I’m really into nostalgia these days, thanks to the interviews I’ve had while writing about Harper’s Restaurant’s recent closure and long-gone sit-down Pizza Huts.

As Charlotte shapeshifts before my eyes, I have this sense of longing for a Charlotte I didn’t even know — a slower city, driven by art and food just as much as it was driven by finance.

To ease my nostalgia ache, I’ve been indulging myself and eating at some classic restaurants, talking to people who actually lived and breathed a Charlotte of the past. Specifically the 1990s, when it seemed Charlotte’s culture really started burgeoning.

And now that low-rise jeans are back in, I’ve been imagining what a night out at one of the popular Charlotte bars and clubs in the ’90s was like. Denim cut-offs, no iPhones, fishbowl drinks — I’m all about it. Well, everything except waxing my eyebrows too thin. That can stay in the ’90s…

Steven Pilker mentioned Landmark Diner and Thomas Street Tavern as two prime ’90s institutions that are still very much alive…

What were they actually drinking at these spots? According to owner of Dot Dot Dot, Stefan Huebner, a typical ’90s night started with “beer and shots as they were typically cheap specials. Many nightclubs had $1-3 dollar drink nights … For fancy nights out, we traditionally drank martinis or big glasses of red wine from a steakhouse or French-style restaurants. By the late ’90s, Red Bull energy drinks had entered the market and fully taken over, introducing the vodka Red Bull or Jager bombs.” …

 

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