It s been said many times but bears repeating 2020 has been a hard year for restaurants.
According to OneSpartanburg, Inc. Chief Business Affairs Officer John Kimbrell, the pandemic has been hardest on independent restaurants and other small businesses, whose owners have had to make adjustments to accommodate for increasing costs and shifting customer bases. Even without the challenges that COVID-19 presented, the restaurant industry is really one of the tougher industries to succeed in, Kimbrell said. We just encourage people to continue to do business when they can with our local restaurants and merchants, especially during this holiday season.
While a number of restaurants have closed, Spartanburg s restauranteurs have shown great resilience and some of these goodbyes may not be permanent, Kimbrell said. Several restaurants, including The Crêpe Factory, Renato In Centro, and II Samuels, announced their intentions to find new locations as they closed their previous o
Helping Equines Regain Dignity, or HERD based in Tryon, North Carolina, is thankful for the success.
The nonprofit, founded by Heather Freeman and her husband Scott Homstead in 2016, relies on donations and grants to save horses from slaughter, restore them to health, and send them on to new beginnings. This year, with COVID, I thought we were going to have a very difficult time getting any funds raised or any horses adopted, but we ended up finding homes for 40 horses, Freeman said.
In the four years HERD has been in existence, the group has saved hundreds of horses bought at auction to be sent to slaughter for their meat in Mexico and Canada.
Cowpens First Baptist Church holds first service after devastating fire
It s often said that a church isn t a building, it s a people.
The members of Cowpens First Baptist Church proved this adage true Sunday when they gathered for worship, not even a full day after their church was destroyed in a fire Saturday afternoon. When I saw the fire, my first thought was heartbreak, and my second thought was, Where are we meeting Sunday? So we got to moving and people started pouring in and offering all kinds of support, said Interim Pastor Rev. Kermit Morris.
Firefighters from Cowpens, Converse, Drayton, Corinth, Macedonia, and Goucher White Plains arrived at Cowpens First Baptist, located at 108 W. Church St., at 2:36 p.m. the day of the blaze to see the church engulfed in flames and smoke billowing out of the building s second floor, visible from six miles away. The building was a complete loss.
One of the drivers involved in the fatal three-car accident on Asheville Highway has been charged.
Trent Matthew Neal, 21, of Campobello, was charged with felony DUI with death. He is being held at Spartanburg County Detention Center.
Troopers were called to the scene of the three-car accident at the intersection of Asheville Highway and Springfield Road at 9:32 a.m. Saturday.
According to South Carolina Highway Patrol reports, Neal ignored a traffic light and hit the vehicle of Khouanexay “Bill” Sivilay, 48, of Evergreen Drive, causing it to hit another car. Neal and Sivilay were both injured and transported to Spartanburg Medical Center. The other driver was unharmed. There were no additional passengers in any of the vehicles.