The Jailhouse Whiskey & Cigar Bar

The story

You won't find a front door on Main Street—entry to this three-story 1960s concrete lockup is tucked down an alley on Mill Street behind Old Stone Steakhouse. Mother and son duo Linda and Matthew Matinata turned the former Belmont Police Station into their steakhouse back in 2007, but left the adjacent, abandoned holding cells sitting dark for nearly a decade. When they finally restored the structure alongside HELT Design to launch in April 2017, they wisely kept the brutalist fixtures: cold concrete walls, raw iron, and narrow cell tracks where local miscreants used to sober up.

Instead of relying on theatrical speakeasy gimmicks, the venue leans into its genuine law-enforcement past. Heavy steel jail cell doors were unbolted and repurposed behind the bar to hold liquor bottles, while former holding cells were reconfigured into intimate seating nooks surrounded by archival photos. If you look closely at the walls and ceilings in the back room, you can still read the original graphite scribbles and handwritten scripts left behind by prisoners who had nowhere else to look.

Because North Carolina liquor regulations require standalone bars that don't operate a full-service kitchen to function as private clubs, entering requires a minimal legal fiction. You hand over two dollars at the door for a daily pass, bypass the ground-floor offices, and head upstairs. The middle level houses a speakeasy-style cigar lounge with a walk-in cedar humidor, while the top floor features a stainless steel bar top surrounded by cell bars serving 150-plus whiskeys and smoked cocktails.