Historic Charlotte

If you grew up in Charlotte during the
’30s, ’40s, or ’50s, Yates Louis Honey, “Y. L.”
to his friends, was an important part of your
life. You might not have known his name, but
you loved his food.
For three decades, Honey owned, or was
involved with, many of the areas most popular
eateries, including the popular Minute Grill at
Morehead and Tryon Streets. Honey, along with
his brother, Steve, and brother-in-law, Salem
Suber, also operated several other Charlottearea
institutions—The Green Gables, located
on Providence Road where the Manor Theater
now stands, and the famed Townhouse, at the
corner of Providence and Queens Roads.
Y. L. Honey established his first business, a
small ice cream shop in Thomasville, North
Carolina, in 1932, shortly after graduating from
high school. A few years later, Honey moved to
Charlotte, married Rose Suber, and entered
both the restaurant and ice cream manufacturing
business. His Blue Bird Ice Cream Company
at the corner of Mint and Morehead Streets sold
Honeydew Ice Cream, a flavorful treat still
remembered fondly by old-time Charlotteans.
Honey’s first Charlotte restaurant, Goody
Goody BBQ, was located at the corner of
Tryon and Morehead Streets and was the first
of several restaurants Honey would operate
on the site. His Minute Grill at that location
introduced the concept of “curb service” to
the area and became a Charlotte institution.
Honey always considered the busy corner one
of most important intersections in the city
and the company he founded still owns the
four-acre site today.
During the 1960s and ’70s, Honey, who
was both a dreamer and a doer, began to delve
into other businesses, including hotels, convenience
stores and commercial real estate
investments. He built and operated two successful
hotels and invested in one of the area’s
earliest convenience store chains. In addition,
he built an assortment of other commercial
real estate projects, including office buildings,
retail stores and gas stations. But he always
maintained his love for restaurants and the
man who pioneered curb service restaurants
was always willing to try a new concept.
Honey began to slow a bit in the 1980s and
turned more control of the company over to
others. His son, Yates Honey, Jr., became president
in 1989. Y. L. Honey, Sr., passed away in
1997 at the age of eighty-six.
Today, Honey Enterprises is a privately
owned firm specializing in two areas of business:
real estate development/investment and
hotels/restaurants.
Honey Properties, Incorporated, the real
estate arm, invests in all kinds of real estate
and owns and manages investments along the
I-85 corridor from Greenville, South Carolina
to Greensboro, North Carolina.
Honey’s Incorporated, the hotel and restaurant
operation, owns and operates Holiday Inns
in Greenville, South Carolina and Gastonia,
North Carolina and the one remaining Honeys
Restaurant in Durham, North Carolina.
HONEY
ENTERPRISES
✧
Above: Y. L. Honey in 1955.
Below: The Minute Grill, pictured in the
early 1940s, introduced “curb service” to
the area and became a Charlotte institution
at the corner of South Tryon and
Morehead Streets.
THE MARKETPLACE
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