After opening Lelulia Hall last year, Jeff Tonidandel and Jamie Brown are transforming another historic space into a restaurant. The Leeper & Wyatt building — a 1903 former grocery store and Mecklenburg County historic landmark — will house Wyatt’s Superfine at 1823 Cleveland Avenue.
The team moved the building in September 2024 from South Boulevard and up Cleveland Avenue to sit adjacent to Lelulia Hall. Now, Tonidandel and Brown are renovating the space to become a four-story restaurant.
Tonidandel told What Now Charlotte that they are aiming to honor the history of the spot with design and menu elements. Even the name — Wyatt’s Superfine — is a nod to the grocer, Pleasant Wyatt, who formerly operated the grocery store. Superfine is a reference to a level of grain milling for making breads and pastas.
“We’re having a lot of fun with that time period and with grocery stores at the turn of the century,” Tonidandel said. “That’s where [the inspiration] comes from.”
The design will maintain key elements of the building, such as the old brick. Each floor will be about 1,500 square feet, featuring a kitchen in the basement, a parlor-style feeling on the first floor, a fine-dining experience on the second floor and a solarium on the third floor.
Tonidandel said they are drawing plenty of inspiration from the time period, drawing in nostalgic elements from hotels of the Gilded Age and food items popularized at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. Menu items will be inspired by items such as Waldorf salads, beef stroganoff and traditional American dishes such as hamburgers.
The team is still about a year out from finishing renovations. This project continues the Tonidandel-Brown Restaurant Group’s trend of bringing fresh concepts to historic spaces, such as Supperland.
“They all have a wonderful sense of place and tell their own stories, which help us tell our stories,” Tonidandel said. “They’re also fixtures in the neighborhood for over 100 years. That’s really big for us — being a part of the neighborhood and melding into that. We love these historic buildings, doing something new with them and bringing them to life again.”
The team documented the move of the Leeper & Wyatt building in their PBS show “Fork & Hammer,” and they continue to discuss progress on their podcast “Jeff and Jamie Feed.”
