Mobile Home Sales in Pineville, SC

Less than a year after making its Charlotte debut in South Park, a French-Asian bakery is opening its second location in Pineville.

Tous les Jours opened Friday inside Super G Mart at 10500 Centrum Parkway. In May, franchise owner Chulho Chang of Charlotte, who grew up in South Korea, opened the first bakery and cafe at 4625 Piedmont Row Drive in Charlotte.

Tous les Jours is known for breads, pastries and signature Cloud Cake — a fluffy whipped cream and sponge cake concoction.

While the 3,500-square-foot, two-floor South Park has cafe seating and a bigger focus on pastries, the new 1,200-square-foot bakery is to-go and will have a larger selection of Asian breads, Chang said.

Baking will be done on-site, Chang said. Each location has four bakers, three cake makers and about seven part-time employees. Bakery hours are 10 a.m.-9 p.m. daily.

Tous les Jours, a California-based bakery founded in 2004, has 70 stores in the U.S. and over 1,650 worldwide, according to the company’s website. One other North Carolina store is in Cary.

Tous les Jours is the first tenant to open at the family-owned Super G Mart international grocery store that opened in December.

It’s the third and largest Super G Mart at the 108,000 square foot, with plans to include a food hall, 2,800-square-foot full-service restaurant, retail and a community center.

The bakery opening is another step toward achieving the goal of becoming a cultural hub, Peter Han, company vice president of business development, said.

“Seeing the excitement from the community reassures we’re headed in the right direction,” Han said.

Han expects the bakery could give morning weekday sales a boost too.

The food hall will have about 12 tenants and is expected to open by summer. Han said the locally-owned vendor openings have been delayed, mostly because of construction costs.

Once at least seven tenants are ready, the food hall will open, he said.

Super G Mart has two other locations in Greensboro and at 7323 E. Independence Blvd. in Charlotte. Both stores are about half the size of the Pineville location.

Super G Mart was founded in 2008, and the Han family took ownership of it four years later. Super G Mart CEO is Irene Han, Han’s mother, and his brother, Paul Han, is general manager.

Chang said he’s looking forward to being a part of community events at the supermarket, such as cooking classes.

He also has plans to open up to three more Tous les Jours locations in the region over several years, possibly north of Charlotte in Huntersville, Mooresville or Concord, and in South Carolina in the Fort Mill or Rock Hill areas.

Just over 1,000 Duke Energy customers were without power as of noon in the Charlotte area.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Thousands were without power in the Carolinas Sunday, including just under 1,000 Duke Energy customers in the Charlotte area, officials said.

According to Duke Energy's outage map, about 1,000 customers were without power as of 1 p.m. on Sunday in Charlotte.

MORE NEWS: 1 person dead after shooting in Pineville, Medic says

Duke Energy also told WCNC Charlotte they're tracking outages in Mooresville where around 500 customers are without power, and the estimated time of restoration is 3 p.m.

As of 11:30 p.m. on Sunday, most power outages have been restored. However, just over 90 customers remain without power in the Charlotte area, according to Duke Energy.

Check back here for updates and on the WCNC Charlotte app.

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PINEVILLE, S.C. (WCSC) - Over four months after a woman was reported missing from Berkeley County, her family gathered Sunday to celebrate her 78th birthday and continue to pray for her safe return.

Ruth Jenkins, who suffers from dementia, was last seen on July 16 walking along Highway 45 in the Pineville area.

Traveling from all around the country, her family met in Pineville to release 78 birthday balloons and share their favorite memories as they continue to search for answers. Three of her sons, Bobby, Radrego and Rastrado Jenkins held back tears as they reflect on her life.

“I miss momma; it hurts my heart not to see her right now,” Radrego said. “I am not saying that she’s gone, she’s not, but just not seeing her right now, it gets me at times.”

“We love her a lot and I’m glad everybody was able to come and bring up the good memories and talk about all the positives because she was a bright light,” Bobby said. “Momma is a bright light to us and is very creative, and very funny. That’s who she is and she impacted everybody here, you know, a lasting effect.”

Ruth’s siblings, Albert Jackson, Mary Cunningham and Freedonia Drakeford continue to pray for her safe return. Drakeford asked for the public’s help in finding her.

“We just want you to come and tell us where you have her,” Drakeford said. “Please let us know her whereabouts; please let her know where she is so we could bring her home. I believe that she’s alive, but we just need to know where she is.”

Detectives have interviewed all family members, witnesses and folks in the community that knew her, according to Berkeley County Sheriff Duane Lewis.

Lewis has previously stated there is no sign of foul play in this case.

Bobby and his wife, Kim Jenkins, traveled from San Antonio, Texas, to celebrate her birthday and bring their family together.

“To touch her, to hug her, to love on her; that is what we deserve, that is what she was put here for, and that is what we want,” Jenkins said. “So if you know something, if you’ve seen something, if you’ve heard something, just let us know.”

The sheriff’s office said they have no updates on the search for Ruth.

Copyright 2022 WCSC. All rights reserved.

Just days away from opening, Super G Mart in Pineville on Tuesday was bustling as boxes filled with packaged food from around the globe were stocked on shelves under aisle signs designated by continents.

The international supermarket is opening its third and largest store at 10500 Centrum Parkway. And Peter Han, company vice president of business development, told The Charlotte Observer it will happen Christmas weekend after nearly a year of delays.

“We’re trying to get everything together the best we can with limited staff,” Han said.

The 108,000-square-foot store has about 50 employees but Han said he needs more like 80 to operate. Hiring issues is one of the reasons the opening has been delayed, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.

Super G Mart also will be “a cultural hub,” Han said, and include a community center, food hall and other international businesses.

It’s been a massive undertaking for the privately-held, family-owned business that also will include a food hall, full-service restaurant and community room.

Amid Tuesday morning’s hustle, 5-year-old Christopher Han busts through the store’s sliding front door with squeals, carrying a toy dinosaur in outstretched arms running straight to his uncle Peter for a hug.

“The entire family is here,” Han said. He points to his brother Paul Han, vice president of operations, on the phone, and his mother and Super G CEO Irene Han. His brother’s father-in-law and mother-in-law from Korea also are lending a hand where needed.

The opening date, originally expected in January, had been pushed back a few times for several reasons, including COVID-related construction supply shortages.

But Han said he’s been working up to 16 hours a day for eight days straight to get the store open by Christmas. The store may not be completely stocked with all items or able to sell alcohol when it opens though.

“We’re making good progress,” Han said.

During Covid when restaurants shut down, more people were cooking at home and started venturing out into different cultures and cuisines, Han said. Super G’s revenue increased 30% during the pandemic.

“We saw a big diversification of our customer base outside of the Asian or Hispanic base we’re used to seeing shopping in our stores,” Han said.

The Pineville international supermarket, in a former Super Kmart site across from Carolina Place mall, is twice the size of Super G’s two other stores in Greensboro and Independence Boulevard in Charlotte. Along with a refresh including a new logo, the aisles are wider so shoppers have more space to browse the international ingredients they may not have seen before.

“It’s like traveling through different regions of the world,” Han said. Instead of aisles named by products like traditional grocers, here signs say Africa, Asia and India, for example.

The selection has been expanded, too, with more foods from Eastern Europe, India and Russia. “We have much more variety than the other stores,” Irene Han said.

Super G Mart’s goal is to share how to make international dishes with authentic ingredients through cooking classes in the community center, called The Club, and the 25,000-square-foot international food hall.

Some unexpected finds at the new Super G Mart include more Eastern European, Middle Eastern and Turkish products, as well as rows of Nina products like ground crayfish and kinkeleba and atama leaves in the African and Jamaican aisle.

“But our biggest driver is our produce department,” Han said. There are seven types of yams and seven types of roots, for example, as well as Irish sea moss.

The seafood department in the back of the store will have a live fish tank wall 16 feet long stocked with lobster, crab, catfish and more.

And in the meat department, there will be cuts, like bull fries, and rabbit and chicken hearts.

Also new to Super G Mart will be an authentic Korean deli run by Paul Han’s mother-in-law serving side dishes and marinated meats.

To get a taste of flavors from around the world, there will be several businesses and an international food hall.

Tous les Jours bakery will open in the front right corner of the store. It will be the second Charlotte-area location after the South Korean franchise opened in May at Piedmont Row shopping center in SouthPark.

To the left of the entrance is the community center, dubbed The Club. There will be cooking classes, language classes like Korean or Mandarin, and other ways to learn about different cultures, Han said.

There also are eight retail spaces for businesses, such as Korean cosmetics, a pharmacy, floral shop or boutique.

Han also hopes to take advantage of the large parking lot to host international festivals.

Attached to the grocery store will be a 25,000-square-foot food hall.

Picture grabbing a bite on the streets of Hong Kong with roasted pork or duck, or corn dogs or hot dogs in South Korea. There’s also a new concept with a stone-top cooked Chinese crepe, jianbing, with egg, herbs and sauces rolled up and sliced.

“I think there’s a growing interest in different authentic foods in this city,” Han said.

A wall of windows will offer a view of some of the business vendor signs from the housewares section that sells everything from Korean grills to Japanese rice dispensers and children’s chopsticks to kimchi pot.

The food hall will share a 5,000-square-foot outdoor dining space with a full-service restaurant. Irene Han said her son set high expectations by bringing in proven, authentic restaurants.

So far, there are about eight tenants signed on for the food hall, which Han expects to open in late spring. The vendors are:

▪ Connie’s Kitchen – Filipino street food

▪ Gong Cha – Taiwanese bubble tea

▪ Honey Buns – Steamed buns, dumplings, Chinese cuisine

▪ Mochinut – Mochi donuts and Korean hot dogs

▪ Mukja – Korean street food

▪ Saigon Café – Vietnamese pho, vermicelli, bahn mi

▪ Sizzling – Pepper Lunch Japanese concept

▪ Super G Mart Kitchen (still to be named) – Bibimbap, Korean rice bowls, Gmart product samples

▪ Yume Ramen – Japanese ramen and sushi items

Han said the food hall and grocery store will play off each other.

“That kind of symbiotic relationship will really turn this into the next level for shopping and dining experience,” Han said.

Super G Mart is still looking to fill the 2,800-square-foot restaurant space and one 400-square-foot vendor space.

The first 50,000-square-foot Super G Mart opened in 2008 in Greensboro.

Two years later, Super G Mart opened a 52,000-square-foot grocery store at 7323 East Independence Blvd. in Charlotte in the former Bi-Lo spot at Independence Square East shopping center.

In 2012, the Han family took ownership of Super G Mart. Han joined the family business in fall 2020 with his mother and Super G Mart CEO Irene Han, brother and general manager Paul Han and his wife, Minji, who helps with marketing. Han’s friend and colleague Joseph Kang is vice president of strategy and finance.

Super G has 75 employees at its Charlotte store and 65 in Greensboro.

This story was originally published December 21, 2022, 10:50 AM.

During the Colonial Period, education in South Carolina was solely in the hands of parents. Those with money, Whites and free Blacks, hired tutors for their young children. Skills in the trades were learned through hands-on apprenticeships. Wealthy merchants and planters sent their children to Europe or New England for higher education.

Soon after the federal and state constitutions were approved, Columbia, Charleston, and several other cities in South Carolina established pauper schools. In 1811, the S.C. Legislature passed the Free School Act, which enabled groups of parents and churches establish public schools. During Reconstruction, the state established a system of free schools under a state superintendent. By 1920, the racially divided dual system of education had been created in the state.

The Pineville Academy, established and chartered by the state in 1805, just a few years after the village was founded, disappeared with the Civil War. The population of the village was so diminished, education became something of the past. After Reconstruction, the few White families left hired live-in tutors for their children. Once the Berkeley County School System was established after 1910, Pineville’s white children attended public schools in St. Stephen.

On the other hand, Pineville’s Black community took advantage of the state’s promise of $1 per student per year and established their own schools. The early schools were Crawl Hill School, a two-room school near Crawl Branch (Creek); Prince Hill School, a two-room school affiliated with Jehovah Methodist Episcopal Church; Redeemer School, a two-room wooden structure affiliated with Redeemer Episcopal Church; Belle Isle School, just west of the entrance to Francis Marion’s tomb; and Eadytown School, west of the Eadytown Fire Station.

J. K. Gourdin School was begun in early 1924 by John Keith Gourdin of Pineville. He saw the need for a community school, so he arranged to swap some land with the Brown and Jethro Gourdine families so the school could be built on that specific location. He then gave that land for the school and assisted in the building of the first school building. Because of this, it was named “J. K. Gourdin School.”

There were no restroom facilities or running water for the school. Electricity didn’t come into this area until after 1940. The heating system consisted of a pot-belly iron stove situated in the middle of the room. Students were responsible for gathering the fuel items, such as straw, tree bark and limbs, pine-cones and the like. Furniture consisted of wooden desks that were shared by two students.

Housing was provided for teachers that lived a great distance from the school. Classroom enrollment was unlimited. One teacher taught as many as could fit into the room. The teacher taught multi-age and grade levels. The food was provided by the parents of the community. Hot lunch was served daily for three cents a plate. There was no USDA subsidy. Those who couldn’t pay ate anyway. In later years, lunches were supplemented with peanut butter, meal, flour, prunes, raisins, peas, and beans.

Books and school materials were handed down from churches and white schools within the state. These books were usually in poor condition and parents had to rent them.

The initial building was completed in 1924, and though unknown by anyone living today, this building burned in 1934, and was re-built, again with assistance of J.K. Gourdin.

During those initial school years, there was no transportation buses to and from the school. Parents and community friends rallied together to get the state to provide a bus. Samuel Rembert was its first bus driver.

Every morning was started with devotion, consisting of the Lord’s Prayer, Psalms 23, and sometimes a song. A community representative would many times come in and speak to the entire student body during Chapel time.

Extra-curricular activities were minimal, as children had to get home after school to help with the chores on the farm. Once a year, J.K. Gourdin School provided the location for a county-wide “black schools” Field Day.

In 1954, a southerly wing was added, consisting of six classrooms, restrooms, a book room, health room, teacher’s work room, a guidance counselor’s office, facilitator’s office, science storage room, and a teachers’ lounge.

In 1957, fire struck, and part of the building was destroyed. Once again, parents and community rallied together, petitioning the School Board to build a new school. A new westerly wing housed grades one through three and a cafeteria, construction beginning in 1960. 1961 brought completion to the new wing, adding 10 classrooms, a cafetorium with two restrooms, and a janitors’ storage room.

Another tragedy struck in 1998, when District Superintendent James E. Hyman recommended to the board that the school be closed because it only had 297 students. Orlando Brown organized the “Save J.K. Committee” and once again the community rallied with petitions and appeals at school board meetings. The board delayed a decision until Superintendent Hyman was replaced by Chester Floyd, who reversed the recommendation. Floyd was thanked and praised by locals, State of South Carolina’s Representative Joseph H. Jefferson, Jr., and Senator Larry Grooms, who said the closing would have destroyed the community. Principal Roberta R. White agreed that J.K. Gourdin School was a “focal point, a gathering place” for our Pineville community.

A list of school Principals, past to present, are:

1924-1928 – W. A. Outing

1928-1931 – Mozell Cain

1931-1940 – William Seymour

1940-1951 – Ansell Halback

1951-1954 – Thomas Sherman

1954-1970 – Alfred Davis

1970-1973 – Maggie Davis Sumter

1973-1982 – David Brisbon

1983-1990 – Dorie Gaillard

1990-2004 – Roberta R. White

2004-2007 – Luretha Sumpter

2007-2020 – Lorene Bradley

2020-present – Theodore Prioleau

With contributions from Cousin Warner Montgomery, written by Keith Gourdin