Charlotte gets its own edition of The Food Section

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Toward the end of last year, when I was perpetually moping about this publication’s future, someone asked me whether I should have stuck with covering Charleston food-and-drink instead of mounting a nine-state strategy.

In my gloomiest moments, I’ve wondered the same. While I still very much believe what I said when I launched The Food Section in 2021—namely, that eaters across the region deserve the kind of rigorous and independent food journalism that I practiced when on The Post and Courier’s payroll—it just seems like this gig would be easier if I was focused on 135 square miles.

From a business perspective, though, a Charleston-only newsletter is a nonstarter—as we learned conclusively last year when we experimented with a free afterhours hot sheet devoted to the city. As I explained to the person who asked about it, there are three prerequisites for a local food newsletter’s success: The target market needs to have a compelling restaurant scene, a decimated media landscape, and a sizable population of readers with disposable incomes.

“It would only work in Charlotte,” I said.

We’re about to find out if I’m right.

I’m beyond excited today to announce the impending debut of TFS:CLT, the first city-based spinoff of our flagship brand. Although we’ve previously appointed bureau chiefs to keep an eye on their respective cities, this is a different arrangement entirely: TFS:CLT will function as a standalone weekly newsletter, covering Charlotte with the same intellectual seriousness, journalistic ethics, and gastronomical gusto that has characterized The Food Section from the start.

Take it away, team!

Digging into Charlotte’s food scene—and yes, it has one

BY KATHLEEN PURVIS

Charlotte is a fast-growing metropolis with a media lineup to match. Our city’s table is littered with the output of podcasters, Instagrammers, TikTokers, quick-hit news reporters, influencers, and a couple of reviewers.

When Charlotte magazine closed in November, the three of us who focused on its food and restaurant coverage wondered the same thing: Is there room for more? Is there anything else that needs to be said?

The three of us—Greg, Taylor, and me—are journalists. And in the words that have always shaped good journalism, there’s a lot of who, what, where, and when around here. What’s missing is our favorite: Why?

Why is a restaurant worth your time and your dime? Why is that chef getting so much attention?  Why should you trust restaurant reviews when you don’t know the rules behind them? Why is influencing such a hot game?

What’s missing, we realized, is journalism. That’s why we reached out to Hanna Raskin, founder of The Food Section. Raskin is a hard-hitting reporter with the respect of food readers all over the region. She’s also a reviewer who’s covered restaurants from Asheville to Seattle to Dallas to Charleston.

She speaks our language. When we asked for advice on starting a Charlotte dining newsletter, she invited us to bring it beneath The Food Section’s banner. Raskin knew that at TFS:CLT, we’d tell stories that shed light on what’s shaping the food world right here.

For instance, when Charlotte magazine closed, Taylor and I were working on a story about legacy restaurants, the beloved places that have survived the twin food-business massacres of the pandemic and rocketing real-estate values.

So many disappeared between 2020 and 2025: Price’s Chicken Coop. Gus’ Sir Beef. Mr. K’s. Zack’s Burgers. Bill Spoon’s Barbecue. The list is growing so fast that one restaurant, Bar-B-King, closed just days after we interviewed the owner—and were promised it wasn’t closing anytime soon.

Some of these places are showing their age: Worn carpet, stained ceiling tiles, wobbly chairs. The owners are aging, too, with younger generations less eager to step up to the deep fryers. But places like the Open Kitchen and the House of Pizza are important. They’re a part of a Charlotte that’s as much a factory town as a banking town.

While we plan to focus on the shiny and new, we’ll also bring you the places that have served us for a long time. We’ll start with Lupie’s, and a story about a Charlotte that has been about community.

LUPIE’S CAFÉ: Still Standing and Still Serving

There’s a lot to see at 39-year-old Lupie’s Café, one of Charlotte’s most eccentric restaurants. There are two Elvis prints, one of the King crying. The walls are covered with black-and-white photos of local sights, jokes, and obscure memorabilia. A mural that faces Monroe Road includes UFOs and psychedelics. Even the HVAC condenser outside is covered with bumper stickers.

In its early years, Lupie’s claimed to be the headquarters of “The Fancy Club,” “The Stanleyville Yacht Club” (for the old neighborhood at Seventh Street and Pecan Avenue), and “The Continuous Cocktail Club.” Pabst Blue Ribbon is still the $1 “Gee Whiz Beer” on the menu (named because customers always say, “Gee whiz—at that price, I’ll have another.”)

But the biggest story at Lupie’s is the thing you don’t see, the journey of Lupie Duran herself. Born in California to a single mother who had served in the Women’s Army Corps in World War II and raised on Kenilworth Avenue in Dilworth, Duran had to step up as a child to look after her three little brothers after their mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Then a Charlotte matron saint stepped in to make sure Lupie and her brothers had a future.

The late Ann Elliot was a busy mother in Myers Park when she met Duran’s mother, who went by the nickname Tony. Elliot volunteered to give Tony rides to her medical appointments. As her health declined, Elliot worried about what would happen to Tony’s kids. No family members could take them in.

In 1965, when Lupie was 13, Tony died. But Elliot had promised she would make sure her kids went to Thompson’s Orphanage at Third and Fourth streets. “My mom wanted us to be together,” Lupie says. “Ann told her If we went there, she would take care of us for the rest of our lives.”

Elliot kept her word: She became Lupie’s godmother and taught Lupie’s brothers to love books so much that each still carries one at all times.

At Thompson’s, each child had a task, so Lily Mae White, who ran the kitchen, gave Lupie a choice: Dishwasher or cook’s helper. Lupie chose cooking—she already knew how to open cans to feed her brothers. Soon, her future in food was set. Lupie went on to work in restaurants like Proposition XLV, where she perfected the peach kuchen, a kind of German pastry, that’s still on the menu; and Mac Mac’s, a chili house on Seventh Street where she learned to make the chilis that still dominate her menu.

In 1985, Lupie became a single mother herself, to daughter Larkin. When Larkin was two, Lupie opened her restaurant, originally called the Hard Times Café. Elliot became her champion and persuaded women from tony Myers Park to come with her for Lupie’s chicken and dumplings and chili dogs. In the evenings, locals would come by for happy-hour beers. 

Lupie’s is a little worse for wear —its location on a curve along Monroe Road has led to more than a few run-ins with cars. The building dates to 1938 but originally was a Black-owned store built by Arthur Grier, the namesake of the neighborhood Grier Heights.

One smart move has helped the business survive: Duran owns her corner location and the building. Many small restaurants own their buildings but not the land they sit on, making them targets when the land is sold for redevelopment.

Lupie is 73 now. With electric-blue hair and a black “Free Bird” T-shirt, she’s a mother hen to Charlotte misfits, from customers to employees. Her years at Thompson’s, she admits, gave her an eye for “people who need a chance, or a second chance.”

She retired six years ago and handed the café to Larkin Duran, now 40. With her own hair dyed bright pink, she does the cooking, but her mom still makes the desserts, including that peach kuchen, served under a cloud of whipped cream and cinnamon. They’ve cut the hours to lunch only, from 11 a.m.-4 p.m., to ease the burden on Larkin. But their regulars are still regulars.

Lupie’s made it through the pandemic—barely—thanks to loyal customers who would slip a $500 bill into the tip jar so they could pay their workers, many of whom worked without pay to keep the place open. Duran still credits Elliot for her success, and for teaching her to be resilient and work hard. “That’s one thing she taught me: Use what you got.”

After nearly four decades, eons in Charlotte time, Lupie and Lupie’s both endure by adhering to the same humble recipe.