Highlands by the Fire

Six places in Highlands to enjoy drinks, dinner, and coffee beside the fire this winter.

Winter in Highlands is fireplace season. When the nights turn cold, these are the places we find ourselves pulling a chair up to the fire.

Highlands Wine Shoppe

Main Street | Back entrance at 269 Oak Street

Highlands Wine Shoppe opened in 2014 as Mountaintop Wine Shoppe and took its current name a few years later. It sits on Main Street across from Reeves Hardware, and its shelves hold everything from a simple bottle to share by the fire to rare finds that collectors drive up the mountain for.

Pour a taste from the 16 wines on the WineStation machines, then carry your glass outside and pull a chair up to the fire pit.

The Ruffed Grouse Tavern

Highlander Mountain House | 270 Main Street

The clapboard farmhouse at 270 Main Street went up in 1885, reportedly for a retired sea captain from Charleston. Its original wood floors and timber framing are still in place. Today the house is Highlander Mountain House, and The Ruffed Grouse Tavern fills it with overstuffed couches, marble-topped pub tables, antiques, and a collection of Victorian-era taxidermy.

Both the lobby and the dining room have wood-burning stone fireplaces. On a cold night, order a cocktail and claim one of those couches by the fire. Check the calendar for Thursday blues nights and Sunday bluegrass brunch.

Hummingbird Lounge

Old Edwards Inn | 445 Main Street

Old Edwards Inn began in July 1878 as Central House. In 1913, J. Grover “Diamond Joe” Edwards and his wife, Minnie, bought the property, and Minnie ran the inn for about thirty years.

Hummingbird Lounge, set up like an old parlor, is the inn's fireside bar. Come in from the cold for a cappuccino in the afternoon or a cocktail before dinner, and if you'd rather not leave the fire, order dinner from the Madison's menu right there. The kitchen builds it around produce from the Old Edwards gardens and nearby farms, so it changes with the seasons. On Friday and Saturday nights, there's usually live music.

Highlands Supper Club

Trailborn Highlands | Log Cabin Lane

Joe Webb learned to build cabins from his grandfather. Between the early 1920s and about 1940, he built some three dozen of them around Highlands. He would stack the logs and put on the roof, then leave the cabin for up to a year so the logs could settle before he chinked them.

Highlands Supper Club fills one of his cabins, with stone fireplaces in its dining rooms. The menu has a Southern flair, and the bar leans toward bourbon and old fashioneds. Dishes include biscuits with whipped honey butter, deviled eggs with blue crab and Benton's bacon, North Carolina trout, and Webb's Chicken, served roasted or buttermilk fried.

Outside, Trailborn Highlands has fire pits for before or after dinner.

Oak Steakhouse & Butlers Lounge

Skyline Lodge | 470 Skyline Lodge Road

Skyline Lodge, a short drive north of downtown, was designed in the 1930s by Arthur J. Kelsey, a longtime student of Frank Lloyd Wright. It was reworked in the 1960s, and the recent renovation kept pieces of both eras, including the original stone fireplaces.

Upstairs, Oak Steakhouse serves steaks, seafood, and beef Wellington beside a massive stone fireplace, with views of the Blue Ridge. Downstairs, Butlers Lounge pours cocktails by two more fireplaces, with a fire pit waiting in the courtyard for a drink under the stars.

Outpost Inn Coffee + Wine Bar

790 North 4th Street

Outpost Inn has an unusual backstory. Its three buildings once belonged to an early twentieth century sanatorium and were moved here years ago. Jason Reeves, the Charleston hotelier who also owns Highlander Mountain House, wanted it to feel like Topanga Canyon meets the Catskills, set in Appalachia, and it does. The lobby is built around a vintage wood-burning Malm fireplace, and there's a fire pit outside too. The coffee bar is open to everyone, not just guests of the inn.

Winter on the Mountain

For much of its history, Highlands was a summer town. Families came up from Atlanta, Charleston, and New Orleans for the cool air and went home when the leaves turned. These days, more and more people come up the mountain to see Highlands outside of summer. Once Main Street is strung with lights, the whole town is full of the holiday spirit. It's one of the coziest places to be in the colder months, and a great escape from the city. Why not enjoy it by a fire?

Save this list for your next trip up the mountain, and come find a seat by the fire.