The people behind the storefronts

Spotlight · Sep 22 140 years and a shrinking newsroom: The Charlotte Observer The paper has covered Charlotte since 1886, won Pulitzers, and passed through two of the biggest newspaper companies in America into the hands of a hedge fund. This week it laid off more journalists. It is still the largest newsroom in the region, and the city cannot afford to lose it. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 $50,000 and a dinner table argument: how Charlotte Agenda became Axios Charlotte Ted Williams ran digital strategy at the Observer and would not stop talking about the future of media at dinner. His wife told him to go do it. He launched a site with three friends for under $10,000 in 2015, made it profitable, and sold it to Axios for $5 million. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 The house on Union Street: Cannon School and the year it was founded In 1969 a committee of Concord parents asked the Cannon family for a vacant Queen Anne mansion downtown and opened Cabarrus Academy with 75 students. Historians call it a segregation academy. The school calls it a bold idea. Both accounts are on the record, and this story carries them together. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 Eighteen students in a living room: how Charlotte Country Day became the county’s oldest independent school Dr. Thomas Burton opened his school in September 1941 in the home of a textile heir with eighteen children enrolled. Eighty-five years later Country Day has 1,600 students on two campuses, an International Baccalaureate program and a history it has begun to fill in publicly. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 Twenty-five dollars a share: the hundred-year road from Lowrance Hospital to Duke Health In 1926 S.A. Lowrance donated the land and the citizens of Mooresville bought stock in their own hospital. A century, three expansions, a corporate owner and a blocked merger later, Duke Health paid $284 million for it and put a new name on the door. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 Fifty lasers and a Salisbury native: Dr. Gilly Munavalli and DLVSC He trained at Emory, UCSF, Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic, taught at Wake Forest and Hopkins, and came home to build a dermatology practice on Randolph Road with more than fifty FDA-approved lasers and a vein clinic. He says he is always available to his patients. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 Forty-seven years and a Lake Norman office: Dozier Miller Law Group A Charlotte firm that has practiced since 1979, from family law to immigration to criminal defense, with a name partner who took the bar the year he finished at Carolina. In May 2026 it opened its first office outside the city, near Birkdale. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 One man, one office, 1957: H. Allen Tate Jr. and the firm that sold Charlotte its houses A grocer's son from Gaffney took his father's advice, moved to Charlotte after Carolina and opened a real estate and insurance office at 112 South Tryon. The company he built became the largest in the Carolinas and, in 2025, took a partner's name alongside his own. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 Clean-cut, athletic and on time: how Blake and Erin Bruner built Hornet Moving A locally owned moving company with a flat hourly rate, no travel charge inside Charlotte and a hiring rule about who carries your couch. It grew to 85 employees and nearly 2,500 five-star reviews by doing the thing movers rarely do, which is show up when they said. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 Darin’s Lawn Care, at fourteen: how MetroGreenscape grew from a kid with a rake Darin Brockelbank raked leaves at ten, had mowing accounts at twelve and launched a business at fourteen because he was, in his words, a poor kid who needed money. Two decades later the company builds pools, outdoor kitchens and the yards Charlotte families live in. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 A 1903 Queen Anne and a national chain: what changed at Alexander Homestead The Victorian estate on Shamrock Drive spent years as a locally run wedding venue, the set for a season of a reality series, and a Charlotte name. It now operates under Wedgewood Weddings, a California all-inclusive company. The house is the same. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 Fairhaven, every fall: how Jeff Siegel built a 16th-century village in Huntersville It opened in 1994 on six acres with a few exhibits and some jousting. Thirty-two seasons later it is a 25-acre town of cottages and castles inside 325 acres of woods, with sixteen stages, 140 artisans and a quarter-million visitors who come dressed for the occasion. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 Model Ts, missiles and murals: the four lives of Camp North End Henry Ford built cars here in 1924. The Army built Nike missiles here in the Cold War and gave the place its name. Rite Aid shipped pharmacy goods from it until 2015. Then a New York family firm bought 76 acres and asked what a city does with a factory that size. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 A river that had never been built: twenty years of the Whitewater Center In 2006 a concrete riverbed with boulders and eddies opened on 1,300 acres beside the Catawba, financed by $38 million and led by a Charlotte native who does not court the press. It now draws 1.4 million people a year and runs as a business that answers to no one but itself. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 A permanent home for 300 vendors: Dickson Shreffler and the Sleepy Poet For 13 years the city's biggest antique mall leased a building on South Boulevard and its owner was, in his words, at the mercy of his landlord. In 2021 he spent $5 million on six acres two miles south, put a record store in it, and gave his sons the keys. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 The second owner and the shelter dog: Sally Brewster and Park Road Books Charlotte's oldest bookstore opened in 1977 as a franchise called Little Professor. Sally Brewster joined in 1999, bought it in 2003, and steered it through a recession and a pandemic. Her dog Yola was named a Charlottean of the Year. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 A Franklin Street idea in Elizabeth: how Gary Crunkleton brought his bar to Charlotte He bought a 1952 Western Auto store on Chapel Hill's Franklin Street in 2008 and built a bar with five hundred spirits and bow-tied bartenders. Eleven years later he opened the Charlotte version on Elizabeth Avenue, added a kitchen, and gave the city its deepest brown-spirits list. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 A pilot, a retirement account and a gold medal: how Todd and Suzie Ford built NoDa Brewing Todd Ford flew planes for a living and brewed beer in the garage since 1995. In 2011 he and Suzie put their savings into a brewery on North Davidson Street. Three years later a homebrew recipe called Hop Drop 'N Roll won the World Beer Cup, and nothing was the same. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 People first, coffee always: Tony and Becky Santoro and the roaster they named for their block Two teachers who fell in love over coffee at Michigan State started roasting in a popcorn popper in their west Charlotte backyard in 2012. They named the company for their neighborhood, undercharge on purpose, and opened the cafe in a 1940s grocery store on Tuckaseegee Road. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 Marie Antoinette meets Alice in Wonderland: how Amélie’s became Charlotte’s all-night bakery Partners took over a failed French bakery in 2008 and built the city's all-night living room, with a designer who buys chandeliers by the dozen at thrift stores. The bakery survived a pandemic, a labor dispute and a canceled move before landing a mile away in 2022. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 Too blessed to be stressed: Brooks’ Sandwich House, fifty years at the same window C.T. Brooks opened a cinderblock burger stand in 1973. His twin sons kept it exactly as it was through NoDa's transformation, through the light rail, and through the morning one of them did not come home. The land has been for sale since 2023. The window is still open. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 Old buildings on purpose: Jeff Tonidandel, Jamie Brown and the making of Haberdish Two Davidson athletes with corporate jobs and no restaurant experience opened a creperie in NoDa during the Great Recession. Seventeen years and six restaurants later, every one of them is in an old building, and two are churches. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 1,500 words and a Rolodex: how Tony Mecia built The Charlotte Ledger Three months after the magazine he wrote for closed, a former Observer business editor emailed a newsletter to a handful of friends. Within a week it had its first scoop. Within a year it had a paywall, and Charlotte had a new kind of newspaper. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 Fine arts and education: how a campus jazz station became Charlotte’s newsroom WFAE signed on in 1981 from UNC Charlotte playing jazz by day and classical by night. The university gave it away in a budget crisis, and the nonprofit that inherited it built the region's largest independent news operation. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 A church, a session vote and a school: how Covenant Day grew from Christ Covenant A congregation that started as 38 people in a modular building in 1983 voted to open a school six years later. Covenant Day now serves more than a thousand students on the church's 69 acre Matthews campus, and it has never pretended to be anything but a ministry. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 First to open integrated: Charlotte Latin School and the choice its founders made in 1970 In the year Charlotte's schools were ordered to desegregate by busing, a group of families started a private school on 128 wooded acres. Unlike some of its peers, this one opened its doors to everyone from day one. QCM Editor · 3 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 A track scholarship and a children’s hospital: the two doctors behind Better Day Chiropractic One was a Division I sprinter kept on the track by her team chiropractor. The other worked at a children's hospital before chiropractic school. Together they built the practice Charlotte doulas send expecting mothers to. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 A ranch, a vet and $40 million: how Petfolk started in Charlotte Audrey Wystrach decided to be a veterinarian at seven. Twenty eight years into the profession she rebuilt the model, opened her first clinic on Old Sardis Road in 2021, and raised money from NASCAR drivers and country singers to take it national. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 The solo CPA who learned crypto in 2017: Josh Cahan on Fairview Road A one person accounting practice in SouthPark with clients who have stayed for decades, and a specialty most local firms avoided: the tax treatment of cryptocurrency, which the owner started studying before anyone asked. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 From wine and food to the ledger: Emily Fisher and the firm on East Boulevard She left corporate finance for the restaurant world, then walked into public accounting in 2007 and took over a 30 year old Dilworth practice through a succession plan. In 2026 the firm she rebuilt opened a second office on the coast. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 A family company and a platform: what happened to Byrum Heating & A/C Scott and Chandy Byrum built a heating and cooling company in Marshville over 25 years. In 2021 they sold it to a Charlotte private equity backed home services group. The trucks still say Byrum. Here is what changed and what did not. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 Since 1998 on East Boulevard: Bobby Lynn and LiveWire Electrical A family owned electrical contractor in Dilworth that has answered the phone around the clock for nearly three decades, and whose owner says the goal was never to be the biggest, only the one people trust. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 On the site of the Maxwell Chambers: the Davidson Village Inn and the hoteliers who came home A grand railroad hotel with a 200 seat dining room once stood on Depot Street. The inn that replaced it in 1993 is run by a couple who spent careers in Caribbean resorts and always meant to return to a small town. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 A million dollars and a moonshiner: how Charlotte Motor Speedway was built, lost and won back Bruton Smith and Curtis Turner built a superspeedway in 1959 to rival Indianapolis. It went bankrupt inside two years. Smith left, sold Fords for a decade, and bought his way back one share at a time. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 The Whitewater Center for dogs: how Meggie Williams built Skiptown A dog walking app became a 24,000 square foot park with a bar, opened in the middle of a pandemic, raised $27 million and is now franchising. The founder's pitch was the one every Charlotte dog owner understood instantly. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 The Manor closed, so they built their own: the ten year road to the Independent Picture House When Charlotte lost its last art house cinema in 2020, a 40 year old film society decided to stop renting screens and build one. Two false starts, a $2 million campaign and the Manor's old popcorn machine later, it opened. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 Priced out and still open: Book Buyers, the Rathers family and the cat by the dumpster Charlotte's longest running used bookstore opened in Plaza Midwood in 1999. When the rent doubled, a father and daughter moved 60,000 books across Central Avenue rather than close. The cats came too. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 The Green Girl: how Katie Mitchell drove a romance bookstore to Plaza Midwood She quit a logistics job, found a school bus on Facebook Marketplace that smelled like recess, and painted it dark green. Sixteen months later the bus had a storefront and Charlotte had its only romance bookstore. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 A plant shop that serves cocktails: Bob Peters and the making of Folia Charlotte's most decorated bartender built a Miami inspired garden bar in South End with a concealed entrance and a menu for people in their forties. Then the wall came down and it became a cafe by day. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 The funky old building: how Salud became NoDa’s cerveceria Jason Glunt quit an office job two weeks in to open a beer shop with four taps. Dairelyn Guzman-Glunt learned English in a year to survive a Statesville middle school. Together they built the bar a national magazine called the best in America. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 1122 Coffee: the Erie address two sisters grew up at, now a living room in Concord A WNBA guard and her sister spent a childhood on the road seeking out local coffee shops. In September they opened one of their own, 643 square feet in downtown Concord, named for the house they grew up in. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 Gelato without the dairy: how a Colombian baker built Artisen Gelato in Matthews Manolo Betancur trained as an engineer, served in the Colombian Navy, and became the most decorated baker in Charlotte. His gelato shop makes everything with coconut milk, and gives tours to prove it. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 The counter on Statesville Avenue: three generations behind Mr. Charles Chicken & Fish A convenience store called the Big Apple, a landlord's handshake, and a family whose patriarch owned half a corridor. How a takeout window with room for five people became a Charlotte institution. QCM Editor · 4 min read Spotlight · Sep 22 Breakfast as the canvas: how Greg and Subrina Collier built Uptown Yolk From a Rock Hill diner in 2012 to a South End room with a full bar, the Memphis couple behind Charlotte's best known brunch never stopped treating the first meal of the day as the serious one. QCM Editor · 4 min read