Dive bars of the southern outer Charlotte metro area

Don’t judge.

It is unfortunate that all of Charlotte can’t live in the hip parts of Uptown. Most of us poor suckers live out in the suburbs and commute up Independence, or Monroe, or Providence, and don’t have the same easy, unfettered access to NoDa or South End or Dilworth, or whereever else Axios Charlotte reports on these days. Us poor suckers have Matthews, and Stallings, and Indian Trail, and Waxhaw, and along with them… long commutes, and yards and kids and leaf blowers. We are 40 with mortgages and minivans.

So when my wife settles in to watch Downton Abbey, I find myself out with my fellow outliers at some of the best places in the outer metro area — places like John’s Place, The Stuffed Olive, Picadeli’s or The Friendly Moose. Places in strip malls, places oddly attached to an Italian restaurant, or in an old house beside a Burger King and across from a McDonalds. Places where you can’t really take your kids, but you really want to so they can see a slightly different side of life. Places where they serve you a Bud Light with a straight face.

Just what is a dive bar? The Supreme Court famously ruled once that “you know a dive bar when you see one.” My friend Jeff said the same thing, sort of, so off we went to try out a few. Requirements: (1) They must serve Bud Light un-ironically. (2) You should be able to order a basket of fries. (3) The bathrooms should be sketchy, but not too sketchy: Think average gas station bathroom on I-77 South between here and Columbia. (4) The floor should be clean and the bar should be wide and the bartender should be just snarky enough to make you want to come back.

The Stuffed Olive

The Stuffed Olive is in a strip mall next to a Mexican restaurant and across from a Food Lion in Waxhaw. Get on Providence Road and drive south for 8 or 10 hours from Uptown and you’ll run right into the Stuffed Olive. They have blue rope light around a corner stage that no one ever sings at (at least on Tuesday nights), some sort of Jägermeister dispensing contraption, and an averagely clean men’s bathroom. They do have Bud Light on draft, but the first two times I went, they were actually out of Bud Light draft. No really…the Bud Light keg was empty two weeks in a row. They either sell a ton of Bud Light, or the don’t sell enough to keep it in stock. I got one on the third try, and my, was it fine. They have a big outdoor patio, but really you should sit at a high top table across from the bar and watch baseball highlights on one of the couple of TV’s. I watched the Cubs beat the Pirates here this year with no Bud Light. I also watched them get waxed by the Mets with Bud Light… maybe the Bud Light was the culprit. Or the goat.

Address: 1201 N Broome Street, Waxhaw
Sanitation Grade: 94.5
Bud Light Draft: $3.25
Basket of Fries: $3
Arbitrary Bathroom Cleanliness Rating (scale of 1-10): 6
Arbitrary Dive Bar Rating (scale of 1-10): 7

John’s Place

I include John’s Place only because it used to be a dive bar. It used to be tucked between an Italian restaurant and a karate place in a strip mall next to a Goodwill in Matthews. It used to be about six paces wide (including the bar) and 15 paces deep. It used to be gritty and tight and felt like a neighborhood bar in Chicago. I say ‘used to be‘ because that Italian place it used to be next to decided to build a nice shiny new stand-alone building a couple miles down the road in a corn field, and take John’s Place with it. They took the giant bar back, and the chipped pint glasses and the framed picture of Yogi Berra, but left the dive behind. Still my go-to bar because, really, the people make the place, and the people moved along with the framed picture of Yogi Berra, but I do wish they had never moved. On the upside, it is just down the street from my house, and just down the street from my friend Jeff’s house so we can meet in the middle. My friend Jeff ordered some NoDa Red craft beer something or other, and I ordered a Miller Light. Basket of fries came on a plate.

Address: 2945 Matthews Weddington Road, Matthews
Sanitation Grade: 95.5
Miller Light Draft: $3
Basket of Fries: $3.50
Arbitrary Bathroom Cleanliness Rating (scale of 1-10): 8
Arbitrary Dive Rating (scale of 1-10): 2

Picadeli’s

Picadeli’s is located in a strip mall next to a paint store, down from a tattoo place, across from another paint store, next to a tire store, just off of Independence Blvd on the outskirts of Matthews. From Uptown, take I-277 and get on Independence Boulevard. Drive for 8 to 10 hours past the construction traffic, the Walmart traffic, and the Earth Angel traffic and you’ll run right into it. Picadeli’s is a deli/bar that models itself after the most excellent 80’s hairdo. I’ll go ahead and say it: Picadeli’s is the mullet of dive bars — business in the front (the deli part) and party in the back (the bar part). Oh, but what a mullet it is, feathered and primped, and gorgeous. My friend Drew and I sat at the bar, part of the post-work recovery group, and reveled in the mullet. People of all ages seemed to be attracted by the neon sign on the front of the building, and the bartender didn’t blink an eye at both the Budweiser and the Bud Light that I ordered rapid-fire back-to-back. My friend Drew ordered some local craft beer called “The Baby Maker,” and the plaid shirt next to him at the bar seemed to approve. The bathroom was average, the fries top shelf, and the cheap beer served with no question.

Address: 1600 Matthews Mint Hill Road, Suite A, Matthews
Sanitation Grade: 98.5
Bud Light Draft: $3
Basket of Fries: $4
Arbitrary Bathroom Cleanliness Rating (scale of 1-10): 3.5
Arbitrary Dive Bar Rating (scale of 1-10): 9

The Friendly Moose

The Friendly Moose’s address is Matthews, but it really is in Stallings. Take I-277 to Independence, or maybe the outer loop 485 and take the John’s Street exit… and meander around until you find the giant Asian Market. It’s somewhere near there, next to the Burger King. Actually, I can’t tell you exactly how to get here, but it’s worth it once you find it.

The Friendly Moose is a place I’m still trying to figure out — it seems to be an old ranch house that someone has transformed into some odd sort of restaurant. I think that the bar is in a bedroom, the dining area is in the den, and the hostess area is in the foyer by the front door. Everyone here knows everyone else, and I’m obviously the weird guy, sitting in the corner pecking away at my computer (this, by the way, is not unusual). It’s 8 o’clock on a Thursday and people are rolling in, calling each other by name as they walk through the door — this is a good crowd. The bartender calls me sweetie and serves me Bud Light in a Mason jar. Not a plastic one like at a Charlotte Knights game, but a real honest-to-goodness glass jar with a screw top — and the TV in the corner scrolls through pictures of all things…breakfast platters. They serve breakfast here at the Friendly Moose. They have a huge patio in the back with some live music, and a TV sitting on the hearth in the den fireplace with a video of a fire in a fireplace on it.  The Friendly Moose is a place that you must visit.

Address: 4320 Potters Road, Matthews
Sanitation Grade: 97.0
Bud Light Draft: $2.50
Basket of Fries: $3
Arbitrary Bathroom Cleanliness Rating (scale of 1-10): 9
Arbitrary Dive Bar Rating (scale of 1-10): 6

Alright, so there’s a quick tour of a few good dives in the Southern Outer Charlotte Metro Area. These are good places, with good people, that serve good food.

Uptowners: On the off-hand chance that one of your poor sucker suburbanite co-workers invites you to dinner in their house full of kids and their yard full of leaves, way out here in Matthews, or Waxhaw, or Stallings, make sure that you accept the invite. Eat the baked chicken casserole, make the small talk of yard work and private school, and window replacement, and then use this post as a guide to recovery on your way back home.

Locals: See you on Tuesday at John’s Place.

(Photo credit: Cover image via The Friendly Moose Facebook page)