RESTAURANT NEWS | CHARLOTTE
Postino Plants Its Wine Flag in Plaza Midwood
After finding an audience in Ballantyne, the Arizona-born wine café expands in Charlotte with bruschetta boards and a sprawling patio.
POSTINO | MAP | INSTAGRAM
By Rebecca Thompson
6:31 a.m. ET, Sept. 24, 2026
AUTHOR BIO: Rebecca Thompson has held many jobs, from newspaper writer to middle-school teacher. As a restaurant critic, she’s reviewed the Michelin-starred to gas station BBQ.
Plaza Midwood has never been a neighborhood that sits still for long.
Old houses and tattoo shops gave way to breweries and apartment buildings. Vacant lots became construction sites. New restaurants arrived next to businesses that could remember when much of Charlotte still considered the neighborhood a little strange. Through every version, Plaza Midwood held onto its reputation as the part of town where people came to meet, drink, and see where the evening went.
Postino WineCafé is betting there’s room for one more gathering place.
The restaurant’s second Charlotte location sits inside Commonwealth, the large redevelopment reshaping a property that once housed a farm equipment manufacturer. Postino joins Uchi, Harriet’s Hamburgers, and a growing collection of businesses in a walkable pocket of the neighborhood, about 30 minutes—and, depending on traffic, perhaps several emotional stages—from its first Charlotte restaurant in Ballantyne.
Bailey
Postino co-founder and CEO Lauren Bailey said the reception in Ballantyne convinced the company that Charlotte could support another location. “We've absolutely loved getting to know the Charlotte community in Ballantyne,” Bailey told me. “Everyone has welcomed us with open arms over the past two years, and that's exactly why we knew we wanted to expand here.”
Postino started in 2001 in a 1940s post office in Arizona, where Bailey and co-founder Craig DeMarco built a wine café around an idea that has since become common but still works when done well: find an old building, preserve some of its personality, and turn it into the sort of place where ordering another glass seems easier than going home.
Each Postino incorporates pieces of its surroundings into the design. At the company’s Ballantyne restaurant, a wall of headphones refers to the amphitheater next door, while Caddyshack imagery recalls the golf course that once occupied the development.
In Plaza Midwood, the references reach further back. Trolley-car details and industrial elements nod to the neighborhood’s history, while the restaurant’s most noticeable art wall layers old camera images against a pixelated background. The piece was inspired by a mid-century camera and film store that once operated nearby. It is a clever collision of analog equipment and digital imagery, which could also describe much of Plaza Midwood these days.
The restaurant fills 4,113 square feet, with another 1,060 square feet outside on the patio. That is plenty of territory for working lunches, dates, book clubs, birthday gatherings, and those supposedly quick glasses of wine that somehow require a second parking payment. Bailey wants Postino to function as what urban planners call a third place—the spot beyond home and work where people return often enough to begin recognizing one another. “Our goal is for Postino to become a true ‘third place’ for Charlotteans,” she said. “We want to be a go-to spot for date nights, book club meetups, working lunches, wine nights with the girls, and all of life's special occasions.”
Postino has a menu structured for repeat visits. Its signature bruschetta boards allow diners to choose from a dozen versions, turning toast into both dinner and a minor strategy exercise. The rest of the menu moves through charcuterie, soups, salads, panini, desserts, and a collection labeled “Snacky Things.” It is an unserious name for a useful category: food ordered when nobody wants to commit to an entrée but everyone intends to steal a few bites.
The menu can stretch or shrink around the occasion. A table might stop at wine and bruschetta or assemble a full meal from sandwiches, salads, snacks, and dessert. “There are really no rules for how we aim to serve our guests,” Bailey said. “At the end of the day, this space is for our guests, and we want them to be comfortable.”
Wine is the main event. More than 20 selections are offered by the glass, with a rotating list that moves through regions and varietals without turning the ordering process into an oral exam. Craft beer, cocktails, and zero-proof drinks cover the rest of the table.
Postino has also built much of its following around prices meant to encourage regular rather than ceremonial drinking. On Mondays and Tuesdays, the Board & Bottle special combines a bruschetta board and a bottle of wine for $25, which in the current restaurant economy can feel like discovering an accounting error in the customer’s favor.
The Plaza Midwood restaurant also has another tool for cultivating regulars: the Postino Bottle Club. Members can receive as many as three bottles a month, along with perks that include a tote and the ability to open that month’s selection while dining at the restaurant. The club came later to Ballantyne, after the restaurant realized its regulars wanted a more formal connection to the place. “As we built strong relationships with our regulars, we saw firsthand how much our guests wanted a deeper way to be part of the Postino experience,” Bailey said. “This time around, we're launching Plaza Midwood with a bottle club from day one, so our newest regulars can start building that same sense of belonging right away.”
There is also the complimentary Postino Pass, which offers members a welcome gift, exclusive food items, and seasonal extras. Both programs are attempts to turn the restaurant’s most reliable product—not wine or bruschetta, but the prospect of belonging somewhere—into something customers can sign up for.
Plaza Midwood already has restaurants that belong to the neighborhood, places threaded into people’s routines and personal histories. Postino will have to earn that status, not simply decorate for it. Bailey said that a year after opening, success would mean seeing the restaurant used for dates, lunches, meetings, celebrations, and ordinary evenings that did not need a reason.
That is the right test. The clearest sign that Postino has become part of Plaza Midwood will not be a crowded celebration or a full patio on a perfect Saturday. It will be the rainy Tuesday when someone sends a group text asking where to meet—and everyone already knows the answer.
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