Corey Jones of Mad Dash competes in the Charlotte StrEATs Festival. Photo by Grant Baldwin Photography

Mad Dash, the ghost concept by chef Corey Jones, is relocating from The City Kitch to take over part of the former Yolk space in The Market at 7th Street, where Jimmy Pearls will also open a food stall. Mad Dash soft opened this past weekend, serving American fare with flavors only achieved by a talented chef. Mad Dash was an UPPY Award finalist for Ghost Kitchen of the Year, and Jones’s efforts in the Charlotte StrEATs Festival earned special praise from celebrity chef Amanda Freitag.

“The ghost kitchen was good for the year and a half that I was doing it,” Jones says, “but it was time just to be able to go ahead and shift gears to get to a place where I’m more visible, and to where customers can easily find me on a regular basis.”

For now, the Mad Dash menu will remain the same as it was at The City Kitch. This summer, Jones says, he plans to add soups and salads to the menu. Once he has a better idea of the flow of the market, he’ll also add breakfast, with dishes from grit bowls and breakfast sandwiches to avocado toast and waffles.

Mad Dash will be open 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, and Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. The restaurant will be closed Sunday and Monday, with Monday hours coming eventually. Mad Dash will remain closed on Sundays for Jones to attend church.

Jones is a Johnson & Wales graduate, who moved to Charlotte from Alaska to attend culinary school here. Before opening Mad Dash, he’s worked at restaurants such as Lumiere and Mimosa Grill. When he was laid off from his job on the culinary team at Charlotte Douglas Airport, he decided to open Mad Dash a year and a half ago. Following this next step, Jones is considering adding a food truck. From there, he’s dreaming big.

“Eventually, I want to be able to have my own restaurant and restaurant group and keep everything as one umbrella, and grow it to where I can have a farm to produce the fruit and vegetables and have a farm that I can get my animals from and eventually have a winery and a brewery,” Jones says. “That way, just in case anything ever happens again on shortages and stuff and the economy, I’m not going off of what the economy’s doing because I have everything in-house that I can get.”