The building at 1013 Battleground Avenue used to be Ready Auto & Ready Gas. Since Thursday, September 10, it has had a butcher counter, a bar and a small market. You can eat a brisket sandwich there and leave with house-made sausage for tomorrow's dinner.
Most of what opened around Greensboro this fall follows the same pattern. The new places sell things you take home and use: cuts of meat, pantry staples, charcuterie boxes, a full cart of groceries. One of the biggest openings is a neighborhood grocery store that took seven years to open in an empty shopping center. For a lot of households, that means more weekly errands can now be run closer to home.
A garage on Battleground now sells dinner, cooked or raw
Battleground Butcher Bar comes from Taylor and Jordan Armstrong. According to the restaurant's own account of how it started, Taylor grew up in Greensboro working in kitchens and grocery meat departments. He'd been sketching a butcher-plus-restaurant in his head for years before the old Ready Auto building came open. The couple worked with interior designer Libby Langdon on the space, and renovation began in early 2026.
The setup is what makes it a weekly stop and not a once-a-season dinner. The butcher counter rotates steaks, chops, house-made sausage and bacon, seasoned and marinated cuts, roasts and larger cuts. The market next to it carries pantry staples, beer and wine, sides, sauces, condiments and grab-and-go items. The restaurant menu covers the sit-down side, with steak-tip skewers, wings, salads, a smashburger, a brisket sandwich, beer, wine and nonalcoholic options.
The posted hours fit around a regular week:
- Tuesday through Saturday: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., with the kitchen closing at 9 p.m.
- Sunday: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., with the kitchen closing at 7 p.m.
- Monday: closed
The owners have described a weekly routine they plan to build, with a "steak night," "Sunday stock-ups" and "pre-game plates." If you're hoping to order a Thanksgiving roast there, check the restaurant's specials and events page or call ahead before you plan around it.
Farther up Battleground, the board you bring to someone else's house
Four days after the Butcher Bar opened, Graze Craze opened at 1616 Battleground Avenue in Dover Square. The Greensboro News & Record reported the September 14 opening and identified local franchisee Elizabeth Paul as the owner.
Like the Butcher Bar, it's built mainly for food you carry out. The shop makes charcuterie boards and boxes to order, along with brunch boards and sandwich trays. The menu starts with a $9 cup, and the next size up is a $15 box. Catering and some seating are available. A cup or box covers a weekday lunch. A full board is what you bring to a holiday open house when you don't want to arrive with a bag of chips.
The Triad Business Journal covered these openings together and said the midtown Greensboro food scene "continues to heat up." That's accurate. Look at what the two places actually sell, though, and the midtown scene is filling up with spots where a lot of the business goes out the door in a bag.
On West Florida Street, a grocery store seven years in the making
The Butcher Bar and Graze Craze added options on a corridor that already had them. The Piggly Wiggly at 819 West Florida Street, near Freeman Mill Road, is the opening that changes the most for the people who live nearby.
WFMY News 2 reported that plans for the store go back to 2019. Owners Robin and Madhav Dhakal told the station the project was held up by permitting, licensing and utility connections, and Robin Dhakal said inspections were the biggest holdup. A hoped-for August opening came and went. Madhav Dhakal described what the wait looked like from inside the store:
"Every day, we have people drive by, 'Hey, when are you opening?'"
The store opened in October, with its grand opening on October 21. The Triad Business Journal reported that the soft opening drew a crowd to the 15,000-square-foot store. WFMY reported that residents of the nearby Glenwood and Smith Homes neighborhoods had no close grocery store with fresh food, and that the nearest one was more than a 20-minute walk away. In May, a neighbor told FOX8 that the nearest options meant driving to the Food Lion off Merritt Drive or the one off Coliseum Boulevard. FOX8 also noted that the store moved into a shopping center that had been sitting empty, after years of rumors that a Piggly Wiggly would eventually fill it.
The store carries fresh produce, refrigerated and frozen foods, and prepared foods like rotisserie chicken, and the owners have said they plan to hire from the surrounding neighborhood. Mayor Marikay Abuzuaiter told WFMY, "The people right around there need something close, and they will go there to shop."
The bigger stock-up trips got a new option on the west side, too. YES! Weekly reported that Rural King, the family-owned farm-and-home chain from Illinois, began daily shopping on September 24 at 3703 Farmington Drive, near West Gate City Boulevard.
Downtown's newest lounge opens at 7 a.m.
Even the new downtown spot that sounds most like a night out is set up for a regular schedule. No Rush Coffee + Cocktail Lounge at 245 East Friendly Avenue is open Monday through Saturday. It starts serving a full craft coffee menu at 7 a.m. and switches to cocktails later in the day. Its Unwind Hour, Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m., serves early cocktails alongside the coffee menu at a featured price.
Co-owners Lee A. Williams II and Jamisa Williams told YES! Weekly that the idea started on a work trip to Washington, D.C., where people told Lee about the coffee spots and speakeasies they went to and the community those places built. The concept went through several versions before it became No Rush. The two-floor space has a full espresso bar, matcha, a self-pour tap wall of beer, wine and cider, and a private lounge. It also shows work by local artists.
The membership program shows who the lounge is built for. The Daily Pause costs $25 a month and The Unwind Hours costs $59 a month. Members get specialty drinks, priority invitations to events and members-only tasting nights. A monthly plan only pays off if you come back often, which puts No Rush closer to a corner coffee shop than to a special-occasion bar.
What's announced and still on the way
Three more openings have been announced. None had a confirmed opening date as of late October, so treat these as places to keep an eye on.
| Name | Address | What's planned | Last public timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Float Dirty Soda and Ice Cream | 1013 Battleground Ave., same building as the Butcher Bar | Coca-Cola-based dirty sodas and Homeland Creamery ice cream, from owners Emily Baker and Chase Strange | Was aiming for August if permits allowed; the Butcher Bar's site now says "later in 2026" |
| Blendology | 112 N. Elm St. | Coffee from a Honduran family farm, cocktails and community events, from co-owners Michell Reyes and Rene Ramos | Was aiming for September |
| Three Rabbits Brewing | 214 Commerce Place | German-style beers in a downtown taproom, from brewer Danny Myers and family | No opening date announced |
Float would make 1013 Battleground a two-business address, with ice cream next to the butcher counter. Business Debut's report on the plans says the shop will use ice cream from Homeland Creamery. Blendology and Three Rabbits would both open downtown, where No Rush already serves coffee and cocktails.
If you want to walk off a Butcher Bar brisket sandwich, the Downtown Greenway Run & Walk Club meets at LoFi Park on Thursday, November 5, according to the Downtown Greensboro events calendar.
A new butcher counter or grocery store close by changes how a neighborhood works day to day, and that kind of detail rarely shows up in a listing. If you'd like to talk about how places like these affect what Greensboro homes are like to live in, Local to Coastal Realty is glad to help. Request a Free Consultation and we'll start with the parts of town you already know.
