Let’s take a break from talking about this week’s election results for a moment to look at some business news in the Charlotte area. As usual, Tony Mecia of the Charlotte Ledger Business Newsletter joined WFAE’s Marshall Terry for our segment BizWorthy.
Marshall Terry: Let’s start with some news from the restaurant industry. Charlotte was recently awarded its first Michelin star. Which restaurant? And am I wrong in thinking that getting a Michelin star isn’t always a reason for celebrating?
Tony Mecia: I think it is a reason for celebrating if you're the restaurant that gets the Michelin star. In this case, that restaurant is Counter-, which is an upscale restaurant on West Morehead Street in the Wesley Heights, Ashley Park area. Incidentally, the tasting menu starts at around $225 per person without drinks. This is going to bring some national and international attention to Charlotte's restaurant scene.
There were about 10 or 12 other restaurants that were recommended by Michelin, including Lang Van, which won a Bib Gourmand award, which is good food at a reasonable price. Most of these are upscale restaurants that have been on lists of Charlotte's best restaurants in local publications for a while. We talked to some experts and some of the thinking is that, while this will be good for those restaurants and bring them a lot of attention, it also will sort of incentivize chefs to go more upscale and add to their wine lists and add tasting menus. So a couple different things going on there.
Terry: Over to McAdenville now, where it’s not going to be a holly jolly Christmas for some workers. The town is, of course, known for its annual light display, earning it the nickname Christmas Town U.S.A. What’s going on there with layoffs at a local company?
Mecia: There’s a company called Mannington Mills that makes flooring, and it announced that it is going to be laying off about 300 people starting the week after Christmas. Mannington Mills had bought the plant from Pharr Yarns, which is really the best-known company in McAdenville that runs the Christmas lights display. The company said that it came to the decision “as a result of continual decline in demand and unfavorable market conditions.”
Terry: You learned the Charlotte Observer’s parent company, McClatchy Media, is making some cuts as well. Is the Observer or any other regional paper going to be affected?
Mecia: It's hard to know the exact scope of these cuts, and I didn't hear back from a McClatchy spokeswoman. But it’s true that some McClatchy employees have taken to social media in the last few days saying that there have been cuts at the company. It sounds like a lot of them are on these national teams that serve multiple McClatchy papers. It sounds like some of the teams affected include the Washington D.C. bureau, which covers Congress and the White House. Maybe some audience development roles, as well as what's known as the real-time reporting team, which is a team that looks for viral hits like news about animals or weird crime.
I think it's been hard for a lot of these newspapers and legacy media companies to kind of adapt to this new digital age and it sounds like this might be sort of a move to try to figure that out.
Terry: Finally, the High Point furniture market wrapped up last week. It draws thousands of designers and retailers. What are some of the furniture trends we will be seeing soon?
Mecia: We had a writer that went there looking for trends: Cristina Bolling, our former managing editor and a longtime Charlotte writer. She reports back that some of the trends are mixed textures, where you might have sofas with fur trim or wooden cabinets with marble tops. There's also a trend toward green. So, my old green recliner that I had in my basement for a long time, I apparently was ahead of the curve. There are now things like green leather chairs and mint ceramic lamps. The third trend she identified was a trend toward game tables. I think we all know that mahjong and some of these table games are becoming popular. Designers are tapping into that and creating tables that even have sliding drawers that you can set your drink on.
