Road to popular Lake Norman BBQ restaurant to close for months, NCDOT says
A road near a popular longtime Lake Norman barbecue restaurant will close for months, as a national builder realigns an intersection for hundreds of new homes, N.C. Department of Transportation officials said Thursday.
Managers at Lancaster’s BBQ & Wings said they were shocked to learn about the closure from a Charlotte Observer reporter who visited the restaurant a couple of hours after the state’s announcement.
The closure is scheduled to begin on Monday and last until early spring, according to an NCDOT news release Thursday.
Land clearing at the 123-acre Cambrey Pointe community proceeded full bore Thursday across narrow, two-lane Rinehardt Road from the restaurant.
Construction workers held “Stop” and “Slow” signs to let large construction trucks into and out of the site. The piercing sound of drills replaced the typical quiet along the former country road.
Realigned intersection, entrance at N.C. 150
The N.C. Department of Transportation is requiring M/I Homes of Charlotte to realign the intersection of Rinehardt Road and N.C. 150 to ease bottlenecks from cars in the development, according to the NCDOT news release.
An entrance road to the development also has been carved to N.C. 150, near where Rinehardt Road intersects a congested four-lane stretch of the highway. Plastic road markers blocked the entrance Thursday.
Cambrey Pointe will include 201 single-family homes and 112 townhomes, The Charlotte Observer previously reported. Sales are expected to start in 2026.
“Mooresville continues to be a good growth area for the Charlotte suburbs,” George Schulmeyer, the area president for M/I Homes, said in the Observer article published in January. “It is still close enough for people who commute to jobs in Charlotte … We want to create a little bit of a destination, so when you go to this neighborhood, you might not have to leave all weekend.”
In September 2024, M/I Homes bought the 123 acres for the new community near Selma Berke Middle School for nearly $12.9 million, the Observer reported, citing Iredell County records.
Thursday, NCDOT officials said the developer must build an extension road that will meet N.C. 150 at a 90-degree angle. The new alignment should improve “safety and sight distance for drivers,” officials said.
Rinehardt Road to close from Lansing Circle to N.C. 150
To complete the new road, the developer must close Rinehardt Road from Lansing Circle to N.C. 150, highway officials said. That’s so the grade of the existing road can be lowered to meet the extension road,” according to NCDOT.
A signed detour will lead drivers around the closure using N.C. 115. Rinehardt Road intersects N.C. 115 northeast of Lancaster’s.
Managers at Lancaster’s worried the closure will affect business, but said only the owners of the restaurant could comment. The Observer did not hear back from the owners later Thursday.