Hospitality workers impacted by Helene finding opportunities in Charlotte

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — The hospitality and tourism industry in Asheville took a big hit from Hurricane Helene. Now, so many in that industry are turning to Charlotte to build a new life.

Julio Montero had been living in the Asheville area for almost a year selling specialty produce at farmers markets when Helene came through, literally sending a neighbors house crashing into his.

“Our house was hit by his house, which kind of [shook] it off the foundation and then all the roads to the house were taken out, it became a river,” Montero said. 

Having lost everything, the owner of Omg Alchemy decided to relocate to Charlotte — permanently.

“It’s so unknown what’s going to be the future of Asheville going forward that we made the decision right away to move here,” he said, adding, “Now that a little bit of time has passed and the dust has settled, we decided that it’s better for us to just stay here and try to build our life again here.”

“We are already starting to see some of the Asheville, Western NC hospitality folks looking for jobs in Charlotte,” Stefan Huebner, who owns Charlotte speakeasy Dot Dot Dot, said.

Huebner has helped organize several fundraisers and is connecting people to local jobs.

“That’s why we’re all kind of banding together, we’re doing our best to help them,” Huebner said. “We know they would help us.”

Marysue Boyle is the owner of Beau Monde, which has four event spaces across Charlotte. She has already hired several Asheville transplants.

“We’re grateful that we’re in a position to be able to provide work and also grateful that we have people who want to come work,” Boyle said. “We have a few people who we’ve been working with who come for both the immediate and longer term roles.”

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She knows so many people and businesses are suffering across the mountains.

“They have no work, their venues or hotels have been revamped from a hotel they’re now housing people who have no homes, or their venue is underwater and they’ve been told it will be years before its even restored and available to use again, which is devastating,” Boyle said.

Montero said it’s all been shocking. 

“I remember walking up to the house, and we just wanted to get back to see what happened to the property and we were hopeful that we could stay living there, but as soon as we got there we were shell shocked at what happened,” Montero said. 

He said he is grateful to be starting anew in Charlotte.

“We were lucky, to be honest with you, compared to a lot of people,” Montero said. “People on our mountain passed away.”

Contact Michelle Boudin at mboudin@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.