Considering all the pasta abilities.

• Position: Pasta & Provisions homemade pasta and sauces store

When Tommy George and his wife, Debbie, opened Pasta & Provisions the day before Thanksgiving 1992, they thought they had everything. "We were open a half-day before we realized we didn't have a knife," he recalls. So they shut down, regrouped and reopened. "We ended up making a hundred bucks that Friday, and we were pretty excited."

George's store was the first in Charlotte to specialize in supplying homemade pasta and sauces. He projected sales of $120,000 the first year. They hit $500,000. He's added two more Charlotte stores and plans a fourth near Lake Norman this year. While he won't franchise, he's looking for a business manager to expand into Greensboro, Raleigh, Durham and Greenville, S.C. Sales hit $1.3 million last year.

George was only the first to see the potential. Greensboro-based Pastabilities opened a restaurant blocks from his Providence Road store in January. New York-based "gourmet food emporium" Dean & DeLuca will open an 8,500-square-foot Charlotte store this spring.

He downplays the competition. "We do what we do, and they do what they do," he says, though not convincingly. Pastabilities is a restaurant, and he's retail. "As for Dean & DeLuca, I wish 'em well."

George, 39, is no corporate warrior - his ponytail, blue jeans and laid-back demeanor are more suited to a Grateful Dead show than a boardroom. The Youngstown, Ohio, native moved to Charlotte when his dad was transferred with oil company Sunoco. After high school, he spent a year "goofing off" at N.C. State, flunked out and hitchhiked through Canada...