The address in Chapel Hill was a Western Auto store when it opened in 1952, a music shop after that, and part of a beloved bookstore with two cats in the window before Gary Crunkleton bought it in 2008. He had a dream, the Chapel Hill Historical Society recorded, of turning it into a classy bar where people could enjoy good liquor, good cocktails and each other.
For this, The Crunkleton on Elizabeth Avenue in Charlotte is the second version of that dream, opened in 2019, and it is the reason a small neighborhood between Uptown and Plaza Midwood has one of the best cocktail bars in the state.
It started on Franklin Street
Crunkleton came to Chapel Hill as an undergraduate at the university and never really left, according to the historical society. The bar he opened in 2008 was, in Charlotte Magazine’s description, a place that looked and felt like it belonged somewhere other than a college town: bow-tied bartenders shaking and stirring under deep amber light, five hundred distilled spirits on the shelves, and a technically private club that anyone could join on the spot for five dollars.
The Bitter Southerner called it the most delightful place to have a cocktail in Chapel Hill. The bar built one of the most devoted followings in North Carolina on the details it poured into Prohibition-era cocktails and on a library of rare and antique spirits, Axios wrote, and it stayed a bar. Food was not the point.
Charlotte changed that. When Crunkleton opened the Elizabeth Avenue location in 2019, he added a kitchen, and the Charlotte Crunkleton became one of the city’s favorite food spots as well as its best cocktail bar. The burger acquired a reputation of its own.
Charlotte’s Elizabeth neighborhood gave the bar a setting the Chapel Hill original never had: a streetcar line at the door, a hospital campus across the way and a run of restaurants along Elizabeth Avenue that turned a cocktail bar into a destination for a whole evening. When Charlotte Magazine wrote up a date night in the neighborhood, the choice it posed was whether to start at The Crunkleton or one of its newer neighbors, which is a measure of how quickly the bar became the anchor.
The man behind it
Gary Crunkleton is the founder and namesake, and the bars carry his approach: classics made properly, a spirits list that runs deeper than anyone else’s, and a room built for conversation instead of a speakeasy’s theater. He has said his focus is one thing, providing a great experience for the community, and the Chapel Hill bar’s loyalty over eighteen years is the evidence.
The Charlotte location was built with 1957 Hospitality Group, the Charlotte company that also partnered with Crunkleton on a Raleigh location in the Smoky Hollow development, which opened in 2025 with the same food and beverage menu as Charlotte, including the burger, oysters, table-share tomahawk steaks and fire-roasted vegetables. Crunkleton said he wanted the Raleigh bar known for its food as much as its cocktails, and that the group would bring something unique served with timeless hospitality.
The Chapel Hill bar’s building tells its own story. The historical society’s account runs from the Western Auto store that opened in February 1952, selling everything from dishwashers to tires, through a music store in the 1970s and the bookshop with the cats to Crunkleton’s 2008 purchase. He has been part of the Chapel Hill community since his undergraduate years, the society records, and loves being among the Franklin Street business owners. The Charlotte bar borrowed the room’s mood without copying it.
What you actually order
The brown spirits list is the deepest in Charlotte, with bourbons, ryes and Scotches that other bars do not carry, and the bartenders will guide a guest through it at whatever price point they name. The cocktails are classics done well, and the seasonal list changes. The weekend brunch comes with a nine-drink cocktail list, and the regular menu runs a burger regulars plan around, oysters and the large-format steaks.
The group runs events it calls Spirited Luncheons, where a limited number of guests taste rare liquors paired with a coursed meal. The Charlotte room sits at the corner of Elizabeth Avenue a short walk from the Gold Line streetcar, and it is the kind of bar where a guest at the counter can ask a question about a bottle and get an answer that takes ten minutes.
The Raleigh expansion in 2025 was built for 88 seats with a patio for warmer months, and the group’s Spirited Luncheons travel with it. Crunkleton said in a statement announcing it that the group believed it would bring something unique both at the bar and to the table, all served with timeless hospitality, and Axios noted that the Charlotte bar had already become one of that city’s favorite food spots after adding a kitchen. The burger, table-share tomahawk and oysters that anchor the Charlotte menu were carried to the Triangle intact.
Why it matters
Charlotte’s cocktail scene runs to speakeasies with hidden doors and rooftops with views, and The Crunkleton is neither. It is a bar built for talking, with a spirits collection that took a decade to assemble, brought to Elizabeth by a man who had already proven the idea worked in a college town that was not supposed to want it.
The restaurants of Elizabeth Avenue are the reason people find the neighborhood. The Crunkleton is the reason they stay for a second drink and find out what the bartender has been saving.