Plaza Midwood's Fertile Storefront

Not one but two Fortune 500 companies took root at nondescript 1508-1510 Central Ave.

- TOM HANCHETT

IT MIGHT BE THE LUCKIEST BUILDING on the luckiest block in Charlotte: Two national Fortune 500 retailers got their start at this one spot in the heart of Plaza Midwood.

The double storefront at 1508-1510 Central Avenue doesn’t look like much. That’s part of its charm. It sits right up at the sidewalk, surrounded by a block of similarly affordable and unremarkable buildings. It’s a basic, one-story box, brick in front, with four concrete globes mounted along its cornice. You could fit a small store in each half or throw it together for a midsized shop. That’s one thing that’s always made Plaza Midwood so lively—not any one anchor store but a jumble of entrepreneurial energies.

A young man named W.T. Harris (yep, as in W.T. Harris Boulevard) saw the possibilities back in 1936, when he launched Harris Food Store just down the block at 1504 Central, today Mama’s Caribbean Grill & Bar. He outgrew the space in two busy years. That’s when Harris decided to rent the double up the block. An investor had built it in the late 1920s but struggled to keep it leased during the Depression years. That meant cheap rent, and Harris put his extra dollars into grocery innovation.