Birkdale Village Stores are a fine place to pass a sunny day shopping, just walking around or sitting at Corkscrew sipping wine and people watching. There is decent parking and its nice to have the stores, the movie theater a Starbucks and a few restaurants right across the street.
The only thing holding me back from 5 stars is the somewhat generic nature of the stores (Claires? C'mon!) and the overall meh quality of the restaurants. There are the very good like Dresslers, the good, like Eez, the average like Red Rocks and the bad like Fox and Hound. Just too many at the lower end. t1 tapas used to be in the very good category but has gone downhill as of late and do we really need a Kilwains, TCBY and Cold Stone all withing 100 feet of each other?
All that said, come on up to the Northern reaches of Mecklenburg County, do some people watching and get some sunshine on your shoulders in a nice environment.