Visart Cafe

Description: Visart Cafe offers a variety of coffee drinks, sodas, beer, wine. We also have hot food, charcuterie boards, local pastries and more! The cafe includes a pet friendly garden and access to the Visart theater!

Comments: This place is so cool. Vintage vibes all around. It's attached to a video store that rents and sells VHS tapes, DVDs, and Blu Rays. The cafe is an extension of that, serving coffee, tea, hot food, pastries, and other snack like items. They even have cinnamon rolls sometimes 🔥.

When you arrive, the big sign says "Visart Video" but that's not where you enter for the cafe. Go around the corner down the long walkway, you'll pass a bunch of tables and chairs. That's a good chunk of the seating, outside, but there’s additional seating indoors through a door you pass walking in.

The indoor area has this dark room, film auteur, sort of vibe. Movie posters all around, various art pieces, very cool. There's a mini movie theater that's down to earth. Nothing fancy, a simple small screen, individual chairs, that aren't particularly comfortable but are enough to sit and enjoy a film.

If you get there early enough in the day, they'll let you pick a movie to put on. I got to watch Things We Lost in the Fire (featuring Halle Berry & Benicio Del Toro, a beautifully moving drama) and Reign of Fire (featuring Christian Bale & Matthew McConaughey, an underrated turn your brain off film) on a rainy Wednesday morning while half-working on my laptop in a corner. I don't know any other third places in Charlotte where you can do that!

This is also a great place to hang out if it's warm, there’s outlets outdoors. It’s right by an awesome local bookstore, Book Buyers, so you can get your drinks, browse the video store, and then browse the bookstore, all within walking distance. And a final story, the first time I visited, a dude had the indoors booked to propose to his girlfriend. She was elated, I suspect they met here. So, it could be said the vibes here are...lovely ❤️.