Vinnie's sails to Lake Norman for third restaurant

Britton McCorkle plans to open his third Vinnie's Sardines location this summer on Lake Norman, near Mooresville.

Vinnie's already has two restaurants -- in South End and Matthews. The new location will be off Interstate 77 Exit 33 at Williamson Road.

The site will have a 4,000-square-foot restaurant with a raw bar and a room for private parties, as well as a 2,000-square-foot patio with a full-service bar.

The Vinnie's site is part of a 100,000-square-foot development by The Ghazi Group that will include waterfront condominiums, offices and village-type shopping. Developer Afshin Ghazi says the project will be a live-work-play environment, but he declines to give further details.

McCorkle expects to open Vinnie's Sardines at Lake Norman by the end of July. The restaurant will have 100 to 150 employees.

McCorkle has been looking for a Lake Norman site for 18 months but says he couldn't find property near the water that also could be seen from the street. He expects about 8% of his customers to arrive by boat.

The new restaurant will be the largest Vinnie's operation. The South End location opened in 1993, and the Matthews site opened in 1997.

McCorkle, who declines to disclose sales figures, says he doesn't plan to open any more locations in the Charlotte area but is looking at expanding outside the local market.

Louis Chien with Watts Leaf Architects designed the restaurant.

Thomasville to open on Pineville's `furniture row' Thomasville Furniture Industries has purchased land to open a furniture showroom on Carolina Place Parkway in Pineville.

The company bought the property for $1.1 million.

Thomasville Furniture plans to open the 15,000-square-foot showroom in August, says spokesman Mark Cooper.

Kodiak Constructors Inc. is building the store.

Thomasville joins several other furniture retailers that have clustered along the road, which runs beside Carolina Place mall.

The store is the first Thomasville Furniture showroom in the Charlotte area, although Haverty Furniture Co. has a Thomasville section in its Pineville store. Cooper says the other furniture stores and traffic from the mall were among the reasons the company chose the Pineville site.

Hannaford exec: Merger isn't slowing expansion While its merger with Salisbury-based Delhaize America Inc. awaits approval from federal regulators, Hannaford Bros. Co. is still moving forward with expansion plans.

"We're proceeding as in the past," says Andrew Couch, Hannaford director of real estate development. The merger "is not going to affect our pace of aggressive growth."

The supermarket chain plans to open 10 to 20 stores in the next year, Couch announced during the recent International Council of Shopping Centers convention in Charlotte.

Delhaize America, the holding company of the Salisbury-based Food Lion chain, is acquiring Scarborough, Maine-based Hannaford Bros. for $3.6 billion. Delhaize expects to complete the deal during the second quarter.

Hannaford Bros. has 152 stores in New England, New York and the Southeast under the names Hannaford and Shop 'N Save.

News & notes ... Jenny Joyner and Mary Hahn Fetter have closed Flying Saucers, a pottery shop in The Pavillion at South End, after three years in business. Also in that center on South Boulevard, Renaissance Tile & Bath Inc. is doubling in size. John Nichols III of The Nichols Co. Inc. handles leasing for the center.

• • • The Discovery Channel store has opened in Carolina Place mall in the space vacated by LearningSmith.

• • • Honeymooners, a high-end intimate apparel shop, has opened in Copperfield Plaza in Concord. The owner is Robin Davis.