Alexander Michael's

The story

Before it was a neighborhood tavern, 401 West 9th Street spent nearly a century living whatever life Fourth Ward demanded of it. Built in 1897 as a corner grocery store operated by Wilson Crowell and later Ernest Berryhill, the building supplied local residents with pantry staples until 1960. As the surrounding neighborhood deteriorated in the mid-20th century, the wooden structure went through a string of chaotic leases—operating as a laundromat, a paint shop, and briefly as a training gym for an English professional wrestler named Tinker Todd. Local investors Cullie and Sylvia Tarleton bought and restored the structure in the late 1970s, narrowly saving it from demolition crews.

In April 1983, A. Michael Troiano Jr. and Alexander 'Zan' Copeland III leased the building and opened Alexander Michael's. They constructed the tavern's physical interior out of salvaged pieces of Charlotte history: the bar top and back bar were crafted from solid oak doors taken from the Independence Building—Charlotte's 1909 skyscraper that once stood at Trade and Tryon streets before its controversial destruction. Sitting nearby is a heavy wooden beer cooler dating to the 1920s, hauled out of another defunct local grocery.

The architectural relics aren't the only things remaining from the past. Over the decades, staff and regulars have reported faint voices calling out names, unexplained taps on the shoulder, and a silent figure in 19th-century clothes sitting in a back booth. You can test the legend yourself over a bowl of 'What It Is'—the tavern's signature Cajun dish of blackened chicken breast served over rotini in a spicy cream sauce.