LOCAL BUSINESS ROUNDUP
Biggs Park Mall to host Toy and Hobby Show
LUMBERTON – The attraction of nostalgia rings up to big business in the United States.
We often want to pacify that streak of sentimentality by re-acquiring items that we had while coming of age. Or, items we always wished we could have had.
Could be that Dell Comics series of “Andy Griffith Show” comic books that was part of a bedside stack in adolescence. Could be that villainess Nazi G.I. Joe with the scar on his face and the “stick grenade” potato masher embedded in his hand from the action figure’s original run along the middle 1960s.
Or, perhaps, it’s that 1989 Barbie Wedding Fantasy Doll that you let a friend borrow back in the day and for some reason was never returned.
Here’s an opportunity to pacify your past with some sentimental hygiene.
On Saturday, Biggs Park Mall is hosting a toy and hobby show in the old JCPenney building.
Hours for the Lumberton Toy and Hobby Show are scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Admission is free.
Show-runner Sean Morse of Wilmington could not be reached for additional details on Thursday.
“We get people from all over the state who call in with interest in coming to the show. Collectors and those interested in vintage toys,” said Chelsea Biggs, the manager and owner of the Lumberton mall.
Biggs said the mall has been hosting the twice-a-year shows for a decade now. They are traditionally held at Christmastime and over the Mother’s Day weekend.
According to Biggs, the Rue21 location at Biggs Park Mall will be closing after nearly 10 years of operation.
This specialty retailer of women’s and men’s casual apparel and accessories is based in the Pittsburgh suburb of Warrendale, Pennsylvania.
Rue21 has announced that it has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and will be closing all 543 of its stores across the United States.
“We’re not too worried about it because we have some exciting new tenants that can potentially come to Biggs Park Mall,” she said.
As expected, Biggs declined to name the potential new mall tenants.
Meanwhile, her family also owns the Center Stage Shopping Center that’s located off North Roberts Avenue, and right by Interstate 95.
Chelsea Biggs noted that a Fox’s Pizza Den had opened Tuesday in the former Highway 55 tenant space at the shopping center.
“Today there are more than 200 franchises operating coast to coast in 25 states,” reads the company’s online website.
Jennifer and John Faatz of Lumberton are the owners of the pizzeria. Mr. Faatz is a disabled veteran.
“We moved to Lumberton almost two years ago,” Jennifer Faatz said Thursday. “We came from Gray’s Creek. He retired out of Fort Bragg, where he did his last 20 years. We had looked around to find that right home and came across a fabulous opportunity for a home down in Lumberton that met what we were looking for.
“We came down here,” Faatz added, “and fell in love with the people.”
She’s a real estate agent, too.
“Well, if it’s anything like the love we got from Lumberton the last two days, then it’s going to be fabulous,” she said of their chances of success with the new franchise.
“We have hoagies, salads, wings, fries with all kind of toppings, strombolis. We’re not just pizza,” said Faatz. “We have a proprietary crust, and we really focus on the process and the fresh ingredients to make the pizza.”
Hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday through Thursday; and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday.
Faatz said they are actively hiring. If you’re interested, the owners can be reached at 910-802-4040.
The next nearest Fox’s Pizza Den operates from Eastover, just outside of Fayetteville.
Based on the website, the Lumberton location is one of only four of the stores in North Carolina.
In 1993, the company states, the National Pizza and Pasta Association voted Fox’s Pizza Den as the best pizza franchise. Entrepreneur and Pizza Today magazines have consistently ranked the business as one of the best pizza and sandwich franchises in the nation.
So what seems to be going on with the new Highway 55 Burgers, Shakes & Fries restaurant that’s just sitting and not yet serving at the corner of Roberts Avenue and Walnut Street in Lumberton?
Bob Sowinski, the president and owner of the Greenville, South Carolina-based Net Lease Development Inc., previously said this new Highway 55 would probably open sometime shortly after the first of the year. But the Lumberton site needed to first be rezoned, he said.
Here it is five months into the year, and the new Highway 55 remains only a shell of a business.
Sowinski said Thursday of the restaurant’s Mt. Olive-based corporate office: “They’ve assured me the restaurant is opening up at the end of this month or the first week of June.”
Reach Michael Futch by email at mfutch@www.robesonian.com.