Kit Burkholder unlocks the back door to his bottle shop, steps into the darkness, and admits to some lingering, mild disappointment from 10 days ago.
Beginning in 2022, Kit’s Trackside Crafts in Pineville has hosted an annual event just after Memorial Day called the Lime Lager Thunderdome. It’s a celebration of lime-infused beer: Patrons buy tickets, then blind-test and sample local breweries’ limey offerings—and there generally are plenty of contestants, in large part because of Burkholder. (Read on for the explanation.)
Last year’s Thunderdome had 10 contestants. This year’s, on June 6, had only seven. That’s why Burkholder’s disappointed—a little. The event still drew a good crowd. (The winner, for the third time, was Carolina Sky-Lime from Middle James Brewing, a half-mile away on Polk Street.)
The loyal Thunderdome patrons, who cast about 500 votes, reflect the niche Burkholder has built in Pineville since Kit’s opened in 2016. It’s one of a host of exemplary neighborhood beer bars and bottle shops that have built their own communities of regulars in the Charlotte area over the past 15 years, since a change in state law enabled the Big Charlotte Beer Bang. The shops tend to be lower-key, cozier counterparts to brewery taprooms, and they’re all over: Salud Beer Shop in NoDa; venerable Brawley’s Beverage near Park Road Shopping Center; Bart’s Mart (which actually bills itself as “Charlotte’s Best Shitty Bar”) over at Eastway Crossing; Frank’s Beer Shop in Commonwealth Park; and plenty of others.
But those places are at least somewhat near the Charlotte city center, in or not far from brewery-heavy neighborhoods. Kit’s is a little different. It’s 10 miles as the crow flies from Trade and Tryon, and traffic makes that a half-hour drive on a good day. Middle James is nearby, but that’s about it as far as prominent breweries. Kit’s, as the name indicates, squats next to a Norfolk Southern railroad line in a downtown that visitors and merchants typically describe as “quaint.” Newcomers in their 20s and early 30s, the folks that swarm South End and LoSo taprooms on weekends, seldom make their way down to Pineville. So what’s it doing here? What draws the people? Who are the people?
“We definitely don’t get a lot of young folks. I mean, under-30 is not our demographic,” says Burkholder, 47, who fits the mind’s-eye portrait of a beer shop owner: gray T-shirt, cargo shorts, backwards ball cap, bushy Civil-War-general beard. “We’re looking at 35 to 55, that range right there. The youngsters, they’re going to be down there off the light rail … and that generation has already shown that they’re not that interested in going out and meeting their friends for drinks. They go out and meet for dinner and have drinks, but they don’t go out and meet for drinks, right? And that’s a drastic difference.”
It’s a conundrum that plenty of service businesses in this city face: Do you embrace the new or set yourself apart by aligning with tradition? To this point, Kit’s—and Kit—have chosen the latter. In 2015, Burkholder was running the first of Harris Teeter’s popular in-store bars, specifically in Ballantyne, the planned development that’s south Charlotte’s crucible for new concepts and newcomers. It was OK but corporate, and Burkholder wanted something of his own.
His father, Bill, a retired furniture industry executive, wanted to invest in a bar in Pineville, near where the family lived. In 2016, Bill found a spot right by the railroad tracks on Main Street. It was a historic brick building, built in 1921, that had most recently been a second-hand store called The Bargain House. By then, the space was the bargain: garbage all over, an abandoned bumper pool table, and, in a back corner, a free-standing commode. Pineville’s sole claim to any fame is the President James K. Polk Historic Site, on land once owned by the 11th president’s parents. The Burkholders joked that the toilet was old enough for Polk himself to have used it.
Kit, his dad, and another partner cleaned the place up; stripped the plaster to uncover the original brick; installed new ceiling beams, plus refrigerators and 24 taps; and opened for business in November 2016. The interior still projects a “been here for a while” vibe, even at only 10 years; it’s dominated by dark-stained wood, with railroad signals and beer signs on the walls and a shaft of light from the sunroof. The brick has some cracks and holes, Burkholder says, but spiders do a good job of controlling the other bugs.
“I try to give the place a little bit of character and a homey feel,” Burkholder says. “I’m really glad we ended up doing this.”
The clientele grew along with other Main Street businesses, and Charlotte brewers gradually made it one of their favorite spots. Burkholder is a Certified Cicerone with brewery contacts all over the country, and among the 350-plus bottles and cans he stocks are brews that even seasoned Charlotte beer drinkers have seldom quaffed, if ever.
That’s how Lime Lager Thunderdome got started: Just after Kit’s opened, Burkholder went to a food and drink conference in Washington, D.C., and discovered the Lime Pilsner from Uinta Brewing in Salt Lake City. He found it delicious and decided he had to stock it. Other Charlotte brewers went crazy for it, too, and they began to brew their own lime-infused beers, like Carolina Sky-Lime. Eventually, enough local brewers were making lime beers for Burkholder to create an annual taste-testing event.
But as successful as he’s been with his shop on the tracks, this is metro Charlotte, after all. Sooner or later, a developer’s going to come around with plans for an apartment complex.
In this case, it’s Heritage Pineville, a new mixed-use complex the Charlotte-based real estate investment firm Highline Partners is building on 7.5 acres in downtown Pineville—just behind Kit’s and the other shops along Main Street. The company broke ground in April and expects to finish in 2028, with 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and 241 apartments.
Burkholder can’t wait. “Pineville can be an afterthought. It’s a town of passer-throughs … the last undeveloped suburb of Charlotte,” he says. For him and other business owners, Heritage Pineville will mean “plenty of foot traffic, hopefully on Main Street, which is going to be great.”
Of course it’ll be good for business. But isn’t there a part of Burkholder that wants to keep things as is, to preserve the community of friends and drinkers who have made Kit’s their own third place? Well … no. Beer-oriented enterprises face the same trade-off other businesses do. Burkholder leases his space, and rents are rising throughout metro Charlotte. To succeed in small downtowns, businesses like breweries and bottle shops rely on pedestrians, the kinds of folks who wrap up a pleasant afternoon of shopping with a beer or two, then walk rather than drive home.
So, as far as he’s concerned, bring on the apartments. It’s one of the most common complaints about this city: Everything worthwhile gets torn down and replaced with an apartment complex. The complainers aren’t wrong. But those apartments contain people, and those people have thirst and money, and Kit’s has a limited clientele and profits, plus beer from some brewery you’ve never heard of and in another state to sell you. (Case in point and on tap: Turbo Reaper IPA from 3 Floyds Brewing in Munster, Indiana.)
“People come in here, and they’re probably going to know who the bartender is, and if they don’t know who it is, they’re probably going to find out really fast,” Burkholder says. “We’re not going to change a thing.” Even if new guests eventually come in off Main Street, they’ll be welcome to join the party by the tracks and raise their glasses as the trains go by.
One Great Charlotte Bite
Cuban sandwich, Orrman’s Cheese Shop ($13)
Rachel Klebaur has been in pursuit of cheesy perfection at 7th Street Market for years. Now that she’s opened a bigger space at Selwyn Avenue and Colony Road in Myers Park, she’s branching out with charcuterie, specialty products (check out the tinned fish), and wine. While her grilled cheese sandwiches are comforting, we went for the Cuban: A baguette pressed into crunchy goodness, shaved ham, and pickles and Lusty Monk mustard for zing. Instead of Emmenthaler, she’s using Rahmtaler, the original version of Emmenthaler that doesn’t skim off the cream, making it richer.—K.P.
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