Opening this week in Charlotte: a public café at The Pearl, Guard and Grace in South End and The Queen’s Mahjery

Three new places opened in Charlotte this week. The Study Food Social, a public café at The Pearl in Midtown, opened on Wednesday, September 30, and Guard and Grace in South End and The Queen’s Mahjery in Oakhurst open today, Thursday, October 1.

The three are a breakfast and lunch café inside a medical school building, a Denver steakhouse on the 10th floor of a South End tower and a mahjong studio on Monroe Road. Here is where each one is:

• The Study Food Social is at 915 Pearl Park Way, on the ground floor of the Howard R. Levine Center for Education at The Pearl.
• Guard and Grace is at 111 E. Carson Blvd., Suite 100, on the 10th floor of The Vivian at Queensbridge Collective.
• The Queen’s Mahjery is at 4000 Monroe Road, Suite 110, in Oakhurst Commons.

The Study Food Social at The Pearl

The café serves made-to-order breakfast and lunch and is open to the public, not just to the medical students and researchers who work upstairs, Axios reported. Restaurant Associates, part of Charlotte-based Compass Group, runs The Study Food Social, and the coffee comes from Change Please, a nonprofit that trains people experiencing homelessness as baristas, according to Axios.

The café at a glance

Axios and Hoodline published the details a first visit needs:

• The address is 915 Pearl Park Way, on the ground floor of the Howard R. Levine Center for Education.
• Breakfast is served from 7 to 10 a.m. and lunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday.
• Grab-and-go food is available from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• The café seats 40 inside, with more seats on an outdoor patio, in 2,911 square feet.
• Orders go through kiosks in the café or through online pre-ordering, Hoodline reported.

What is on the menu

Breakfast includes omelets, buttermilk pancakes, pastries and a fruit and yogurt bar, according to Axios. Lunch brings house-made soups, a salad bar, burgers, sandwiches and bowls, plus rotating dishes from the chef. Prices have not been published.

The coffee

Change Please started in the United Kingdom and opened the first U.S. café and training academy at the Innovation Barn on Seigle Avenue in the Belmont neighborhood in March 2023, Queen City Nerve reported at the time. The program gives trainees on-the-job barista training and pays them double the minimum wage, and the group partners with local organizations on housing, mental health care and child care.

Change Please reported an 85% rate of trainees moving on to other jobs when the Charlotte program launched, according to Queen City Nerve. The nonprofit roasts coffee locally, Hoodline reported.

What The Pearl is

The Pearl is a mixed-use innovation district built by Atrium Health and Wexford Science & Technology, a roughly $1.5 billion project on about 20 acres just outside Uptown, according to N.C. Health News. The first phase opened in June 2025 with two buildings connected by a second-floor bridge: the Howard R. Levine Center for Education, which houses Wake Forest University School of Medicine’s Charlotte campus, and a 10-story research building.

The medical school seated its first four-year class in Charlotte in July 2025 and expects to grow to 100 students per class within five years, according to Wake Forest University. The Levine Center also houses Wake Forest’s School of Professional Studies, the university’s MBA program and IRCAD North America, a surgical training center. Wake Forest projects more than 5,500 jobs on site over 15 years.

Later phases are planned to add more research buildings, a hotel, apartments and street-level retail, N.C. Health News reported.

The history under the district

The Pearl sits on land that was part of Brooklyn, once Charlotte’s largest Black neighborhood, before urban renewal in the 1960s cleared it, according to N.C. Health News. A walking trail links the district to Pearl Street Park, one of the city’s first parks for Black residents, with public art and markers that tell Brooklyn’s history. A plaza called Jacob’s Ladder honors a Brooklyn school.

Tracy Dodson, then an assistant city manager, called The Pearl the “most transformative thing we’ve seen here in decades,” N.C. Health News reported in 2024.

Guard and Grace opens in South End

Denver chef Troy Guard’s modern steakhouse, Guard and Grace, opens today on the 10th floor of The Vivian at Queensbridge Collective, Axios reported. The restaurant covers 10,224 square feet, with a 2,000-square-foot outdoor terrace, a 750-bottle wine room and several private dining rooms. Valet parking is free at the South Tryon Street entrance.

The restaurant’s website lists dinner hours of 4 to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday, with lunch and happy hour coming later, and takes reservations online. Axios published a few prices from the opening menu:

• Oak-grilled shrimp cocktail is $6 per shrimp.
• The oak-fired octopus appetizer is $27.
• Toffee pudding is $14.
• Cocktails run from $19 to $26.

Steaks come in 4- and 8-ounce portions. Guard and his wife, co-owner and beverage director Nikki Guard, opened the first Guard and Grace in Denver in 2014 and a second in Houston in 2019, and the Denver restaurant is recommended by the Michelin Guide. The Sept. 25 preview has more on the space and the menu.

The Queen’s Mahjery opens in Oakhurst

A mahjong studio started by three Charlotte mothers, The Queen’s Mahjery, opens today at 10 a.m. at Oakhurst Commons, according to the studio’s website. Lauren Ulrey, Jennifer Ross and Patti Roth built the studio with room for up to 17 tables across three rooms, Axios reported.

A seat costs $40, a full table $150 and a monthly membership $295, which covers up to three guests per booking, according to Axios. Since the Sept. 28 preview, the studio’s website has added beginner classes: Queen’s Mahj 101 runs on October 11 and October 25 at $100 per person. The site also offers a founding membership.

Hours are 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday through Saturday, and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday. The studio is closed Wednesdays.

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