Football season is finally here. The Panthers play their home opener this Sunday against the LA Chargers. If you plan on being at Bank of America Stadium, you may see some changes from last season. For more on this and other business stories, WFAE's Morning Edition host Marshall Terry is joined by Tony Mecia of the Charlotte Ledger business newsletter.
Marshall Terry: OK, so one change is food, right? What's different?
Tony Mecia: Yeah, Marshall, it's probably good to talk about the off the field improvements, the Panthers executive chef says that he's got a new line of what he calls elevated stadium food that fans are going to see this weekend. Things like Buffalo chicken mac and cheese, a BBQ bacon dog and the Carolina Burger, which is a double patty burger with house-smoked brisket, chili, slaw, cheese, onions, and mustard.
Terry: All right, so that's what's going on inside the stadium. But there's also something outside fans may notice, right?
Mecia: Yes, the Panthers are debuting a mobile museum that will make its way to various places around the stadium to show off memorabilia from the glory days of years past. Included in the collection is a 1995 box of Wheaties that commemorated the team's first season as well as a cigar from defensive end Julius Peppers' Hall of Fame enshrinement party, so a few things to look for there for fans.
Terry: In addition to the game, this weekend is also the end of the Charlotte Observer, delivering six days a week by carriers. So no more paper routes. How are papers going to be delivered and what does this mean for the remaining carriers?
Mecia: Yes, the Observer announced a couple months ago that effective this weekend it would change from producing print papers six days a week, delivered by carrier to three days a week, delivered by U.S. mail.
And our Cristina Bolling spent several hours in the middle of the night hanging out with some of these carriers. She rode along with one as the woman flipped papers onto people's driveways. And a lot of these carriers, Marshall, are going to be hanging it up. They've been doing this, some of them, for decades. They told her about some odd things that they've seen at night, from coyotes tearing newspapers apart to people relieving themselves on the side of the road, all kinds of different things. But, you know, they've really, in many cases, forged relationships with each other, forged relationships with their customers. So it's really sort of an end of an era. We'll say there are still going be some papers delivered by carriers — Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA TODAY — so there still will be a few, but not for the largest newspaper in Charlotte.
Terry: All right. Well, there's another employment trend, rising minimum wages. Bank of America said this week it's lifting pay for all workers to at least $24 an hour, or around $50,000 a year. What's the reason there?
Mecia: Yeah. Bank of America has been doing this for the last several years, increasing the minimum amount that it pays its workers. People like bank tellers, call center workers. And really, Marshall, the answer is increased competition. The bank wants to make sure that it's got people able to staff these roles. And so it's really the competition for bank tellers is supposedly a little bit tighter than it used to be.
Terry: Let's end on the business of solar power. The industry is experiencing a downturn, but you report. one solar firm in Charlotte has actually made the list of fastest growing companies in the country. Which company and why is it bucking the trend?
Mecia: Yeah, we looked this week at a company called Top Tier Solar Solutions that was founded just a few years ago. And what they told us is they've sort of swooped in where some of these other solar companies have gone bankrupt, they've swooped in and taken a lot of those customers. This is an industry that's in a lot change, regulatory changes, and changes in the housing industry. There's been a slowdown in solar installations.
They were toward the very top of the Inc 5000 list, which is an annual list of companies with the largest three-year revenue growth. They grew by more than 40,000%, so certainly some high growing companies out there. They were in the in the top industry.
