PJ's Coffee and Lounge Is Closing

I just got word that PJ's Coffee and Lounge is going out of business soon. I find this surprising, because just about every time I've been there or passed by, it's had a good-sized, if not packed, crowd. But come to think of it, those were always night times. If I had to venture a guess, I would think that PJ's struggled with dayside business. It would open at 6:30 a.m. during the week to capture the breakfast crowd and coffee drinkers en route to work. But while the EpiCentre is a magnet for nightlife, I can't see it drawing many people during the morning and lunchtime hours. With PJ's being open as many as 20 hours a day, they would literally need customers coming in around the clock.


PJ's Coffee and Lounge opened in October 2008, and I wrote about it a few months later in Charlotte magazine ("Night, Joe"). It's a trendy bar that takes on a cool vibe once night strikes, and it became a favorite of mine at the EpiCentre as a good place to stop and hang for about an hour in between bar hopping. But I soon replaced it for that purpose with w xyz bar inside the aloft Hotel, which is also at the EpiCentre.

Even PJ's once-jazzy website is now parked by GoDaddy, and that's never a good sign.