Each December, Business North Carolina highlights outstanding small businesses in the state. This year’s report features four distinctive enterprises: Clarity Counseling Center of Wilmington; hot-sauce maker Elijah’s Xtreme of Gastonia; the Shaka Taco restaurant of Surf City; and Lynch Mykins engineering company in Raleigh. The edition also includes a feature on the boom to bust history of Avadim Health, a celebrated Asheville consumer-products company that restructured in bankruptcy court last year after unusually rapid growth. Another feature cites the state’s top doctors as chosen by their peers. Other stories include a selection of 10 N.C. leaders who scored major successes in 2021; an innovative downtown High Point development sponsored by the Congdon family; a hospital turnaround in a rural N.C. county and the challenges of leasing retail space in a pandemic. Town Square spotlights Whiteville, where both former Parisians and locals are enjoying the charms of small town living.
