Two Buck Saloon might be on its fourth rodeo, but it’s the new sheriff in Oakhurst, serving up $2 beers while shaking up the quiet corner of Monroe Road and Richland Drive one cold pour at a time.
Just a stone’s throw from Oakhurst Commons, tucked into a patchwork plaza featuring remnants of a Dominican hair salon, an apothecary and a blink-and-you-missed-it electronics repair shop, Two Buck Saloon stands as the newest “family-friendly” hideout on the block.
The bar’s fourth location quietly opened at the end of May, as talk picked up that the OG Two Buck — born on Hawthorne Lane in 2020 — might be the latest casualty in Charlotte’s slow crawl toward polished patios and overpriced sips.
Instead, ownership drew the line in the sawdust and fired back with frontier flair by opening yet another location where the number one house rule is etched on the entrance: “Everyone’s welcome until you’re not.” Translation: You can bring your kids, bring your dogs, but you best mind your manners ‘round these parts.
One step inside the barroom and it’s clear: “family-friendly” doesn’t mean watered down.
This Two Buck may be kid-approved but it still carries the swagger of the saloon that started it all; think mounted deer heads, floor-to-ceiling wood paneling, worn-in flooring and a long bar top featuring scrawled-on dollar bills lacquered like a permanent toast.
The specials board still reads like an outlaw’s love letter to regulars: $2 PBR drafts, High Life and Busch Light cans, and the legendary $8 pizza — always on the menu, rarely seen in the wild.
Behind the indoor stage, a game room with dart boards, pool tables, two multicade consoles and — true to Two Buck tradition — the infamous Big Buck Hunter locked, loaded and waiting to crown the next sharpshooter.
If it weren’t for the scent of freshly cut wood mingling with that low, familiar smell of beer — the kind that clings to good stories and long nights — you’d swear this Two Buck had taken its shoes off and made itself at home long ago.
Funnily enough, the same things that gave me the “ick” on my first visit to the OG location — the barely lived-in “dive bar” aesthetic, the five-people-deep bar line, the roaming pack of Chads — were exactly what I found myself clinging to on my first visit to the Oakhurst spot.
Their perceived absence on opening weekend felt like “proof” that the new location could never live up to the hype surrounding Two Buck on Hawthorne Avenue — never mind that I’d once rolled my eyes at the idea of that bar on the border of Belmont and Plaza Midwood.
Add in Saturday service that was slow and chaotic without the bodies to back it up and I was ready to write the whole thing off as a watered-down spinoff trying too hard to “make fetch happen” in a section of town better suited for staying the same.
But on my second visit to Oakhurst, I was sipping pinot grigio from a dainty mason jar, posted up on the nearly empty back patio for a quiet Sunday afternoon with a new attitude and a hopeful perspective.
Maybe it was the mismatched furniture. The soft clink of a casual pool game. The fact that three beers and a glass of wine were only $20. Or the indigestion barstool banter found just a six-minute ride from my condo.
But all of a sudden, the new location started to feel more like home than the original.
For an intersection better known for its prescription pick-ups and cups of Joe, Two Buck Saloon is part refuge, part rebellion — and just rowdy enough with live music on Fridays and Saturdays to remind you that even in Oakhurst, cheap drinks and good times are right around the corner.
As ownership navigates the future of the original location, take time to savor what made the first one special, but make room to welcome the new kid on the block. The Oakhurst outpost may move at a different pace now, but that’s part of its charm.
And whether Hawthorne regulars embrace or resist the change, this might be the only moment to experience the new spot in its purest form — before it settles into the new norm in a new ’hood.
Read more: My First Visit to Belmont’s Newest Honky-Tonk Saloon (2021)
One thing’s for certain: In a post-COVID world where longtime watering holes are folding, Two Buck keeps expanding — with four locations in five years and no signs of slowing down.
When the dust settles, I know where I’m putting my two bucks in this nightlife standoff.
Do the full Two Buck tour — with each location having a unique flavor, you never know which one might become your home away from home: Belmont, Oakhurst, Becton Park or Pineville.
