Part of the Gay Charlotte Guide — bars, events & things to do.
Charlotte, North Carolina
Longest-running LGBTQ+ retail store in Charlotte, on Central Ave
White Rabbit is Charlotte's longest-running LGBTQ+ store, a fixture at 920 Central Avenue in Plaza Midwood for decades. The name goes back to a small Carolinas chain founded in Greensboro in the mid-1980s, with the Charlotte location opening in the early 1990s — long enough to count among the oldest continuously operating queer shops in the Southeast. You'll know it by the wraparound mural, 'Our Lives, Our Culture, Our Time,' painted by Gil Croy in 2012. It's an everything-store for the community: LGBTQ+ books and greeting cards, pride apparel, designer underwear and swimwear, jewelry, stickers, and adult novelties. The building has also long housed the offices of QNotes, the region's main LGBTQ+ newspaper, and the shop is a certified member of the Carolinas LGBT+ Chamber of Commerce. Plaza Midwood around it is one of Charlotte's most walkable, independent-minded corridors — easy to fold a stop here into an afternoon of browsing and coffee.
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