A popular Charlotte restaurant, Leah & Louise, is set to have a new home soon.
Greg and Subrina Collier, who own BayHaven Restaurant Group — which includes the BayHaven Food & Wine Festival plus restaurants Leah & Louise, Uptown Yolk and the forthcoming 3rd and Fernwood — plan to close the Camp North End restaurant and move it to the West End.
Greg Collier told QCity Metro that bringing Leah & Louise to Charlotte’s west side has been “in the works for a while,” and the restauranteur couple is excited to see it happening.
Collier, who spoke exclusively to QCity Metro on Monday, shared that the project details — including a pending lease at an undisclosed West End address — are still taking shape.
The lease, he said, should be finalized in the coming weeks. Still, the vision to open on the west side is part of a larger plan that the Colliers have to support revitalization on the city’s west side.
Beatties Ford Road’s ‘reemergence’
“It’s not just about taking our restaurant to the West End, but we’re taking one of the city’s top restaurants to the West End,” Collier said. “It’s not just about us. [Leah & Louise has] been mentioned on national restaurant lists, so it’s about what that means…what bringing that kind of restaurant to the West End means for the west side.”
Collier said he and his wife, who live in the West End, hope the move will be another signal of positive development in the area that he called “the reemergence of Beatties Ford Road.”
He noted the heritage of the Beatties Road Ford corridor and the history of Black-owned businesses in the area as motivation for seeing it thrive again.
Leah & Louise’s move would join a list of many Black-owned businesses recently attracted to the area, like Archive CLT, which has become a staple coffee shop in the community since it opened in August 2022; Mackins Bridal Boutique, a dress shop that opened in February 2023; a dry-cleaning company that opened in October 2023 called 704 Cleaners; and the second location of Pauline’s Tea Bar Apothecary that opened earlier this year at Thrive Hub, a a multi-use commercial space for local businesses, on Beatties Ford Road.
Few changes, more inclusion
The new space, Collier said, will be larger but will keep much of its original essence, including the signature playlist.
However, the couple plans to make a few changes, like tweaks to the menu, eventually offering live music and expanding to-go options.
“Leah & Louise is a modern-day juke joint…but we never got to the ‘juke joint’ [music] part, so we hope to be able to do that at the new spot,” Collier said.
The menu won’t stray too far from its current selections but will offer small plate options and more carryout-friendly options, including weekly family-style meals.
“It’s a lot of families on the west side, and we know families need convenience, so we really want to make sure we offer [dishes] that will work for them,” he told QCity Metro.
He also said he and his wife plan to cater some menu options to the community’s needs, making the restaurant a “more inclusive experience.”
When asked what the move means, Collier said, “I don’t think the magnitude of being [on the west side] can even be quantified.”
Collier said the restaurant could open as early as the end of the year, pending construction timelines of the new space.
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