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A popular restaurant chain known for its scratch-made Southern food is expanding in the Charlotte region.

Tupelo Honey Southern Kitchen and Bar, based in Asheville, will join seven other newly signed tenants at Christenbury Village in Concord, developer MPV Properties said Wednesday. The 17-acre mixed-use development, about a mile west of Concord Mills, began construction earlier this year.

Tupelo Honey kitchen and bar will debut in fall 2024 in a 5,779-square-foot space with a patio, according to MVP.

Christenbury Village at Christenbury Parkway and Cox Mill Road will be anchored by Winston-Salem-based grocer Lowes Foods. The 52-000-square-foot store is expected to also open in fall 2024, according to MPV.

Tupelo Honey serves brunch, lunch and dinner.

The menu includes Southern dishes such as pimento cheese dip, fried green tomatoes, chicken and waffles, shrimp and grits, and honey-dusted bone-in fried chicken.

Tupelo Honey opened an uptown Charlotte cafe in 2019.

Founded in 2000, Tupelo Honey has 22 stores in 14 states across the country. There are four stores in North Carolina in with two locations in Asheville, one each in Raleigh and Charlotte, and two in South Carolina in Greenville and Myrtle Beach. Tupelo plans to open eight more stores, including Concord and Columbia, according to the company’s website.

Tupelo Honey will be joined by seven other tenants that have signed leases at at Christenbury Village, MPV said.

Fleet Feet, a California-based running shoe and apparel store, will open next door to Tupelo Honey in a space that is 1,726 square feet.

Other tenants at the center will be Ultra Nail Bar, Cookie Co., Beem Light Sauna, Woof Gang Bakery and Grooming, Petfolk Veterinary Clinic and Heartland Dental.

Christenbury Village — 115,892-square-foot, mixed-use retail center — will have five buildings, plus the grocery store.

According to MPV’s master plan:

Building one is a five-story, mixed-use space with 100 apartments and 14,268-square-feet of retail.

Building two is a two-story, 23,200-square-foot medical office.

Building three is a one-story with 7,505-square-feet of retail space.

Building four is a one-story with 7,649-square-feet of retail space.

Building five is a five-story, mixed-use space with 52 apartments and 11,523-square-feet of retail.

This story was originally published October 26, 2023, 6:13 AM.

CONCORD, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) – When you think of an axe, you might have visions of Paul Bunyan, the legendary lumberjack. Urban axe-throwing is male dominated, but more women are taking up the sport.

At Gibson Mill in Concord, folks seem almost eager to give you the axe. You might even say it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

“I’m very passionate about the sport,” said axe-thrower Ashlyn Lampela-Christmas. “I love it, so I want other people to love it just as much.”

Lampela-Christmas is the co-owner of Iron Axe Society inside the sprawling refurbished-mill complex. She also wants to be an ambassador for the sport, especially for women. One of the proteges she coaches is fellow competitor Lauren Lentz.

“Do all your axes live in Texas?” I asked Lentz.

That might be the last axe pun in this story, but I doubt it. Seriously folks…

“It’s a great stress reliever,” Lentz told Queen City News.

Lentz is top 10 among women in the World Axe Throwing League, while Lampela-Christmas is ranked one of the top five females in the WATL. This month at the WATL USA Pro-Am in Appleton, Wisconsin, Lampela-Christmas placed an impressive 29^th overall out of 206 competitors.

“When you go travel to other places, it’s not a lot of women,” said Lentz. “It’s definitely male-dominated.”

“I think that there’s still a stigma around throwing, where you have to throw as fast as you can and it’s a very macho thing, and that’s not true at all,” Lampela-Christmas says.

Her approach may not be “macho,” but you can’t dispute her toughness.

When Lampela-Christmas first started throwing, she loved it so much, it hurt.

“I was constantly in pain,” she explained. “What was harder for me is that I had a shoulder injury, and so I would dislocate my shoulder whenever I would throw.”

“I think my record was, I dislocated it 17 times in one day,” Lampela-Christmas said. “It was pretty bad.”

Years of cheerleading, including in high school and college, took a toll. Last year, she had rotator cuff surgery to ease the pain.

Lampela-Christmas taught herself to flick the axe with her wrist to lessen the burden on her shoulder. Then she taught Lentz the one-handed approach.

“I could just see the fire in her and so I pulled her aside and told her, ‘If you’re going to flick, you’re going to flick the right way,’” says Lampela-Christmas.

“She’s had a lot of injuries and she hasn’t let that stop her, she just found a way to overcome it,” Lentz said.

They’re also partners in duals competition, which requires them to launch the hatchet at the same time.

Lampela-Christmas’ long-term target is to encourage more females to throw their axe into the ring.

“We’ve actually found the lighter your throw, the easier it is,” she says.

Growing the sport means mentoring ladies she may lose to someday.

Maybe that’s just the Christmas spirit.

“Be that person that makes people fall in love with something,” said Lampela-Christmas.

CONCORD, N.C. — The life of a 13-year-old girl was forever changed by a single bullet.

Concord teen Aalayah Fulmore was asleep in bed when stray gunfire nearly took her life. More than a year later, we’re hearing from her, as well as her family and the first responders who kept her alive.

The 911 call recording captured the moment tragedy struck.

“Hey I need 911, there’s something wrong with my daughter,” Stacy Fulmore says.

PREVIOUS: Teen girl struck by bullet was not intended target, Cabarrus County sheriff says

“What’s going on with her?” the dispatcher asks.

Just after 3 a.m. on July 8, 2022, Stacy Fulmore found her 13-year-old daughter in bed bleeding. She had no idea why.

“She wasn’t talking,” Fulmore told “ABC News Nightline.” “It was just like she was turning blue.”

Luckily, two officers were close by and got there quickly.

“I saw she had a gunshot wound to her stomach. And I knew I had to do something,” Sgt. Larry Frye said. “I put gloves on. I held pressure to the wound.”

You can hear the frantic moments officers arrived via their body camera footage.

“Aalayah, how old are you baby? Talk to me. Talk to me.”

“Every tiny second counts,” Dep. Matthew Twigger told “Nightline.” “Your job was to save 10 seconds, and then the EMS job saving 10 seconds. The surgeon has 20 seconds to play with to be able to save someone’s life.”

They’d later learn gunfire had erupted outside the Fulmores’ apartment. Aalayah spoke about what happened that night from her perspective.

“I was going to sleep, and then it was like a (noise) boy. He was outside, arguing it was so loud. Like, they were just cussing, then shots just started happening,” she said. “I just felt something go through my stomach, hopped up, ran.”

More than 30 bullets went flying through their home that night. One of them hit the 13-year old girl.

“There was a very high risk that she was not going to survive her initial injuries,” said Dr. Dwight Bailey, a specialty medical director at Levine Children’s Hospital.

“They was telling us, ‘look, your daughter is very sick,’” Stacy Fulmore said. “Like, they were pretty much saying she’s not going to make it ‘cause the more blood they gave her, the more blood she bled out.”

A single bullet left a trail of destruction inside her body, ricocheting from organ to organ, tearing through her intestines, colon, and the main artery carrying blood to her legs. Her heart stopped twice en route to her first emergency surgery.

“I counted around 20, 26 surgeries that she has had in total,” said Dr William Miles. “And about two thirds of those occurred in the first week.”

Doctors call her survival miraculous, but the road to recovery has been long. Doctors couldn’t remove the bullet and she’s waiting on yet another surgery to help fix her leg.

“Walk. That’s what I’ve been wanting to do for the longest,” Aalayah said.

Authorities have not named a suspect in the shooting.

Thanks to lifesaving care, Aalayah and her family have a future to plan for once more.

“I’m ready to get my first job at 14,” she told “Nightline.”

Aalayah’s family said her medical bills are more than half a million dollars and counting. They’ve been relying on a GoFundMe to help cover them. Click here to contribute.

(WATCH BELOW: 10-year-old gets prosthetic eye, new outlook on life after being hit by stray bullet)

A popular Dublin-based retail store is making its North Carolina debut just in time for the holiday shopping season.

Primark, known for its budget-friendly prices, will open at 11 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 16, near entrance 3 and Dick’s Sporting Goods at Concord Mills.

The 30,000-square-foot store is stocked with apparel for women, men and children, plus homeware and beauty supplies. Women’s jeans are priced $16 to $22 and dresses $11 to 25, while men’s jeans are $18 to $28 and men’s shirts are $14 to $28, according to Primark’s website.

The store will mark the opening with a weekend with a DJ, giveaways and food trucks.

“We’ve had 12 openings in 12 months, said Primark’s U.S. President Kevin Tulip. He spoke with The Charlotte Observer in an exclusive interview at the store on Wednesday.

Here’s are 12 things to know about Primark before heading to Concord Mills:

Primark is pronounced “pry-mark,” with a long “i,” Tulip said, despite debate even among European shoppers. Some of them say it as “e” as “pree-mark.”

Primark was originally called Penneys in Ireland. It was rebranded Primark in the U.K. because JCPenney owns the trademark there. “If you go to Ireland now you still see the name Penneys,” Tulip said.

Primark isn’t an off-price retailer or a department store.

“The biggest difference is our product. Our product is this season’s style, up-to-date on trends and price point unique in the retail sector,” Tulip said.

Don’t expect to see discounts and bargains. “All of the work has already been done to get that price for our customers,” Tulip said.

Founded in Ireland in 1969, the first Primark store in the U.S. opened in 2015 in Boston. Including Concord, Primark has 24 stores in the U.S., mostly in the Northeast, with plans to open 60 stores by the end of 2026.

No other stores have been announced yet in the Carolinas. “But we’re constantly exploring,” Tulip said.

Primark has stores in downtowns, regional malls and outlet centers. Concord Mills “had a number of things that really ticked our box,” Tulip said.

The mills’ mall format is similar to Primark, which opened in August at another Simon-owned mall, Arundel Mills in Maryland.

It was also appealing for the store size, and position in the mall near the entrance and parking lot entrance.

You can’t shop Primark online.

“Online for us would mean that the prices would need to increase,” Tulip said. “We believe that everything is about the in-store experience.”

But Primark customers can check what’s available in store.

Primark localizes merchandise.

A difference for Primark versus other retailers is local management can stock according to trends in each store.

“It’s the same global product but the merchandise is always a little bit different,” Tulip said. “We want it to feel local.”

That could include apparel with local sports teams, for instance.

Licensed products sold in the store include Disney, Marvel and DC.

“You’ll see quite a bit of Disney products, but it’s our product. We do all of the design and the production,” Tulip said. “So it’s a completely unique product to Primark.”

The front of the store is the “trends” area, Tulip said, based on local customers.

Rita Ora Collection is the focus for opening day with dayware and the recently launched party-ware. Some items have already sold out in Boston stores, Tulip said. Expect prices such as $14 for a blouse to $33 for a sparkly blazer.

There are four service checkout stations and 12 self-checkout stations.

Primark’s paper bags are made from the company’s cardboard boxes.

Note: The holiday bags can be reused to wrap gifts.

The fitting rooms are designed based on customer feedback.

To the left is all gender fitting rooms to be used by men, boys and families, with women only to the right.

The rooms also have locked doors instead of curtains.

Primark also no longer has a limit on the number of items that can be taken in to try on. “As a physical-only retailer, it’s incredibly important that we’re constantly talking to customers and constantly improving,” Tulip said.

The children area layout shows designated age groups up to age 15 for boys and girls.

Some of the sizing is a little bit different than U.S. retailers, “so we’ve used quite a bit of signage to help navigate for anyone who’s new to Primark,” Tulip said.

Studies of brands missed when people move from Ireland found Penneys is missed, even more so than Guinness beer, Tulip said.

“We are one of the top-known brands across any sector in Ireland,” Tulip said. “There’s just a lot of lifelong fans.”

This story was originally published November 16, 2023, 5:45 AM.

CONCORD, N.C. — A well-known historic home renovator is working to save a Concord home.

The home is on Union Street South, just outside downtown Concord, and sits on land that a developer bought. But instead of just tearing it down, a man and his father have plans to save it.

″I remember just thinking how sad it was that it was going to be torn down,” Adam Miller said. “I’ve probably gotten 100 and something emails and messages of other people saying we wanted to save it.”

ALSO READ: Final pieces of 1983 plane crash removed due to unsafe conditions

Adam Miller, better known by his nearly 2 million TikTok followers as “Old House Adam,” stepped in to save the home and restore it to its former glory. It’s what he and his wife are known for.

“It’s a great home with great character; it’s worth saving,” Miller said. “And that’s always our goal, because they’re never going to build this house again.”

One of the most unique aspects about this renovation is that the house, instead of staying on the property, is being cut into pieces. It’ll get moved about 5 miles away to its new permanent home.

“I mean -- you’ve got to be out of your mind to do this. But we’re out of our mind,” said Dr. Joe Lockavitch.

Joe Lockavitch and his wife, Angela, are Miller’s in-laws and will live in the home on their property.

“The vast majority of the people in this community did not want that house torn down,” Joe said. “So the fact now that it is saved -- now won’t be on this land, but it will be beautiful. And it is still in Cabarrus County. And it will be given the new life that it should have.”

ALSO READ: Owners behind popular Charlotte restaurants working to save historic Dilworth building

The project is getting the attention of many community members. All day, they stopped to ask Miller what was going on because this isn’t the first time he has split a house apart to save it.

“We’ve got it to almost to a science,” Miller said.

The last house they saved was split in two and will move to its new location in just a few weeks. The same thing will happen to their current project; the top of the home will be cut off and all three parts will be transported.

It is Miller’s mission to keep the charm and history of the area alive any way he can.

“Anytime they see our sign, it means the house is safe. And even if it’s not safe -- where it’s at -- we’re going to keep saving these homes, and we’ve got really big projects, really big plans,” Miller said.

(WATCH BELOW: Saving South End: City, county leaders debate funding for historic area)

Saving South End: City, county leaders debate funding for historic area