The owners are bringing the neighborhood gathering place back. Want to get there? Just walk 1,153 paces from the old spot.
BEFORE LOCKING THE DOORS at Common Market in South End for the last time in late July, co-owner Chuck Barger made sure the place was spotless. He’d lovingly called it the ugliest building in South End for years, but that day, he wanted to leave it looking dignified. The shop had hosted a staff party to finish off the remaining inventory, and now, after a year of mourning the news that Common Market was closing, it was time to say goodbye.
Barger and co-owner Blake Barnes stood in the parking lot, looking at the building they’d renovated themselves and readied to open at the bottom of the recession eight years earlier. Nobody wanted to leave first. Barnes likens it to a new couple saying goodnight after a first date.
Eventually, “We were all like, ‘OK, let’s go,’” Barnes recalls. They awkwardly pulled away.
“I had this tremendous sense of relief from having finished something,” Barger says of that last day, “because when you run this kind of business, you never really finish anything. You’re open every day, it’s more of the same. But I got this done, and we’re gonna start it over again and make it better.”
And after some downtime, starting over in South End is in motion. Barnes and Barger and their team will open a new Common Market at 235 West Tremont Avenue in the first half of 2017. And how they got there is a common Common Market story.
Esta historia es de la edición January 2017 de Charlotte Magazine.
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Esta historia es de la edición January 2017 de Charlotte Magazine.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
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