Freshwaters

Inspired by Cajun and Creole cuisines, Clifton and Sharon Freshwater opened their namesake restaurant in 2015. Freshwaters is the place to be if you’re looking for a menu that consists of boldly flavored appetizers; satiating entrees like crab cakes, fried catfish and grilled prawns; and homemade desserts.

Three years passed and the Southern Style Sensation didn't go under. Instead it morphed into Freshwaters. Cliff and Sharon moved their business into a free-standing house-turned-restaurant that became less of a carryout joint and more of a date night destination. “When we left that first location and went to the second location, “I became the man,” Cliff boasts jokingly.

From then on, Cliff was the head chef, adding some Cajun flavors to the Southern menu in 2006. He was confident enough in his skills to put his last name on the restaurant and there it stayed, even as they moved the business 600 miles south. After relocating to Charlotte in 2012, Cliff and Sharon opened a new Freshwaters in 2015 as a full-service restaurant in a Fourth Ward strip mall.