The list of Charlotte restaurants that have closed since March 2020 is as long as a Cheesecake Factory menu. Beloved institutions like Price’s Chicken Coop, Mr. K’s and Bill Spoon’s Barbecue locked their doors, as did newer/trendier places like La Belle Helene, the Summit Room and Zeppelin.

But guess what list is even longer? Places that opened, sometimes in spaces that had just closed.

La Belle Helene is now owned by 5Church, with “Top Chef” Jamie Lynch in the kitchen. South End’s Zeppelin is about to become PARA, with Paul Verica’s son Alex Verica at the helm. And Halcyon at the Mint Museum uptown is being replaced by the global-influenced Mariposa.

No one wants to downplay the horrors of 18 months of total and partial lockdowns that have devastated restaurants in Charlotte and way, way beyond. And no one should discount the quick changes and creative adaptations it took to keep restaurants operating at all, even when no one could come inside or dining rooms had to be cleared of half the tables.

Yet, somehow, Charlotte’s dining scene not only expanded but it may have gotten itself into a better position for the day—hurry up, day!—when pandemic restrictions are lifted and the masks can come off.

“I have been very surprised by how much it has not stopped,” says Rachel Sutherland. The owner of Rachel Sutherland Communications, she mostly works with restaurants and food-related businesses. Even her own results since March 2020 surprised her: she was just aiming to break even, but her business actually increased year over year.

“We’re very attractive as a market,” she says. “All the early work our culinarians put into develop a food scene is paying off. I feel a lot more confident now in their story-telling through food than we were a couple of years ago.

“Charlotte is very much coming into its own.”

Now, it’s true that many of the projects that opened during the shutdown were under way long before anyone had even heard of COVID-19. Supperland, from Haberdish owners Jeff Tonidandel and Jamie Brown, was well into renovations and menu development. Paul Verica, the chef-owner of The Stanley, was on a food research trip through Italy for his new NoDa bistro Orto when the sudden emergence of COVID-19 shut down international travel.

And of course, Leah & Louise, from Greg and Subrina Collier, was scheduled to open the day that N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper announced that restaurants would have to go to take-out only. They still managed to get national acclaim.

Plenty of others, though, actually started new projects amid the chaos.

Frank Scibelli, the powerhouse owner of FS Food Group, whose canny restaurant concepts—from Mama Ricotta’s to Yafo Kitchen and Midwood Smokehouse—dominate mid-range dining in Charlotte, managed to open two new spots in 2020 and 2021, Little Mama’s in SouthPark and Calle Sol in the old N.C. Red/Penguin space. He’s already working on a new Midwood Smokehouse restaurant in Raleigh and another, Amma’s, next door to Mama Ricotta’s in Charlotte, that he hopes to open by the end of the year.

Frank Scibelli of FS Food Group managed to open two new Charlotte restaurants in 2020 and 2021 (Rémy Thurston)

“We have a very resilient team,” he says. “To-go was always part of what we did, but how do you go from take-out being 10 percent of sales to 100 percent? Everybody got incredibly creative.” One thing he did: providing bulk orders at a lower cost for healthcare workers and first responders. Those kinds of things helped pay the bills, so he could afford to keep his staff. And that allowed his business to keep moving forward.

What does he imagine six months from now? The lessons they’ve already learned will keep paying off, he says. “If we assume a similar trajectory or a less restrictive trajectory than the first go-round, we’ll be working.”

Callie Langhorne, whose marketing company represents FS Food Group, among others, says it’s impossible to predict trends at this point. But she thinks Charlotte diners are waking up to wanting a dining adventure again. High-end experiences, like Sam Hart’s experimental menus at Counter- or pricier places like Peppervine in SouthPark are doing well, despite the difficulties.

“People are appreciating that culinary experience, that feel of ‘hey, I want an adventure, I want an experience.’” Some restaurants are using the slower pace to develop things to present when the world takes off again. She cites FS Group pastry chef Anika Rucker, who’s coming up with “twists” and “mini-splurges” for all the Scibelli menus. “Customers are already responding to that”, Langhorne says.

One way the pandemic has improved the restaurant scene in Charlotte has nothing to do with what goes on in the kitchens. Instead, it’s a matter of real estate.

In the decade between the 2010 financial recovery and the 2020 quarantine, one of the biggest issues for Charlotte restaurants was simply finding a place to open. Available real estate had become as rare as Wagyu beef, while rents hit the stratosphere. Some of the beloved Charlotte institutions that closed last year, like Mr. K’s, were simply cashing in on land that had become too valuable to sit on.

Aaron Ligon, who works with a lot of current and future restaurateurs as co-founder of Ascent Real Estate Partners, says the big change afoot is in what the industry calls “first generation” and “second generation” restaurant buildings. First-generation buildings are new construction, and they’re very expensive, from zoning to permits to outfitting kitchens.

Aaron Ligon, co-founder of Ascent Real Estate Partners, sees big opportunity in “second generation” restaurant buildings (Aaron Ligon)

Second-generation locations are existing buildings that already held restaurants. Even if you have to refit kitchens and upgrade dining rooms, they’re often much more cost effective—so much so that it’s paying off for restaurant owners to grab them now and hang on until customers can return in full.

“Second generation spaces are relatively fast, convenient—there were a lot of them after the economic crash,” he says. “But from 2015 to 2020, those didn’t exist. They were all occupied.”

Restaurant shutdowns, as sad as they are, also create new opportunities. And that might bring an even bigger explosion of new places in 2022.

“Most people in the (food) industry are inherently risk takers,” Ligon says. “Those people have been taking those restaurant spaces. Those spaces had become harder to find and harder to build. Just constructing a restaurant had gotten much harder over the last few years in Charlotte. Those costs had gotten really high.”

For now, he’s seeing changes in what clients want.

“People are getting a little leaner in how they use their space. Flexible outdoor seating and that kind of thing.” He also sees more interest in neighborhood locations, rather than the “it’s got to be uptown” thinking that had previously been driving so much restaurant development. That means smaller, friendlier places in urban neighborhoods like Plaza-Midwood and Elizabeth, and a lot more focus on outlying suburban areas like Pineville and Concord.

“We do think uptown is coming back, but in the meantime, the suburban in-fill type development is going to continue.”

Of course, not all second-generation spaces are simple to open. Jamie Barnes found that out when he and Greg Williams, his partner in the What the Fries food truck, grabbed an old CiCi’s Pizza to open their first brick-and-mortar this spring. They had to do plenty of repairs, including installing a new hood system.

“It was a little more than we thought it would be,” he admits. But the learning experience should pay off: “In our next restaurant, we know what to look for.” They’re already scouting for a second space, possibly in uptown or near UNC Charlotte.

Jamie Barnes of What the Fries is now scouting locations for a second restaurant (Peter Taylor Photography)

Right now, they’re combining their restaurant in Tower Place Festival at 10707 Park Road with running their food truck four days a week. He expects their business to remain a combination of both for now. That’s one of the lessons of the pandemic: be prepared to give customers options.

“Some people are going to enjoy getting out with friends. And some people like the idea of being at home and having all the options of food coming to our home.”