September 1, 2026
Bruce Moffett plans his next steps
As Good Food on Montford closes, the noted Charlotte restaurateur talks about passing the torch
by Kristen Wile
After its final service on Saturday, Aug. 29, Bruce Moffett closed the doors of Good Food on Montford. More than three decades after opening, the restaurant will become a new concept: Bitters | Sweet, led by longtime Moffett Restaurant Group employees with Moffett as an investor. At 62 years old, Moffett says the decision to say goodbye to Good Food when the lease ended largely centered on his age and what he wants his life to look like as he approaches what in any other industry would be retirement age.
“When I looked at signing a new lease at Good Food, a big factor was that I’ll be 68 when it comes to a fruition, and that just seems like to own 80 percent of a restaurant and have that much financial either bonus or liability in it, and it just didn’t seem like a great idea.”
Instead, Lee Ann Dolcetto, a longtime Stagioni employee, and Russ Johnson, who worked at the Eastover restaurant for many years, approached Moffett with an idea for a concept of their own. Helping the pair strike out on their own was an easy yes.
“That’s always been one of my guiding principles: to take care of the people that have taken care of me,” Moffett says. “I wouldn’t be where I am today without Lee Ann.”
The restaurateur will have to face a similar decision in a few years, when the lease at Barrington’s Restaurant ends. At Stagoini, Moffett’s seasonal Italian concept, there are nine years remaining on the lease. The restaurant’s kitchen is helmed by Charlotte’s Top Chef contestant, Brittany Cochran, and is a favorite restaurant among chefs and diners alike. Moffett says he can see Stagioni expanding to include more locations or spin-off concepts. His eventual goal is to have systems in place where he can hand off a majority of operations to staff, taking on more of a silent investor role and becoming less necessary on a day-to-day basis. Moffett still often fills in when there’s a gap in the kitchen.
“I think I’ve in the last couple of years really tried to tap into what I want and not what I think everyone else wants from me,” the chef says. In the future, he hopes to split time between Charlotte and Rhode Island, checking in on the restaurants regularly.”
“I feel like I’ve spent 30 years, six days a week in these kitchens, and it’s just — I can’t,” he says.
“It’s time.”
Moffett expects his future involvement to echo that of Bao + Broth, which is run by chef Larry Schreiber with Moffett as a silent investor and a mentor when needed.
That’s not to say Moffett won’t be opening restaurants in the future. He says if met with the right opportunity to reopen N.C. Red, his South-meets-New England seafood and fried chicken concept, he’d make it happen. The restaurant opened in Plaza Midwood in what is now the Calle Sol space, built on a business model made with expansion in mind.
“I always felt it was over COVID, and I left something on the table on that one,” he says of N.C. Red.
With Good Food on Montford, however, Moffett knows it’s time.
“It all makes sense logically,” he says. “But emotionally, walking in and telling 25 people that they don’t have jobs at the end of the month and then giving up something that I’ve had so much pride to say that I owned and that my brother and Larry made into just a fantastic, groundbreaking restaurant for Charlotte — I have a lot, a lot of pride in that. Emotionally, I’m a basket case.”
Following the successful run with Good Food, Moffett is looking forward to watching his longtime employees flourish. He hopes to also help them with some menu development, with some dishes nodding back to Good Food, like mini bao buns or a mussels dish.
“Maybe that’s part of my legacy,” he says, “making sure that the people that have taken care of me all these years are put into good situations.”
