From celebrities to Charlotte athletes, he’s chauffeured them all
Plus: Bojangles has no plans to 'dump chicken' from its menu; Seth Rogen to play new Hornets owner in movie; Senior living community plans Ballantyne expansion; Green's Lunch to close Wednesday
Good morning! Today is Monday, June 26, 2023. You’re reading The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with local business-y news and insights for Charlotte, N.C.
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Retired NYPD officer Bobby West once escorted U.S. presidents and A-list celebrities in New York City; now, he owns a luxury transportation service in Waxhaw
After retiring as a New York Police Department highway patrol officer, Bobby West moved to Waxhaw and started a luxury transportation service called Finest Transportation. (Photo courtesy of Bobby West)
by Lindsey Banks
Six years ago, Bobby West was living in Long Island, N.Y., escorting celebrities and government officials around New York City on his highway patrol motorcycle as a New York Police Department officer. Now, he owns a Waxhaw-based luxury transportation and black car service and chauffeurs for Charlotte Hornets and Carolina Panthers players.
For most of his career in New York City, he escorted people for NBC, including countless “Saturday Night Live” hosts and “Tonight Show” guests. Name a celebrity, and West has probably escorted them, he told The Ledger. He’s also escorted former U.S. presidents Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and their vice presidents.
But his most memorable escorting moment, he says, was actress Vanessa Williams. She bought him a soft pretzel.
“[Vanessa Williams] was in a Muppet movie [“The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland”], and my daughter loved that movie,” West, age 50, recalled. “I told her that, and [Williams] goes, ‘Get her on the phone,’ and she actually sat and spoke to my daughter over the phone. That was an amazing experience.”
NYPD retirement destination — Waxhaw: After West retired from NYPD, he decided to move to Waxhaw with his wife and three children to stretch out his pension. He grew up visiting his grandparents in Asheville, so North Carolina was always in the back of his mind as a relocation destination. He knew a few retired NYPD colleagues who had moved to Waxhaw, so he decided to follow suit. (West says Waxhaw has become a hub for NYPD and fire department retirees to live off their pensions with a lower cost of living.)
Then, last August, West decided to put his years of escorting experience to use and start a transportation business. He said he noticed a need for a luxury transportation service in Waxhaw, especially for people wanting to head into Charlotte.
Not even a year later, West’s business, called Finest Transportation, has earned five stars on Google Reviews with 62 reviews. Finest Transportation has become a regular service for top Charlotte banking executives, as well as professional athletes from the Carolina Panthers and Charlotte Hornets. (West said he keeps the names of current clients confidential.)
West moved to Waxhaw six years ago, and before officially launching his business, he became an Uber driver to get to know the area. He secured his first loyal client, a board member for the National Junior College Athletic Association who paid him $75 to take him to and from the airport every week. That’s when he decided it was time to start his own business.
No-spill test: Luxury transportation, he explains, is different than rideshare services like Uber and Lyft.
“Luxury is a spotless car, wiped down, clean,” West said. “We have the essentials inside the vehicles that every chauffeur is equipped with — everything that the client needs upfront with us. They need a charger, they need tissues, they need water; whatever they asked for, I make sure that the driver has that at all times.”
Luxury also means having highly skilled drivers so that clients don’t have to worry about their drinks spilling in the back. Once a month, West says he puts his chauffeurs through cone courses in an open parking lot. He marks a line on his cup, and if the water level changes by the end of the course, they fail and have to retest.
His chauffeurs also don full suits.
“We’re in the hospitality business,” West said. “You’re not getting that in a taxi, you're not getting that in an Uber or Lyft, but you are getting that with luxury transportation. I tell everybody that there’s two different ways of driving. One way is the normal way. The other way is chauffeur.”
In less than a year, he’s grown his business to 10 staff members — a majority of which are also retired or active law enforcement officers — and five vehicles: a custom Cadillac stretch limo, a Lincoln stretch limo, an executive Cadillac Escalade limo, a Mercedes-Benz C-class and a Chrysler Pacifica hybrid.
He provides luxury transportation for any occasion — weddings, parties, corporate travel, concerts and trips to and from Charlotte’s airport (he even picked up a dog from the airport once) — 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. An average week for the business consists of at least 50 rides, many of which are for repeat customers, he said.
Pricing depends on the vehicle and location, with a rate typically starting around $140 an hour. A trip from the Charlotte airport to Ballantyne, for example, would cost around $85. He also offers daily rates and recently adopted a loyalty program that provides discounted rates for members.
West says there’s no place he won’t drive. He said he’s gotten calls in the middle of the night from people who missed their connecting flight at the Charlotte airport and needed to get to Chicago or Tampa.
His most popular vehicle is the black limousine, which is equipped with LED lighting, a TV screen, a stereo system and a bar area. West doesn’t provide alcohol (legally, he can’t), but his clients are allowed to bring their own alcohol in vehicles that have a partition that separates the passengers from the driver.
Charlotte’s luxury transportation scene is growing, West says, and his competition has welcomed him with open arms.
“It's not like back in the day where it was cutthroat and run-each-other-off-the-road type of thing back in the ’80s and ’90s,” West said. “It’s become more of a brotherhood where we all work very well together.”
West uses his transportation business to give back to the community. He donated his limos to the Tim Tebow Foundation’s Night to Shine prom for teenagers with disabilities. This Christmas, he plans to use his limos to transport Toys for Tots to Atrium Health’s Levine Cancer Institute.
Lindsey Banks is a staff reporter for The Ledger. Reach her at lindsey@cltledger.com
Bojangles reaffirms commitment to chicken, after news outlets distort CEO’s comments
Several local news outlets in the last few days have raised the possibility that Bojangles plans to drop chicken from its menu — based on a mischaracterization of comments by the Charlotte-based chicken chain’s CEO.
At issue are remarks Bojangles CEO Jose Armario made to trade publication QSR in an article published this month. He was quoted as saying: “This is going to sound weird or controversial. But I’d like to get out of the chicken business. I want to get into the experience business.”
In the interview, he said that means providing better customer service, and he elaborated on plans announced earlier this year to experiment with new restaurants having a “streamlined” menu without bone-in chicken. The new restaurants would continue to offer chicken in other forms, such as chicken tenders, and existing restaurants would continue with their current menus, he said.
But in articles posted on social media on Friday and Saturday, several local media outlets opted to ignore that more nuanced explanation and to pump up the drama in headlines. They suggested, despite evidence to the contrary, that Bojangles — known for its “Famous Chicken ’n Biscuits” — was eliminating chicken from its menu:
“Bojangles to dump chicken?” the Triangle Business Journal wrote
“Is Bojangles getting out of the chicken business?” WCNC wrote
“Why Bojangles’ CEO is steering restaurant chain ‘out of the chicken business’” the Charlotte Business Journal wrote
WSOC picked up the Biz Journal’s story under the headline “Bojangles’ CEO steering restaurant chain ‘out of the chicken business’”
If those characterizations seem off base to you, well, they did to us, too. The Ledger reached out to Bojangles and asked if it would like to set the record straight on its chicken future.
A spokeswoman told us via email:
Bojangles will always be in the business of serving delicious Southern chicken, biscuits and tea, and that will never change. As we expand into new markets, an enhanced guest experience will be a key differentiator, along with a streamlined menu featuring hand-breaded boneless chicken. There are no plans to change the menu in our existing restaurants.
We get that headlines can be tough to write. And in isolation, Armario’s quote — “I’d like to get out of the chicken business” — sounds provocative. But it would seem to be an intentional omission to exclude the “I want to get into the experience business” part. This is how CEOs talk: They like to characterize their businesses as having higher purposes, like surpassing customers’ expectations, rather than slinging chicken.
(The original trade publication resisted the temptation to sensationalize and to mislead, with the headline: “Ready to Grow Again, Bojangles is Going All-In on Experience.”)
Likewise, news organizations should have a higher purpose than crafting provocative headlines for clicks. At a time when trust in media is at historic lows, spreading false news further erodes that trust.
Clickbait or reliable information? Although about half of Americans say they get news from social media, only a small percentage click to read a given article. The rest form opinions based on headlines. Yet media often use headlines not to spread information, but to entice people to click on their articles — part of a desperate and decaying business model that seeks to pump up web traffic and sell advertising.
This Bojangles example is glaring, but it’s sadly not an exception. The Charlotte Observer ran an article last week with a headline that suggested, falsely, that Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper might run for Charlotte mayor: “Vi Lyles, Malcolm Graham and … David Tepper? Who might run for Charlotte mayor in 2023?” The paper acknowledged at the end of the long article that its raising of Tepper’s name “isn’t serious” and that he’s registered to vote in Florida.
Ideally, media should call out misinformation, not spread it. —TM
Related Ledger article:
“Quotable: An Observer editor explains the paper’s philosophy on ‘provocative’ online headlines” (May 5)
Ballantyne retirement community seeks to expand, but neighbors worry about water issues
The Brightmore of South Charlotte senior living community in Ballantyne has filed a rezoning request to build an expansion across the street from its current facility on Providence Road West with up to 125 independent living units in two 3-story buildings, along with community facilities and about 200 parking spaces.
The Brightmore, which opened in 2014 and is operated by Wilmington, N.C.-based Liberty Healthcare, currently has 148 independent living units, 14 assisted living units and 16 memory support units, according to the company’s website.
The expansion would sit directly across Providence Road West from its current facility, on a site that’s wooded and previously contained a single-family home. Mecklenburg County tax records show that Liberty Healthcare bought the 7-acre site from the former homeowner in 2015 for $2M.
This site plan from the Brightmore of South Charlotte’s rezoning petition shows that it sits directly across Providence Road West from the current Brightmore facility. The plan calls for up to 125 residences, a community facility, a courtyard and 202 parking spots on the 7-acre site.
A community meeting on the rezoning petition is scheduled for Wednesday at 7 p.m. in the Brightmore of South Charlotte’s multi-purpose room, 10225 Old Ardrey Kell Road.
The meeting is likely to draw residents of the Cobblestone neighborhood, which abuts the proposed Brightmore expansion.
Cobblestone homeowners association president Martina Manning said the McAlpine watershed drains into a lake in the neighborhood via a permanent drainage easement and is the water held by the neighborhood’s dam, which she said neighbors pay to maintain.
Dam under pressure? She told The Ledger via email that the neighborhood worries that the large Brightmore buildings and parking lot would increase runoff and put excessive stress on the dam.
Manning also said that neighbors would like the height to be reduced to two stories and to increase the tree save area around the development to 50 feet. (It’s now 38 feet, according to the site plan.)
This is a big time for growth in the retirement community industry in Charlotte, with existing communities like Sharon Towers and Southminster expanding and new ones popping up around the region. —CB
Seth Rogen to play new Hornets owner in upcoming movie about GameStop stock mania
Actor and comedian Seth Rogen, known for his roles in “Knocked Up” and “Pineapple Express,” is playing the role of financier Gabe Plotkin in the upcoming movie “Dumb Money,” according to a movie trailer released last week.
Plotkin is helping lead a group of investors that is buying a majority stake in the Charlotte Hornets from Michael Jordan. He founded Melvin Capital Management, which encountered trouble in 2020 and later closed after amateur traders bid up the stock price on GameStop, which Plotkin’s firm had bet would drop in price.
A summary of the plot on movie site IMDB says “Dumb Money” is “the ultimate David vs. Goliath tale, based on the insane true story of everyday people who flipped the script on Wall Street and got rich by turning GameStop (yes, the mall videogame store) into the world’s hottest company.”
The movie trailer opens with a character played by comedian Pete Davidson telling one of the amateur investors, “You got rich dudes pissing in their pants right now.”
“Dumb Money” is scheduled to be released Sept. 22. —TM
Related Ledger article:
“The Hornets’ new owner” (June 19)
You might be interested in these Charlotte events: Discussing Charlotte’s growth, high school debate camp
Events submitted by readers to The Ledger’s events board:
THURSDAY: How will Charlotte grow? Understand new development rules, 6-8 p.m., Camp North End, Gama Goat Building, Suite 200. Learn how Charlotte’s new Unified Development Ordinance will guide the growth of our neighborhoods and what role you can play in shaping Charlotte’s future. This FREE event hosted by Sustain Charlotte includes a short presentation by city planning staff, light fare and social time.
AUG. 7-11: Myers Park Summer Speech and Debate Camp, 10 a.m. - 3 p.m., Myers Park High School. High school students across Charlotte are welcome to participate in a speech and debate camp hosted by Myers Park High School. Returning and aspiring speech and debate team members will have the chance to learn and grow before school is back in full swing. This camp is open to all high school students (not just MPHS students) interested in or already active in speech and debate. $75.
◼️ Check out the full Ledger events board.
➡️ List your event on the Ledger events board.
In brief:
Final days for Green’s Lunch: Green’s Lunch, which has been in business in Charlotte since 1926 and known for its hot dogs, announced on social media on Sunday that its final day will be Wednesday. The restaurant wrote: “We would like to thank our loyal customers for these wonderful 97 years and also for the love and support that you have given us through our recent loss. We will always remember your smiles, hugs, and laughter; you will remain in our hearts as a family. Thank you!” Its building was put up for sale last year, and a co-owner died earlier this year. There is no record of a recent sale in county land transaction documents. (WSOC)
NoDa shooting: A fight outside Growlers Pourhouse in NoDa on Friday led to two people being taken to the hospital, including one with gunshot wounds. (WCNC)
Sonic closes 8 EchoPark sites: Charlotte-based Sonic Automotive says it has “indefinitely suspended operations” at eight of its EchoPark locations nationally, as the used-car market is struggling because of reduced production of new vehicles. (Biz Journal, subscriber-only)
Taking stock
Unless you are a day trader, checking your stocks daily is unhealthy. So how about weekly? How local stocks of note fared last week (through Friday’s close), and year to date:
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Staff writer: Lindsey Banks; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory; Contributing photographer/videographer: Kevin Young, The 5 and 2 Project