Waiting For Leluia Hall

As I got to work on this issue, I realized this is the third consecutive year Leluia Hall will appear on our list of restaurants opening in the coming year. This is certainly not a criticism of Jeff Tonidandel and Jamie Brown, the spouses and business partners behind this venture. Opening a restaurant in a 107-year-old building is no joke, and it comes with inevitable complications. If anyone can do it, it’s these two. 

But I know I’m not the only one wondering: Is this the year Leluia Hall will finally open? 

In short, yes. But the reason it took this long is complicated. Part of the answer lies in the aforementioned surprises and setbacks. Then come the difficulties that arise with add-ons—like, say, the purchase and relocation of another historic building and a television series documenting the project. As of this writing, Leluia Hall was set to open this month. But the story of how Jeff and Jamie got to this point illustrates how challenging restaurant development can be, particularly when the owners are committed to historic preservation.

When they purchased Bonterra from restaurateur John Duncan in early 2022, Jeff and Jamie hoped to reopen as Leluia Hall within a year. This would be their sixth restaurant and restoration project in Charlotte. They spent the next eight months on architectural plans and began demolition that September. “As soon as we started that process, we uncovered a lot of problems,” Jamie says. “Jeff and our team had to fortify some of the beams that had split. The whole building was caving in.”

Demolition of the building’s interior began in 2022.

One year of construction turned into two. Then the project got even bigger. In May 2023, Jeff and Jamie decided to save the historic Leeper-Wyatt building, which was left standing after neighboring Tyber Creek Pub was demolished for a new residential tower. It took three attempts to get the city Historic District Commission and the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission to sign off, but they finally got the green light to move the oldest surviving commercial building in South End to Leluia Hall’s parking lot in historic Dilworth. “Obviously, we didn’t want to lose valuable parking spots for our restaurant,” Jeff says. “But we thought, Do we want to save this parking lot, or do we want to save an early 1900s historic landmark?”

They haven’t decided yet what they’ll do with the Leeper-Wyatt building, but they do know it will be another restaurant. “You can put that in your exciting openings for 2026,” Jeff says with a laugh.

Jeff and Jamie hoped to open Leluia Hall last August but relocating the Leeper-Wyatt building demanded all of their attention. So they pushed it to November. Then December. But hiring is notoriously hard around the holidays, so now they’re aiming for this month. Jamie says guests can expect steak and seafood served family-style, a raw bar, and cocktails from mixologist Colleen Hughes.

The Leeper-Wyatt building (at left) at its new home beside Leluia Hall.

In the meantime, they’ve been filming a new public television series that documents this project. Charlotte-based Susie Films will roll out the series this summer. Cameras have captured everything from construction to menu development.

“One of our biggest problems right now is, we designed the place in our heads two or three years ago and ordered all the pieces,” Jeff says. “Then the wallpaper guy shows up, and we go, ‘Which room is that for?’ Then the equipment shows up, and it doesn’t fit anymore. We built the cabinets a year and a half ago. In these old buildings, nothing is straight. It might be off by a quarter of an inch, but that really matters.” 

When I interviewed the pair in 2019, as they renovated the historic Plaza Midwood church that would become Supperland, I asked them if they ever considered giving up. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just tear down and build new? “Probably,” they both said. Five years later, I asked the same question. 

“Had I known in December 2021, when we first started talking about this, that it would have taken this long, I don’t know that we would have bitten this off—” Jamie says.

“Yeah, we would,” Jeff interjects. “Because that’s what we do.”

Jamie smiles. “That’s what we do.”