The Currys Are Building Something in Charlotte — and It Goes Way Beyond Basketball

Stephen Curry grew up in Charlotte. He went to school there, learned the game there, and carries the city with him in a way that has never been performative. When he and Ayesha decided to plant their hospitality business in the Queen City, it was not a branding decision. It was a homecoming with a business plan attached.

Inside the Ritz-Carlton in uptown Charlotte, the Currys are opening three restaurants — a café, a bourbon lounge, and a steakhouse — all in partnership with Michelin-starred chef and restaurateur Michael Mina. The first of the three, Ayesha’s Sweet July Cafe, opened its doors on July 20. The other two are on the way before the year is out.

This is what the Curry family portfolio looks like when it expands beyond the court and the court’s endorsement ecosystem. It is deliberate, layered, and rooted in something real.

Sweet July Cafe

The first concept to open is Ayesha’s. Sweet July Cafe sits inside the Ritz-Carlton at 201 East Trade Street and operates as an all-day café drawing from Ayesha’s Caribbean roots and her Food Network background. The menu is personal in a way that feels intentional rather than curated — coconut chia seed pudding, overnight oats, a strawberry shortcake croissant, a crème brûlée Danish, and a bananas foster cinnamon roll on the breakfast side. Lunch moves into warm pita sandwiches inspired by Jamaican coco bread, smash burgers, Jamaican beef patties, and seasonal salads, with coffee, matcha, and smoothies running throughout the day.

Ayesha opened the first Sweet July Cafe in Santa Monica in May. Charlotte is the second. The locally sourced ingredients and the Caribbean-inflected menu make it distinctly hers — not a hotel café with her name attached, but a reflection of where she comes from and how she cooks.

“Sweet July has always been rooted in community and creating spaces where people feel genuinely welcomed,” Ayesha said in a statement. “Charlotte means so much to my family and me, making it the perfect home for our newest café.”

The Eighth Rule

Steph’s contribution to the trio is The Eighth Rule — a bourbon-forward cocktail lounge and social dining destination that he originally launched in San Francisco in partnership with The MINA Group. It marked his first formal hospitality venture, and Charlotte is its expansion.

The concept is built around the idea of bringing people together through elevated food, drink, and conversation. The bourbon program anchors it, but The Eighth Rule operates more as a destination than a bar — a place where the experience is the product. It is expected to open inside the Ritz-Carlton Charlotte later this winter alongside Bourbon Steak.

“The Eighth Rule has always been about creating an experience that brings people together for community and conversation, while enjoying elevated food and drink offerings,” Steph said. “Expanding to Charlotte is especially exciting because it’s a city that not only holds a special place in mine and my family’s heart, but it’s filled with incredible energy and culture.”

Bourbon Steak

The third concept is Bourbon Steak — a Mina Group flagship steakhouse that slow-poaches its cuts and offers a menu built around craft and technique. The same franchise opened with Curry in San Francisco’s Union Square last year. In Charlotte, it completes the trio inside the Ritz-Carlton and positions the property as one of the more ambitious hospitality buildouts the city has seen in recent years.

The Ritz-Carlton Charlotte has been undergoing a multimillion-dollar renovation since 2023, and the Curry-Mina partnership is the centerpiece of that transformation. Karen Ayad, the hotel’s general manager, called it a win not just for the property but for the city. “The partnerships that we’re entering into with Michael Mina and Ayesha and Steph Curry are not just exciting for The Ritz-Carlton, Charlotte — I think they are super exciting for Charlotte as a whole,” she said.

Michael Mina, for his part, cited Charlotte’s evolving food scene as the reason the city made sense. “You can see when cities are really starting to happen with food — Charlotte’s a really good city,” he said, pointing to the city’s Top Chef run as a marker of where its culinary culture is headed.

What This Actually Represents

The restaurant trio is one line in a much larger story about what the Curry family is building. Steph’s Thirty Ink generated $173.5 million in revenue in 2024 with every division profitable. His Li-Ning deal is reshaping what an athlete sneaker brand can look like. His feature film debut this summer cleared nearly $200 million at the box office. The Hall of Fame exhibit named for him opened this month in Springfield. And now, three restaurants in the city that raised him.

Ayesha has her own lane — Food Network, cookbooks, Sweet July as a full lifestyle brand, and now a café footprint expanding from the West Coast to the South. This is not a spouse riding alongside a famous partner’s ventures. It is two separate, developed business identities operating in the same direction.

Charlotte gets both of them. And the Ritz-Carlton gets to be the building where it all lives.