111 Gilead Road Holds Downtown Huntersville's Breakfast and Its Nightcap

Cocotte stops serving at 3 p.m. The posted hours for The Corkscrew Wine Shoppe & Bar begin at 2 p.m. Both list the same street address, 111 Gilead Road, at The Holbrook at Town Center, so on paper the morning schedule and the evening schedule share about an hour each afternoon in the same building.

That overlap explains what is happening downtown this fall. The Holbrook's food and drink space waited a year and a half for tenants, and the two that arrived divide the day between them. Across the street, 760 Craft Works has added a late-night program, so the block now runs from 8 a.m. to after dark.

Eighteen months between the ribbon and the croissant

North State Development held The Holbrook's grand opening and ribbon cutting on April 9, 2025, according to a Lake Norman Chamber release. The project sits beside Discovery Place Kids near Gilead Road and Old Statesville Road and includes about 9,000 square feet of retail.

B & Co Hair Salon opened in The Holbrook about a year ago. On October 23, Lake Norman Publications described the next two arrivals as "long-awaited openings," coming "more than 18 months after the development opened."

The wait makes more sense once you look at who signed. The two food and drink tenants are a bakery and a wine bar, and their hours barely overlap.

The morning half: Cocotte

Cocotte soft-opened on Monday, October 12. It's an artisan French bakery and gourmet market, and the Huntersville shop is its second, after the original in Cornelius. The menu covers croissants, baguettes, fresh breads, breakfast and lunch sandwiches, and barista lattes. Lake Norman Publications noted that the selection could be limited during the first weeks.

The Huntersville counter doesn't do its own baking. Owners Angela Yeo and Chef Alexandre Darbousset use imported French flour, bake in Cornelius, and drive the bread to Huntersville every morning, CharlotteFive reported. That's why the shop runs on a bakery schedule: 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday and Wednesday through Sunday, closed Tuesdays.

The evening half: The Corkscrew comes back

The Corkscrew was at Birkdale Village for two decades. That location closed at the end of 2022, and in late October Lake Norman Publications reported that the business was "putting on the finishing touches" in The Holbrook. The Corkscrew's own site gives the new address as 111 Gilead Rd, Suite B1.

The format is familiar to anyone who went to the Birkdale shop: 30 to 40 wines by the glass, hundreds of bottles for retail sale, craft beer, handcrafted cocktails, an upscale bourbon list, and small plates such as charcuterie boards and flatbreads. Both The Corkscrew and Cocotte have added patio dining downtown. When North State Development announced the move, the plans for the Huntersville space included a 40-seat patio, a temperature-controlled wine cellar, and wine lockers.

Here's how the two schedules fit together over a week, using Cocotte's reported hours and The Corkscrew's posted hours:

Tuesday is the one day the morning half is dark. On Friday and Saturday, the two schedules together span 8 a.m. to midnight, 16 hours from two businesses sharing a building.

Across the street, the late end gets later

760 Craft Works is directly across from The Holbrook. Lake Norman Publications reported that it had a new craft cocktail program set to launch in late October, with Night Swim to follow. Night Swim is a 21-and-older night on Fridays and Saturdays from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m., with dim lighting, vinyl listening sessions, signature cocktails, and tinned fish and caviar service. General Manager Layton Cross and Head of Brand and Co-Owner Alyssa Ramsey came up with the idea. During regular hours, 760 stays a family-friendly taproom.

The taproom's weekly schedule had a Halloween edition of Night Swim on Saturday, October 31, on the same day as a food truck and charcuterie lineup that started at midday.

On their published schedules, Cocotte, The Corkscrew, and 760 together cover the downtown day: pastries and lattes until 3, wine from 2, and a listening bar until 11:30 on weekend nights. All three are within a short walk of one another.

November 7 is the first day to see it whole

The Holbrook is holding a retail grand opening this Saturday, November 7, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., to celebrate B+Co Hair Salon, Cocotte French Bakery, Corkscrew Wine Bar, and local vendors, according to the property's website.

The event window covers the handoff on the posted schedules. It begins during Cocotte's morning hours and ends after The Corkscrew's listed 2 p.m. start. If you want the whole day:

1. Start at Cocotte around 10 a.m., before the morning selection runs low.
2. Walk the vendor tables and stop in at B+Co while the event is going.
3. Stop by The Corkscrew's space at 111 Gilead Rd, Suite B1, which the event is celebrating.
4. Finish across the street at 760 Craft Works, where Night Swim runs Saturday from 8:30 p.m.

The rest of November stays close to Gilead Road

Two more November dates fall within a few minutes of The Holbrook:

• Saturday, November 14: The Town of Huntersville's Veterans Day Parade starts at 9:30 a.m. The ceremony follows at 11 a.m. at Veterans Park, 201 Huntersville-Concord Road, according to the Huntersville Historical Society's event listing. Cocotte opens at 8, so breakfast fits before the parade.
• Saturday, November 21: The Lighting of Birkdale Village runs from 2 to 7 p.m. at 16725 Birkdale Commons Parkway, with a parade at 4:30 p.m. and the tree lighting at 6 p.m. The same event opens the season for Birkdale on Ice in The Plaza, listed at $18 for a 75-minute skate session.

The Birkdale date is worth a moment for longtime Corkscrew customers. The wine bar spent 20 years at Birkdale, and this year's lighting comes two weeks after The Holbrook celebrates its return on Gilead Road.

What's next on the block is written into the deal

The Holbrook's food-and-drink pairing will spread over the next few years. A food tenant is close to guaranteed for the next project because the town wrote that into the sale.

On April 21, the Town Board approved a $1.44 million purchase agreement for the former Town Hall. Lake Norman Publications reported that the agreement carries seven-year use restrictions: at least half the floor area has to be food and beverage, and at least 1,800 square feet has to be seated restaurant space. The buyer is Town Hall Partners LLC, a partnership of Shane Seagle of North State Development, which also developed The Holbrook, and Rachel Krenz of The Lagniappe Group. Their plan is an approximately 8,500-square-foot food, beverage, and specialty retail destination, with Rebel Rebel Urban Retail Advisors and Southwick Architects and Interiors on the project. In July, Lake Norman Publications reported that the developers were aiming for a 2027 opening. The October report put the start of construction next year.

More is planned around it:

• Dumpling Girls, the food truck, plans a restaurant next to The Holbrook.
• Pint and Page, a bookstore combined with a biergarten and café, plans to open next to Dumpling Girls. Both sit on two Gilead Road parcels, 1.1 acres combined, that were rezoned to Town Center in January 2025, QC News reported.
• A downtown parking deck over the Town Hall parking lot. The town's 2026 design-build solicitation describes a $13 million multi-level deck with EV charging and a target completion of June 2028. Lake Norman Publications reported the deck is expected to bring more downtown investment.

The former Town Hall is at 101 Huntersville-Concord Road, on the same road as the Veterans Park ceremony on November 14. For now, the downtown day is 111 Gilead Road and the taproom across the street. By the deck's 2028 target, it should cover several blocks.

If you're watching downtown Huntersville to decide where to live, or just looking forward to a croissant and a glass of wine at the same address, I'm glad to talk through how Gilead Road is changing. Nicole Leininger follows these openings closely. Let's Connect.