PHOTO/TRIPADVISOR

Rudean’s Restaurant is closing its doors Sept. 17

Less than a month before her 60th anniversary year in business, Rudean Harris is closing her café and bar.

The restaurant, located at 2228 Beatties Ford Road, is in the same location where Harris began in 1957. Its last day is Sept. 17.  

Harris started the restaurant at age 16 under the name West Charlotte Drive-In in an unincorporated part of Mecklenburg County.  She wasn’t old enough to have a license to sell alcohol, only burgers, hot dogs, sandwiches and soft drinks ranging from 5 to 35 cents. Once the city of Charlotte incorporated the area, William “Bill” Covington, one of Charlotte’s first black police officers, and his sister Lillie sought to buy the drive-in and Harris accepted their offer for $300. It was a “lot of money then,” she said.

Harris took her rather lucrative buy-out money and moved to McDowell Street in the Brooklyn community, where she started operating as Rudean’s, selling food and soft drinks only. She eventually became old enough and got a beer license.

Harris ran the business to help her father, Curtis Robinson, support her five siblings after he moved the family to Charlotte from their hometown of Orangeburg, S.C., after her mother died.

The eldest of the six children, Harris gave up a normal teenager’s life for that period back then to help her father. As the primary cook in the household, she transferred those skills to sandwiches and soft drinks.

Many of her loyal, long-term customers represent at least three generations of families. Over the years, Rudean’s set up in four other locations, ultimately winding back up at the original spot at the corner of Beatties Ford Road and Keller Avenue, now Dr. Webber Avenue.

Rudean loyalists are planning for a major retirement send-off party at a site to be determined.

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