by Taylor Bowler
La Bodeguita is a wellness studio and craft cafe, but instead of ordering food, guests order paints, brushes, stamps and other art supplies for a self-led crafting experience. The evening and weekend sessions last about two hours, depending on the medium, and participants can be of any experience level. They’re welcome to bring their own food and drinks, and chatting and collaborating with others is strongly encouraged.
“Connection is one of my favorite words, and I think it’s something we’re missing in this post-Covid day and age,” says founder Michelle Fernandez. “People are looking for a space to connect to someone else that feels safe, that feels low-stakes, where they can show up in curiosity and authenticity. That’s the common thread throughout. La Bodeguita centers on the idea that we are all creative when given the time and space.”
Fernandez, 33, launched La Bodeguita in June 2025 in a vintage Airstream in Camp North End’s Boileryard District. In October, she expanded to a brick and mortar on neighboring Statesville Avenue. Now, she uses the new space to host wellness workshops, themed arts-and-crafts programming, artist residencies and group discussions.
La Bodeguita is at the crossroads of everything Fernandez does best. She’s a licensed mental-health counselor with a specialty in art therapy and a passion for small business. Since 2021, she’s seen clients in a group practice, but now that La Bodeguita has moved into its new space, she sees her therapy clients in the Airstream.
MAKING LEMONADE
Fernandez was born in Miami to a Cuban father and Panamanian mother and moved to Charlotte at age 10.
“I was a crafty girl, always working on something,” she says. “Every time a new Pottery Barn Kids catalog came out, I redid my room. Not with furniture — we didn’t have money like that. I’d do it with paper and drawings. I was always creating houses and outfits for my dolls. It started early, and at every painful moment or fracture point in my life, creation has come back.”
After earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Rollins College in Florida, she returned to Charlotte to get a master’s in communication and media studies at Queens University. But life had taken an unexpected turn.
“I got pregnant at 22,” she says. “That really threw me for a loop.” She kept pushing academically, though, and decided to go for a second master’s in counseling at Wake Forest University. Then came the pandemic.
“I was really struggling because I had a 4-year-old, and I was in this rigorous program that went all online,” she says. “I was losing my mind a little bit. My therapist said, ‘It’s not a good time to go to the hospital with panic attacks. Why don’t we start with something more somatic? You talked a lot about making things as a kid. Let’s start there.’”
While completing her degree at Wake, Fernandez started an Instagram account called Limoncitos (little lemons), which she calls her “creative brain dump.”
“In the midst of a bitter moment, my therapist said, ‘You’ve got to make your lemonade,’” she says. “My mom used to say that when I was a kid, too.”
BUILDING A COMMUNITY HUB
Limoncitos gained an enthusiastic following and inspired Fernandez to launch Fresh Squeezed Craft Club, a free community class on the first Sunday of each month at Arts+ in Plaza Midwood. She did that for about four months, then Camp North End reached out to do more with the Limoncitos brand. Fernandez teed up La Bodeguita.
“I saw a craft cafe in New York and really wanted to start one,” she says. “I knew Camp North End would buy into creative ideas more than your traditional landlord. So I pitched them on this concept: What if we took Craft Club’s idea and fleshed it out with a full craft cafe?”
She landed on the name La Bodeguita (little bodega) for a few reasons.
“I’m Latina, and culture is super important,” she says. “Bodegas, historically, served as a landing place once a migrant came over and was homesick. These neighborhood corner stores reconnected them with their culture, and we saw them become a community hub. I just love the parallel of connection and community.”
The craft cafe operates Friday through Sunday, and sessions can be reserved through La Bodeguita’s online portal. Most sessions cost $15-32. The menu rotates seasonally, and each person can order their own “dish” just like at a restaurant. Fernandez says she gets a mix of individuals, friend groups and dates.
ART AS THERAPY
As she’s balanced her full-time counseling job with La Bodeguita, Fernandez has begun to see a common thread in the people she serves: loneliness.
“The primary thing holding them back, it’s not anxiety and depression, but the environmental factors that we’re living in, and they’re lonely in that,” she says. “We’re seeing a whole new wave of therapy post-Covid. Talk therapy has its place, but we know trauma moves through the body physically. You feel your anger before you speak your anger. So when you’re activating all these parts of your brain through color, movement and creativity, that, in itself, is an intervention.” SP
