Concord’s Maple Street Biscuit will become Biscuit Belly’s first North Carolina conversion this fall

A Concord breakfast restaurant is getting a new name. The Maple Street Biscuit Company at 8921 Christenbury Parkway will become a Biscuit Belly, with the change expected in late fall 2026, WhatNow Charlotte reported on Monday, September 28. The report cited Lauren Coulter, Biscuit Belly’s co-founder, and said the restaurant is not expected to close because of the sale.

The Concord store is part of a larger deal. Biscuit Belly, a Louisville, Kentucky, brunch chain, bought the Maple Street brand and 35 Maple Street restaurants from Cracker Barrel in July, and plans to convert all of them to the Biscuit Belly name over 18 to 24 months, according to the company.

What this means around Charlotte

Biscuit Belly is already here. The chain’s first Charlotte restaurant, Biscuit Belly in Elizabeth, opened on East Seventh Street in late August 2024. Franchisee Jordan Franks had set an August 27 opening, WSOC reported at the time. A second, Biscuit Belly in Fort Mill, is on Highway 160 just across the state line. A converted Concord store would make three in the metro.

The Charlotte-area picture, as of Monday, looks like this:

• Biscuit Belly Elizabeth is at 1949 E. Seventh St., Suite 2, and has been open since August 2024.
• Biscuit Belly Fort Mill is at 2147 W. Highway 160, Suite 101, in Fort Mill, S.C., according to the company’s website.
• Maple Street in Concord is at 8921 Christenbury Parkway and stays open as Maple Street until the conversion.
• Maple Street’s own location list now shows only two North Carolina restaurants, Concord and Fayetteville. The former South End restaurant on South Boulevard no longer appears.

Elsewhere in the state, Biscuit Belly opened a new restaurant in Fayetteville on August 4 and runs one at Seaboard Station in Raleigh, with Wake Forest listed as coming soon on the company’s site. So a converted Concord store would not be the chain’s first North Carolina restaurant. WhatNow called the Concord switch the “first true Maple Street-to-Biscuit Belly conversion in North Carolina.”

How the deal came together

Maple Street Biscuit Company was founded in Jacksonville, Florida, in 2012, and Cracker Barrel bought the chain in 2019 for $36 million, according to Yahoo Finance and Franchise Times. Cracker Barrel closed 14 Maple Street restaurants in September 2025, saying the restaurants had not met the company’s financial expectations, and when the company sold the brand to Biscuit Belly this summer, 16 more closed, Restaurant Dive reported.

Cracker Barrel’s chief executive, Julie Masino, said the sale would help the company’s profitability in the long run, according to Restaurant Dive. Biscuit Belly said the plan was to keep the acquired restaurants open and invest in their teams.

Biscuit Belly had 15 restaurants before the purchase and now expects to pass 60 by the end of 2028, according to the company’s website. Chad Coulter, the co-founder and chief executive, wrote on the company’s site that acquiring Maple Street was not on his 2026 bingo card. The converted restaurants will be corporate-owned and operated by Biscuit Belly, Franchise Times reported, unlike the franchised store in Elizabeth.

When Concord flips

The timing has moved around in the company’s own materials. Here is what each source says:

• A company growth page updated in August listed Florence, Kentucky, and Mason, Ohio, as the first conversions in September 2026, with the rest to be announced.
• The company’s media page and a July Franchise Times report said conversions would begin in January 2027 and run 18 to 24 months.
• WhatNow Charlotte reported Monday that Concord’s transition is expected in late fall 2026.

Biscuit Belly has not announced a specific date for Concord. Until the sign changes, the restaurant is still a Maple Street, and the phone number is 980-236-7870. The company has not said whether the Concord staff will stay on through the change, though Biscuit Belly has said the plan is to invest in the teams at the acquired restaurants.

What changes on the plate

Both chains sell Southern breakfast built around the biscuit. Maple Street is known for the Squawking Goat, a fried chicken breast with fried goat cheese and pepper jelly on a biscuit, and the Five & Dime, a chicken and waffle stack, according to the chain’s website. Whether any Maple Street favorites survive the switch has not been announced. On the Biscuit Belly side, the Rockwell is a buttermilk fried chicken breast with cheddar and sausage gravy on a biscuit, and the Belly Buster stacks fried chicken, sausage, bacon, brisket, cheddar, mushroom gravy and an over-easy egg, according to the company’s menu. Bonuts, biscuit dough holes with cinnamon sugar and bourbon cream cheese frosting or berry jam, round out the menu.

Biscuit Belly also pours breakfast cocktails, including a Bloody Mary variation the chain calls the Dark and Spicy Mary, and coffee drinks like a praline mocha. Whether the Concord store adds a bar program after the switch has not been announced.

The rest of the rollout

Concord is one piece of a conversion that stretches across the South. WhatNow Nashville reported that five Maple Street restaurants in Tennessee will be rebranded, and WFLA reported that Florida locations, in the state where Maple Street started, will become Biscuit Belly restaurants too.

The 35 restaurants in the deal were chosen based on geography, restaurant footprints, established teams and the communities they serve, WhatNow Charlotte reported Monday.

Have a tip about this story? Send it to us through our contact form.