Charleston-based Kudzu Bakery and Market is expanding to Charlotte. It will open in Dilworth at 2442 Park Road.
The bakery, founded by Joey and Stacy Rabon in 1989, currently has locations in Litchfield, Mount Pleasant and Columbia. This will be the fourth location for the brand, and the first in North Carolina.
Andrew and Shelley Verhagen will operate the Charlotte location. The husband-and-wife duo are longtime customers and fans of Kudzu, so they wanted to bring it to Charlotte, where they have been living for the past 15 years. Andrew told What Now Charlotte that many people in the Charlotte area are already fans of Kudzu, which will give them a boost right out of the gate.
“It was a natural progression for Kudzu to expand to Charlotte,” Andrew said. “A lot of people in the Dilworth area are familiar with the concept. That’s why we honed in on South Charlotte. We wanted some familiarity with the concept. Many people in that part of Charlotte have frequented Kudzu before, either at the Litchfield or Mount Pleasant locations.”
Andrew said Kudzu is different from other bakeries in that it does not have the conventional offerings of a French bakery. He describes it as a Southern bakery, with a menu featuring items like cakes, pies, cookies, brownies, muffins, cinnamon rolls and bread made in-house. Signature offerings include key lime pie, pecan pie, pound cake, rum cake and chocolate cakes.
“Some of those [options] will be constant,” Andrew said. “Some of them will just be what we decide to make that day. We’ve got various options, recipe-wise, for what we offer that day, but those will certainly be standard in our bakery case.”
Other offerings on the “market” side of the bakery and market include grab-and-go sandwich options like chicken salad sandwiches, shrimp salad sandwiches and ham and turkey sandwiches. There will also be a freezer section with options like chicken pot pie and breakfast quiches that people can take to-go to bake at home.
Andrew said that construction is expected to wrap in June and that they are targeting an early July opening.
“It’s good old-fashioned baking, and it looks like you could have made it, but it tastes amazing,” Andrew said. “We have our proprietary recipes that are very Kudzu-specific. You’ll know a Kudzu product just by its taste and the way it looks.”
