South End Date Night Part Two (Trendy!) With Chase Freedom Unlimited Cash Back Credit Card

This post was created in collaboration with Chase Freedom Unlimited. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Welcome back to another Date Night adventure as apart of our Always Earning Journey! So far, we've achieved our goal of prioritizing our time together while exploring our new city of Charlotte, NC like pros! 

Justin and I have attended local Charlotte events like ball games, explored the Gold District and Myers Park, cut pizza with scissors, rolled through town on a comedy bus tour and even made a little magic by staying in. We’ve spent so much time together and are really proud of how we’re working as a team to make date nights one of our priorities. And when I say, “as a team”, I mean it! Justin is now the official babysitter booker, which has been such a nice task to delegate his way! Truly, we’ve not only met our original goal of spending time together and learning our new city, we’ve exceeded it. If you are hoping to work toward a goal like monthly date nights, I can promise that using the Chase Freedom Unlimited card to earn cash back on every goal related purchase will absolutely keep the fun in your plan. There is nothing like earning cash back simply by using our card to do activities together.  And get this, we’re planning to use our earned cash back on the ultimate date night, a little trip away, sans kiddos!

Today we're headed to the Atherton Mill area of South End for a trendy date night experience. If we had friends coming in from out of town, this is the Charlotte date night experience I would want to share. We're going to snag drinks at one the most vibrant and bustling new spots in town, have an amazing meal in a beautiful environment and finish it off with a craft ice cream experience. And since we're using our Chase Freedom Unlimited cash back credit card, we're going to earn ourselves 1.5% on every purchase at each location!

First up on our trendy South End Date Night is a stop at Hawkers. Hawkers is the new scratch-Asian street food restaurant with an amazing out door seating and bar area in the heart of it all. On weekends, the wait at Hawkers can be long, so we love to get there early for a drink on the patio area. Each of their craft cocktails comes in a themed glass (I order the Tiki, Do You Love Me Tiki because I can't resist a vintage Tiki glass) and the bar menu is insanely unique. Justin loves their Saki menu and the knowledge of the bartenders when it comes to their offerings. 

If you need a snack before dinner, we suggest the Hawkers Wings! 

After taking in the vibe and the cocktail menu at Hawkers, we head just across the street to O-Ku for my all time favorite dish in the entire city of Charlotte. O-Ku is a chic but not stuff sushi restaurant that is the home of Chef Michael, a well known chef. 

Justin and I love to sit at the sushi bar for dinner. Watching the chefs work never ceases to amaze us - and keeps us entertained! We usually make a specific reservation for the sushi bar because we enjoy it so much. Pro tip: the first 4 seats starting from the left of the bar have the best views which are unobstructed by the sushi cases.

The second we sit down, I put in my order for my number one dish: the duck buns. Not to over sell these buns, but I can remember the first time I took my first bite of one. It was magic. We've never not loved something on the menu at O-ku and highly recommend tasting as many items under the "Chef Specialties" menu as you can! 

We'll skip desert at O-ku because we are just steps away from the cult classic desert favorite: Jeni's Ice Cream! We'll walk back across the street and right past our first stop of the night, Hawkers, to get in the line for a cone at Jenni's. And yes, there will always be a line, but, priorities people, it is so worth it! On this particular night I went with toasted marshmallow ice cream in a cone and enjoyed it on the steps by the Hawkers patio.

Justin and I would love for you to join us by setting a monthly date night goal and now is the perfect time - Chase is now offering new Chase Freedom Unlimited cardmembers a special bonus available through Chase.com, and in Chase branches: get a $200 bonus after spending $500 in the first three months.

If you'd like to take a peek at our casual version of a South End Date Night, check out our line up in the Gold District, just a few blocks away here!