Mert’s Heart and Soul

Made from canned fish, mixed with chopped onions and cracker crumbs, and tucked in a baking powder biscuit or shingled atop grits, salmon cakes taste like breakfast throwbacks. At Mert’s, a showcase for updated African American foodways, James Bazelle uses fresh salmon instead and serves these pan-fried riffs on tradition for dinner. 214 N. College St.;
 mertsuptown.com

Plaza Seafood & Grocery

The sign says You Buy We Fry. Ky Do and his wife, Tinh Le Do, mean it. Pick your fish from the cooler, where flounder, porgy, and croaker lie in icy repose, and they will roll it in corn flour, fry it in deep oil, sluice it with hot sauce, and slap it between two slices of white bread. If you want a drink, grab a 40-ounce beer from the back fridge. 
2519 The Plaza; 704-332-2766

Price’s Chicken Coop

Gizzards are all about texture. They taste like the word sounds. A little gritty. A little funky. If gizzards had a theme song, Booker T. & the MGs would lay down the backbeat. The best gizzards are the simplest: Sprinkled with salt and pepper. Rolled in flour. Fried hard. Hit with hot sauce. That’s the way Price’s, a counter-service takeaway, has been doing it since 1952.
1614 Camden Rd.;
 priceschickencoop.com

Reid’s Fine Foods
Recently reopened in the swank Myers Park neighborhood, Reid’s has been selling groceries since 1928. Here the tennis dress and pearl necklace set shop for zippered bags of diminutive garlic cheese biscuits from A Lit’l Taste of Heaven, a Charlotte-area concern whose handiwork shouts homemade. 225 E. Seventh St.;
 reids.com

Rooster’s Wood-Fired Kitchen
Eric Solomon is one of the most widely respected wine professionals in the United States. Born in nearby Greensboro, he lives and works in Charlotte, where he directs an import company, European Cellars. From the bar at Rooster’s, you can taste a wide range of his mostly affordable portfolio, including a sprightly French rosé from Château Pesquié in the Rhône Valley, and Evodia, an inky garnacha from the Calatayud region of Spain. 6601 Morrison Blvd.; roosterskitchen.com

United House 
of Prayer Cafeteria 

There is no sign. Instead, look for the dramatic spire that rises high above the United House of Prayer for All People. And enter on the side, past the five-foot stone lions. Pork chops come swaddled in brown gravy. Turkey necks bob in broth. But macaroni and cheese is the money dish. Milky at its core, crusty on top, it’s the idealized Sunday-after-church eat.
1019 S. Mint St.; 704-377-1835