Progress of The Royal Tot was moving along toward a late summer opening near Catawba Brewing in Belmont when permitting hit a roadblock. The person in charge of reviewing their plans changed, and that change brought an entirely different interpretation of the building’s capabilities, putting a weeks-long hold on progress.

While fighting the county on their ability to move forward, co-owner Scott Gadd met hoteliers Nimisha and Jay Patel, who are opening a small hotel on Central Avenue in the former Kickstand Burgers space. The Patels, transplants from the Raleigh area, operate Wintergreen Hospitality. Their newest hotel, Refuge, is meant to bring guests an immersive experience, placing them in the middle of Plaza Midwood and allowing them to experience Charlotte fully. As they learned of The Royal Tot’s delay from Gadd, a partnership was born. 

The Royal Tot will be spun into a pop-up called Rumaway Cove inside the Refuge hotel’s bar and lounge space. The five-seat bar, seating area, and patio will be home to rum-based cocktails with light Island-inspired decor for a few months while The Royal Tot space completes its construction. 

“It was a really good way for us to do something fun and do something cool and keep the momentum going for The Royal Tot and allow Refuge to have a really cool experience when they open,” Gadd says. 

As they look to create an immersive experience for their hotel, the Patels have been immersing themselves in Charlotte’s creative circles, with Nimisha focusing on potential partnerships like spoken word performers and artists she hopes will make an appearance at the space. When they met Gadd and learned of The Royal Tot’s plans to offer an in-depth cocktail experience centered on rums, they felt their missions aligned — and that Scott and Ashleigh Gadd’s experience in hospitality complements their own. 

“We’re second generation hotel developers and operators, so we know that side of the house really, really well,” Nimisha Patel says. “We also aspire to make sure that the space that we have is really experiential, and a lot of different things can make a space experiential, but classically food and beverage, as we all know, is one of those things. There’s a lot that food and beverage can do. It brings people together in unexpected ways. … And that’s an area where we don’t have an expertise in the way that others do.”

When Refuge and Rumaway Cove open in early September, mixologist Larry Suggs will serve a small cocktail menu of tropical drinks, with a focus on rum. Other spirits will be available to the guests who prefer to stick with a martini, but Suggs’ cocktail list will feature creations made with more intricate ingredients like house-made falernum and orgeat. 

Gadd is careful not to label The Royal Tot and Rumaway Cove as tiki concepts, however. According to Gadd, tiki indicates an experience that nearly mandates the presence of Polynesian statues and other decor inspired by the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia. Instead, they want The Royal Tot to reflect an island vacation with a focus on the style of making drinks made popular by places like famed bar Trader Vic’s and help guests appreciate and understand the wide variety of rum expressions. 

That dedication is what drew the Patels to offer their space in partnership with The Royal Tot and Rumaway Cove.

“When we say experiential, we’re going for that person who really wants to dig deep on a particular thing,” Nimisha says. “It’s having that depth in an experience that we’re looking for and we want to create in our spaces, and Royal Tot is doing just that by really honing in on rum.”

Rumaway Cove will encourage reservations with a few walk-in seats available; no standing room will be allowed. Gadd expects the pop-up to last through mid to late-November. 

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