitat for Humanity Restores. When she’s shopping, she looks for unique and unusual pieces to buy and build spaces around.

“Whatever you see, she’s in charge of,” Willett said.

With the uptown location, Ische had to deal with a space that had several different levels and disjointed rooms because of its history as a parking deck. She also had fewer walls to hang things on since many of them are made of glass.

But she said the Carmel Commons location was more of a challenge because it was just a box. “I need nooks and crannies to make it cozy,” she said.

To help with the the lunchtime/snacktime rush, Willette said the restaurant will have multiple registers: one for pastries, one for sandwiches and soups, one for coffee, and one for beer and wine.

There are some other decorative surprises in store for customers when the uptown Amelie’s opens, but Ische didn’t want me to share them just yet. You’ll just have to go and see.

Photos: Corey Inscoe

This story was originally published November 3, 2015 at 12:01 AM with the headline "Sneak peek: 13 photos of the new Amelie’s coming soon to uptown."