Birkdale Village lost two restaurants in October. Foxcroft Food & Wine served its last meals on Oct. 10, and Bonefish Grill closed its Townley Road location after 14 years. Its phone line now plays a recording saying the location is permanently closed. A Birkdale Village spokesperson told CharlotteFive that the center is "actively exploring other dining concepts for the space."
About four miles east on Gilead Road, things are going the other way. The Corkscrew Wine Shoppe & Bar spent two decades at Birkdale Village before closing at the end of 2022, and it is now set to return in The Holbrook at Town Center in downtown Huntersville. Its neighbor in the building, Cocotte, opened its doors this fall.
Downtown is finally getting places to sit down, and the pattern behind them is useful for anyone deciding where to spend a Saturday morning or a weeknight dinner. The restaurants that work downtown today are mostly in buildings that were already standing. New storefronts under apartments have taken far longer to fill than anyone predicted, and the newest projects have shrunk or stalled.
A Walk Down Gilead Road, Address by Address
The downtown worth walking right now covers a short stretch of Gilead Road near the old Town Hall. From the low end of the street numbers up:
- 760 Craft Works, 100 Gilead Rd. The taproom had its grand opening in May 2023 in the Robert Blythe Building, which was once the Huntersville Police station. Its beer The Bob is named for the building. In late October, 760 announced a craft cocktail program to be followed by Night Swim, a 21-and-older Friday and Saturday night series from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m. with vinyl listening sessions, signature cocktails, tinned fish and caviar. During regular hours the taproom stays family-friendly.
- Cocotte, 111 Gilead Rd. The artisan French bakery and gourmet market, which also has a Cornelius location, soft-opened on Oct. 12 with croissants, baguettes, breakfast and lunch sandwiches and barista lattes. As of late October it was open 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday and Wednesday through Sunday and closed Tuesdays, with a menu that could stay limited during its first weeks.
- The Corkscrew Wine Shoppe & Bar, The Holbrook. The returning shop lists 30 to 40 wines by the glass, hundreds of retail bottles, craft beer, cocktails, an upscale bourbon list and small plates such as charcuterie boards and flatbreads. B & Co Hair Salon has been open in the same building for about a year.
- The Guesthouse by Choplin's, 208 Gilead Rd. The owners of Choplin's Restaurant in Cornelius renovated a 1938 house for this one. Its OpenTable listing describes small plates, steaks and seafood with a large patio, and takes reservations Tuesday through Thursday 5 to 9:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday 5 to 11 p.m. and Sunday noon to 3 p.m.
Two of the four are in buildings that are decades old. The bakery and the wine bar are in the newest building on the street, and they are the two that took the longest.
Why a Bakery Took 18 Months
The Holbrook was built by North State Development and held its grand opening on April 9, 2025. It has 134 apartments and roughly 10,000 square feet of retail and commercial space, plus 41 rental townhomes and 11 rental single-family homes behind the main building. The apartments filled a street that had been mostly civic buildings and parking. The storefronts took longer.
| When | What happened at The Holbrook |
|---|---|
| April 9, 2025 | Grand opening of the building |
| About fall 2025 | B & Co Hair Salon opens |
| Dec. 31, 2025 | Corkscrew and Cocotte expected "in early 2026" |
| Oct. 12, 2026 | Cocotte soft-opens at 111 Gilead Rd. |
| Oct. 23, 2026 | Corkscrew putting on finishing touches |
The Lake Norman Citizen called the October openings "long-awaited" and noted they came more than 18 months after the development opened. A new ground-floor space starts as an empty shell. A bakery needs ovens and a wine bar needs a full bar build-out, and both need a tenant willing to commit before there's any foot traffic to point to. 760 Craft Works and The Guesthouse moved into buildings that already had walls, character and a reason for people to stop by.
The New Projects That Shrank or Stalled
Two other downtown projects ran into the same problem this year, and both changed course.
The Holbrook Phase II. North State had planned a smaller sequel across the street at 106 Gilead Rd., next to 760 Craft Works, with 9,000 square feet of commercial space and 55 residential units on 1.7 acres. According to the Lake Norman Citizen, the project could not secure the financial backing it needed. The property was offered to the town, and the Town Board unanimously approved a purchase agreement at $1.38 million.
Vermillion Village. On the 30-acre Vermillion Village property off Huntersville-Concord Road, MPV Properties asked to cut two planned commercial buildings from two stories to one. Building C would go from 22,400 square feet to 12,000, and Building B from 22,400 to 7,500. The developers said they needed at least half the space leased before they could begin construction and had not been able to lease it. Prospective ground-floor tenants worried that upstairs tenants would take all the parking. Bailey Patrick, a development partner at MPV Properties, told the Lake Norman Citizen:
"We have no interest in doing a controversial project. We want to do what's right and best for the area and we think we just need a plan that's a little bit more suited for the market."
The Town Board approved the change unanimously on July 21, according to the Lake Norman Citizen. It added a condition requiring at least 7,500 square feet of active retail or restaurant space in each of Buildings A, B and C, so the space that does get built has to be a place people visit. Smaller buildings with a guaranteed share of restaurants and shops are the town's bet that downtown gets more places to eat, not more medical offices.
What Comes Next Uses the Same Formula
The next downtown projects are small operators and reused buildings, the same kind that have already opened.
The largest is the former Huntersville Town Hall at Old Statesville Road and Gilead Road. Town Hall Partners, a partnership of Shane Seagle of North State Development and Rachel Krenz of The Lagniappe Group, is buying the roughly 8,500-square-foot building to turn it into a destination for food, beverage and specialty retail. Within a block are Discovery Place Kids, the Vine Greenway trailhead, Holbrook Park and the town's new 50,000-square-foot Town Hall. Design and leasing are underway, and the target opening is 2027. Adam Williams of Rebel Rebel Urban Retail Advisors, which is recruiting tenants, told the Lake Norman Citizen that the Huntersville retail market is "dynamic, thriving and underserved."
Next to The Holbrook, the town rezoned two properties from Neighborhood Residential to Town Center in 2025, as the Lake Norman Citizen's year-end roundup reported. One is for a sit-down restaurant from the Dumpling Girls food truck. The other is for Pint & Page, a bookstore paired with a biergarten and café.
Parking is the piece that could speed everything up. On Sept. 15, the Town Board voted to acquire about 0.7 acres for a planned parking deck, the Lake Norman Citizen reported. The deck is meant to serve Town Hall, Veterans Park, Town Center and the future former-Town-Hall project. The town budgeted deck funding in fiscal year 2027 and plans to issue debt for it. The Lake Norman Citizen reported that the garage over the Town Hall lot is expected to spur more downtown investment. Parking is the same worry that stalled Vermillion Village's upstairs space.
The corner itself has already changed. Cashion's Quik Stop served shoppers at N.C. 115 and Gilead Road for more than 60 years until the town bought the property and razed the building in February 2025 to make way for intersection improvements.
December, at Both Ends of Town
Both of Huntersville's gathering places have their holiday calendars set. Huntersville Today's holiday guide lists the Lighting of Birkdale Village on Saturday, Nov. 21, with a parade at 4:30 p.m. and the tree lighting at 6 p.m. Birkdale on Ice runs at The Plaza from Nov. 21 through Jan. 10, with 75-minute sessions listed at $18. The same guide lists Huntersville's Town Tree Lighting on Friday, Dec. 4, at Veterans Park, followed by Holidays in Huntersville there on Dec. 5.
Veterans Park is a short walk from Gilead Road. This December is Cocotte's first holiday season on Gilead Road, a few doors from 760 Craft Works and The Guesthouse. For more on the town's growth corridors, see our look at Huntersville's Sam Furr corridor and our Huntersville neighborhood guide.
If you'd like to talk about what the former Town Hall, the parking deck or Vermillion Village could mean for your corner of Huntersville, The Alexander Realty Group is glad to share what we're seeing. Let's Connect.
