electrician in Pineville, NC

Just days away from opening, Super G Mart in Pineville on Tuesday was bustling as boxes filled with packaged food from around the globe were stocked on shelves under aisle signs designated by continents.

The international supermarket is opening its third and largest store at 10500 Centrum Parkway. And Peter Han, company vice president of business development, told The Charlotte Observer it will happen Christmas weekend after nearly a year of delays.

“We’re trying to get everything together the best we can with limited staff,” Han said.

The 108,000-square-foot store has about 50 employees but Han said he needs more like 80 to operate. Hiring issues is one of the reasons the opening has been delayed, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.

Super G Mart also will be “a cultural hub,” Han said, and include a community center, food hall and other international businesses.

It’s been a massive undertaking for the privately-held, family-owned business that also will include a food hall, full-service restaurant and community room.

Amid Tuesday morning’s hustle, 5-year-old Christopher Han busts through the store’s sliding front door with squeals, carrying a toy dinosaur in outstretched arms running straight to his uncle Peter for a hug.

“The entire family is here,” Han said. He points to his brother Paul Han, vice president of operations, on the phone, and his mother and Super G CEO Irene Han. His brother’s father-in-law and mother-in-law from Korea also are lending a hand where needed.

The opening date, originally expected in January, had been pushed back a few times for several reasons, including COVID-related construction supply shortages.

But Han said he’s been working up to 16 hours a day for eight days straight to get the store open by Christmas. The store may not be completely stocked with all items or able to sell alcohol when it opens though.

“We’re making good progress,” Han said.

During Covid when restaurants shut down, more people were cooking at home and started venturing out into different cultures and cuisines, Han said. Super G’s revenue increased 30% during the pandemic.

“We saw a big diversification of our customer base outside of the Asian or Hispanic base we’re used to seeing shopping in our stores,” Han said.

The Pineville international supermarket, in a former Super Kmart site across from Carolina Place mall, is twice the size of Super G’s two other stores in Greensboro and Independence Boulevard in Charlotte. Along with a refresh including a new logo, the aisles are wider so shoppers have more space to browse the international ingredients they may not have seen before.

“It’s like traveling through different regions of the world,” Han said. Instead of aisles named by products like traditional grocers, here signs say Africa, Asia and India, for example.

The selection has been expanded, too, with more foods from Eastern Europe, India and Russia. “We have much more variety than the other stores,” Irene Han said.

Super G Mart’s goal is to share how to make international dishes with authentic ingredients through cooking classes in the community center, called The Club, and the 25,000-square-foot international food hall.

Some unexpected finds at the new Super G Mart include more Eastern European, Middle Eastern and Turkish products, as well as rows of Nina products like ground crayfish and kinkeleba and atama leaves in the African and Jamaican aisle.

“But our biggest driver is our produce department,” Han said. There are seven types of yams and seven types of roots, for example, as well as Irish sea moss.

The seafood department in the back of the store will have a live fish tank wall 16 feet long stocked with lobster, crab, catfish and more.

And in the meat department, there will be cuts, like bull fries, and rabbit and chicken hearts.

Also new to Super G Mart will be an authentic Korean deli run by Paul Han’s mother-in-law serving side dishes and marinated meats.

To get a taste of flavors from around the world, there will be several businesses and an international food hall.

Tous les Jours bakery will open in the front right corner of the store. It will be the second Charlotte-area location after the South Korean franchise opened in May at Piedmont Row shopping center in SouthPark.

To the left of the entrance is the community center, dubbed The Club. There will be cooking classes, language classes like Korean or Mandarin, and other ways to learn about different cultures, Han said.

There also are eight retail spaces for businesses, such as Korean cosmetics, a pharmacy, floral shop or boutique.

Han also hopes to take advantage of the large parking lot to host international festivals.

Attached to the grocery store will be a 25,000-square-foot food hall.

Picture grabbing a bite on the streets of Hong Kong with roasted pork or duck, or corn dogs or hot dogs in South Korea. There’s also a new concept with a stone-top cooked Chinese crepe, jianbing, with egg, herbs and sauces rolled up and sliced.

“I think there’s a growing interest in different authentic foods in this city,” Han said.

A wall of windows will offer a view of some of the business vendor signs from the housewares section that sells everything from Korean grills to Japanese rice dispensers and children’s chopsticks to kimchi pot.

The food hall will share a 5,000-square-foot outdoor dining space with a full-service restaurant. Irene Han said her son set high expectations by bringing in proven, authentic restaurants.

So far, there are about eight tenants signed on for the food hall, which Han expects to open in late spring. The vendors are:

? Connie’s Kitchen – Filipino street food

? Honey Buns – Steamed buns, dumplings, Chinese cuisine

? Mukja – Korean street food

? Saigon Café – Vietnamese pho, vermicelli, bahn mi

? Sizzling – Pepper Lunch Japanese concept

? Super G Mart Kitchen (still to be named) – Bibimbap, Korean rice bowls, Gmart product samples

Han said the food hall and grocery store will play off each other.

“That kind of symbiotic relationship will really turn this into the next level for shopping and dining experience,” Han said.

Super G Mart is still looking to fill the 2,800-square-foot restaurant space and one 400-square-foot vendor space.

The first 50,000-square-foot Super G Mart opened in 2008 in Greensboro.

Two years later, Super G Mart opened a 52,000-square-foot grocery store at 7323 East Independence Blvd. in Charlotte in the former Bi-Lo spot at Independence Square East shopping center.

In 2012, the Han family took ownership of Super G Mart. Han joined the family business in fall 2020 with his mother and Super G Mart CEO Irene Han, brother and general manager Paul Han and his wife, Minji, who helps with marketing. Han’s friend and colleague Joseph Kang is vice president of strategy and finance.

Super G has 75 employees at its Charlotte store and 65 in Greensboro.

This story was originally published December 21, 2022 10:50 AM.

A large residential subdivision plan has returned in York County.

The Bull Creek company of Pineville, N.C., has applied to rezone almost an acre of a two-acre property at 2782 York Highway in York. The site is west of Shiloh Road and north of Gordon Road.

The zoning change would allow an entrance to a nearby, planned 409-lot manufactured home community. Early this year, Bull Creek applied to rezone 155 acres at 975 McAfee Court. The property with 62 mobile homes on it would allow the new subdivision, if the zoning is changed, but also would require a mile-long utility extension.

County planning staff had concerns about the project and how it would fit with the existing area. The project came back in late spring, but issues for county planners remained. Both county planning staff and the appointed planning commission recommended denial of the Bull Creek project.

At its first look at the project, York County Council added a condition to any potential approval that the applicant ask for a future land use map amendment. The county comprehensive plan being updated, so Bull Creek was told to make the request during public hearing of the plan update.

That public hearing should come in January.

Information provided by county staff to the planning commission ahead of its Dec. 12 hearing on the one-acre zoning proposal again recommends denial. The staff write-up calls the plan a “significant departure” from current land uses.

“The scale and density of the project is not compatible with the surrounding residential subdivisions which comprise of single-family homes with at least one acre lot sizes,” reads the staff report.

The larger zoning change to allow the new subdivision would take three positive votes and a public hearing from York County Council. The first vote came in June. The second is tentatively scheduled for Feb. 6, 2023 and third reading Feb. 20, 2023.

Also on the Dec. 12 planning commission agenda are decisions that would allow business and residential growth.

? Reynolds Industries in Fort Mill asked to rezone four acres at 3601 Foothills Way to expand the existing metal fabrication business.

? A two-acre zoning change at 133 Churchill Road in Rock Hill would allow Supreme Transport to keep a trucking operation on the site. The change would allow parking, dispatch and repair of semi-trailer trucks. A code enforcement case and stop work order halted those operations, because current zoning doesn’t allow that.

? Owners of almost 34 acres on Eastview Road in Rock Hill applied to rezone the site for combination with 72 adjacent acres. The properties could be split into two or three large lots. Current development plans aren’t listed for the heavily wooded site.

? A two-acre portion of a 13-acre site at 2884 Gordon Road in Rock Hill would be rezoned to parcel out space for a family home.

Margaux’s owner Kevin Devanney will host a grand opening at The Garrison: A Cocktail Bar & Restaurant on Friday, Sept. 30, in Pineville.

The two-story restaurant is housed in an endearing building that’s more than 100 years old. Along with dining room options on two levels, there is a full-service classic cocktail bar and indoor and outdoor seating. Upstairs also features a small bar and space for private events, comedy nights, live music and more.

The space was previously occupied by Global Restaurant & Bar, which moved from its original Ballantyne location of almost a decade to downtown Pineville in 2016. After 16 years in business, the restaurant closed in April.

“When [the previous owner] decided to move on, we had the vision to move next door and create another concept for Pineville,” Devanney told CharlotteFive over the summer.

Devanney opened Margaux’s Wine, Pizza & Market in Pineville in March 2021 to rave reviews from the community. Since inception, Margaux’s has offered an extensive collection of old world wines, St. Louis-style pizza and unique market items.

“Margaux’s is fantastic. It has wine, beer and pizza,” Devanney said. “We feel like Pineville needed a little bit more, so really knowing that Pineville needed more of a full-service restaurant drove me to purchase the building next door and establish a restaurant.”

While these three aspects have become synonymous with Margaux’s, it’s the experience, the homey feel and overall atmosphere that keeps people coming back.

Devanney’s hope is that the same vibe will carry over next door to The Garrison, which has a name with a meaning that’s twofold. The garrison and a garrison is a fortress for an army, a military base for a gathering of a military, so it’s a strong name, Devanney said. It’s also the name of the pub in Birmingham, England that the Netflix show “Peaky Blinders” takes after.

The Garrison is not an Irish pub or an Irish bar, however. It is, very distinctly, a restaurant owned by an Irish man.

Instead of an Irish pub experience, guests will dine in a casual atmosphere — with a little bling from the chandeliers — and enjoy handcrafted food, live music and more.

“I want people to be able to come in three days a week,” he said. “They come in and sit at the bar one evening to have some chicken wings. The next day, they come in with their kids to have sandwiches. Then, Friday night they come back and have a ribeye.”

The Garrison has a diversified menu of items that will highlight the state’s purveyors and farmers and utilize local ingredients. Guests can expect innovative and specialty dishes from the mind of chef Logan Wright — former executive chef at The Club at Longview.

“We really are going to try to be a little bit of everything because Pineville and the surrounding communities need a really comfortable place to go, that they can get a burger and fries, chicken wings or a filet,” Devanney said. “We want to be able to do that here.”

Signature dinner items:

Other menu items:

“We’re not going to put a big twist on anything,” he said. “We’re not going to try to go over the top with seasonings and recipes. We want basic good food, but at the same time we want to create an atmosphere where people feel like they’re welcomed.”

The space is also the home to Pineville’s first cocktail bar. It features a 20-drink cocktail menu that draws inspiration from around the world.

The historic downtown Pineville that visitors experience today differs from what it was 15 years ago when Devanney decided to bring his travel business to town. As a travel industry veteran, he specializes in hospitality and is a visionary when it comes to transforming old buildings, renovating them — while keeping some of the historic charm — and making them new.

Devanney owns five buildings in the area and has renovated those five buildings. “Pineville is one of the most up-and-coming communities really in all of Charlotte,” Devanney said.

As Pineville experiences growth, garnering more residents has the potential to subsequently further the growth of local small businesses.

“We’re growing — There’s a lot of residences coming down here, a lot of building taking place in Pineville,” he said, citing upcoming construction on an apartment complex behind the building. “What we see now and the growth that we’ve seen so far has been great, but what’s about to take place is even greater. We’re really excited about that.”

With the addition of Margaux’s and now The Garrison, downtown Pineville has a different vibe these days. “I think people look to me and look to this side of the street and really are kind of in awe of what it’s become from 15 years ago to what it is now and not only because of what I’ve created because of what’s going on down here. Other businesses have come in and now other businesses are becoming successful,” Devanney said.

Hours: Open Tuesday and Wednesday from 11:30 a.m.-9 p.m., Thursday through Saturday 11:30 a.m.-12 a.m., Sunday for brunch from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. and closed on Monday.

This story was originally published July 26, 2022 6:10 AM.

The opening of Super G Mart’s third and largest store in Pineville has been delayed as more vendors sign on for the grocery store’s international food hall.

Super G Mart now expects to open in mid-August at 10500 Centrum Parkway in Pineville, company vice president of business development Peter Han told The Charlotte Observer on Monday. The 108,000-square-feet store had planned to open by the end of June or early July in the former Kmart site across from Carolina Place mall, Han told The Charlotte Observer in April.

The only hold-up has been waiting on the electrical switchgear panel for power connection to get the store up and running, Han said. “The manufacturer could not assemble and ship due to one missing component from their supply chain,” he said.

The Pineville store, which Han said will have an expanded fresh and live seafood market, also will include an international food hall, full-service restaurant and retail spaces.

The 25,000-square-foot international food Hall is targeting a September or October opening, Han said.

Two more vendors — Saigon Café and Connie’s Kitchen — have signed on since April leaving four stalls available, Han said.

“We are in talks with Indian and Ethiopian cuisine tenants but as we have not yet signed them onboard the spaces and concepts are still up for grabs,” Han said.

The 10 confirmed vendors provided by Han are:

? Connie’s Kitchen – Filipino street food

? Honey Buns – Steamed Buns, Dumplings, Chinese Cuisine

? Mukja – Korean Street Food

? Saigon Café – Vietnamese Pho, Vermicelli, Bahn Mi

? Sizzling – Pepper Lunch Concept

? Super G Mart Kitchen (still to be named) – Bibimbap, Korean Rice Bowls, Gmart product samples

? Tous Les Jour – Korean Bakery

The 2,870-square-foot full-service restaurant space with optional outdoor seating area is still available, Han said, along with six retail spaces, ranging from 400 to 500 square feet, along the front of the store.

And, Super G Mart is hiring.

Han expects to hire about 80 full- and part-time employees for the Pineville store. New hires will train at the Independence Boulevard store in Charlotte until the Pineville store opens.

As a “cultural hub,” the store is looking for a diverse group of people to hire, Han said.

“Our biggest hurdle will now be the hiring,” Han said.

Super G has about 75 employees at its 7323 East Independence Blvd. store in Charlotte and 65 workers in Greensboro. The Han family took ownership of the 14-year-old international grocery store in 2012.

This story was originally published June 28, 2022 12:02 PM.

South End residents who savor the sweet scent of honey buns and other treats made for decades at the Carolina Foods facility need to prepare to say a bitter goodbye.

Carolina Foods announced this week it is leaving Charlotte — its home for the past 88 years — and moving down the road to Pineville.

That’s where it’s building a 423,000-square-foot facility, at 12031 Carolina Logistics Drive. The company — known for its Duchess brand snacks like honey buns and packaged donuts — is partnering with real estate firm Beacon Partners to build the new site.

“The demand for our product exceeds our capacity,” Carolina Foods CEO Dan Myers told The Charlotte Observer Thursday. “At the current location... we’re constrained by the amount of space we have.”

Carolina Foods has been based in Charlotte since its founding in 1934.

The new facility will be twice the size of the current building, and climate controlled, Myers said. Construction will begin this August and production will start by the end of 2023.

The Pineville site will serve as a production facility and warehouse. The space will have 120,000 square feet for warehouse storage, and 40,000 square feet for offices and employee locker rooms and lunch rooms. The remaining 263,000 square feet will be manufacturing space.

Myers declined to say how much the new facility will cost.

The new factory and the South End facility will operate simultaneously through some point in 2024, when the South End building will close.

The changes will not affect Carolina Foods’ employment totals, according to the company, which fluctuate between 300 and 400 workers. Myers said during the period of both factories operating, Carolina Foods will likely bring on around 20% more temporary employees.

The expansion is part of Carolina Foods’ partnership with Charlotte-based investor Falfurrias Capital Partners, a private equity firm that specializes in growing middle-market businesses, which also owns Duke’s Mayonnaise.

The Charlotte Observer reported in 2021 that Falfurrias made an undisclosed investment in Carolina Foods, and since then, neither company has shared specific details about their partnership. The move to Pineville is part of the growth plan that began with Falfurrias’ investment, Carolina Foods said.

Even before last year, company executives had their eyes on a new manufacturing location.

In 2014, as the company celebrated its 80th anniversary, then-CFO Katie Scarborough told the Observer a new facility was necessary for the company to realize plans for growth.

Last year, Falfurrias founder Marc Oken told the Observer his firm sees “tremendous growth potential” for Carolina Foods to expand its manufacturing and distribution footprint. The company already distributes its snacks across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Canada and Mexico.

The new site being closer to Intestate 485 and Interstate 77 make the logistics of inbound and outbound shipments simpler than the current location, Myers said.

Founded in 1934, Carolina Foods began as a sandwich company serving food at textile mills, furniture factories and lunch counters in the Carolinas, according to the company. Its honey buns and other baked goods entered focus after World War II, and in 1992 the company stopped selling sandwiches to prioritize baked goods.

The facility on South Tryon Street is able to produce up to 1 million honey buns a day, the Observer previously reported, but ownership has prioritized a new, larger facility for years.

In 2014, Scarborough told the Observer the company was cognizant of the need for growth, but also wanted to stay in the Charlotte area to retain its workers.

The new Pineville facility is about a 20-minute drive south of the old factory. The new location’s proximity to Charlotte and a nearby light rail station make it easy for employees to commute, Myers said.

“We’re very pleased we were able to find property still in the Charlotte area,” he said. “That was important to us.” Myers said.

This story was originally published July 29, 2022 5:00 AM.