Biz Buzz

The rooftop at Park Heights is finally open and it was worth the wait. I checked it out for the first time at the Elvis Presley re-festival gala Thursday (the picture below is from today’s paper) and loved the furniture and the view. Right now, the floor is carpeted, but Park Heights owner Blair Hughes wants to redo it with teak.

Weather permitting, the rooftop is open to the public on Thursdays and Saturdays from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. And, the new eating area has its own menu with a raw bar feel (oysters, shrimp, scallops, crab, etc.). Prices range from $9 to $12. For more information, call 842-5665.

I swung by Main Street Family Dentistry around 4 p.m. today, and the lobby was still packed. The receptionists had to cut off the event (previous coverage) at 60 people at 9:30 a.m. People said they had been camping out since 5:30 this morning.

The office didn’t have any chickens running around, but someone did trade a puppy. Other trades included canned food, a high chair, cookies, cakes, homemade pillows and bikes. Read tomorrow’s paper for the complete story.

Another wonderful week of extreme gas prices. Boy oh boy.

Cheapest gas this week is in Calhoun City and Fulton ($3.71 per gallon of regular).

Sam’s Club members can get a gallon of regular for $3.74. It’s $3.77 at Kroger in Tupelo, $3.77 in New Albany and $3.79 in Sherman. It’s $3.77 in Oxford and $3.85 in Starkville.

Most expensive gas: West Point at $3.91

On the diesel side, the cheapest we found was $4.55 in Aberdeen. The most expensive was $4.69, which was the going rate at the majority of the gas stations in the region. Here’s why you should care about diesel prices, even if you aren’t a trucker.

Read Sunday’s Business & Money section for more fuel prices.

The next few weeks will be a good time for those of us who love to eat out.

Atlanta Bread Co., Old Venice Pizza Co. and Kyoto all expect to open in June.

For Atlanta Bread and Old Venice, the week of June 16 is the target date; for Kyoto, “mid-June” is the target, which also would put it the week of June 16.

All three restaurants are busy hiring, and you can drop by their locations to check things out.

I (the Dennis half of the buzz) stopped by Old Venice yesterday, and even though it’s not quite ready, the place will be something to behold. I spoke to Dave Buescher, one of Old Venice’s owners, and he took me on a grand tour of the place.

The restaurant is the company’s sixth, and will be a prototype standalone store. We’ll have more details to give you as opening day gets closer, but I’ll toss out this teaser: wine machine.

As for Kyoto, I talked to the owner this morning, and he tells me the restaurant will have 10 hibachi tables.

I don’t have much info on Atlanta Bread since Carlie has been covering it like a blanket, so I’ll let her update us on what’s going on there.

OK, this has absolutely nothing to do with business, but this story was too good to let pass:

Apparently, a woman in Japan has been living in the top of a man’s closet for a year – and he didn’t even know about it!

The homeless woman sneaked into his home when he left it unlocked one day, and basically made a home for herself. The man got suspicious only in recent months when he began to notice food was mysteriously disappearing.

From the AP:

Police found the 58-year-old woman Thursday hiding in the top compartment of the man’s closet and arrested her for trespassing, police spokesman Hiroki Itakura from southern Kasuya town said Friday.

The resident of the home installed security cameras that transmitted images to his mobile phone after becoming puzzled by food disappearing from his kitchen over the past several months.One of the cameras captured someone moving inside his home Thursday after he had left, and he called police believing it was a burglar. However, when they arrived they found the door locked and all windows closed.

Continue reading ‘Bizarre news of the day’

Construction is trucking along for the remodel and expansion of the Tupelo CVB at the corner of East Main and Elizabeth streets. And don’t be fooled by the two-story facade. The building will remain one story. Construction is supposed to wrap up in October.

The first picture is the view from the south side of Elizabeth facing the BancorpSouth Arena. The second picture is the view of the back of the CVB. The third is the view from the Hilton Garden Inn. Click on any picture for a bigger version.

The Tupelo Redevelopment Agency bought and installed 20 hanging flower baskets in Fairpark around the park that is home to the fountain and the playground. I took this picture right in front of the playground on a day that was threatening rain, but the playground and fountain were still swarming with kids.

Click on the picture for a bigger image.

Construction has finally started on the addition at the Hilton Garden Inn in Tupelo’s Fairpark District. The additional tower will house 48 rooms (40 rooms will have two queen beds and eight will be two-room suites). The expansion is west of the 110-room hotel, between the Hilton Garden Inn and the Fairpark Grill. Last we heard, the hotel management was shooting to open up the the new rooms late this year or early next year.

Click on the picture for a bigger image.

It’s that time of the year again, and let’s hope things go much differently than last year (previous coverage).

According to today’s U.S. Drought Monitor, two counties in NeMiss are abnormally dry (D0 drought), and the rest are 100 percent drought-free. The map has the eastern edges of Itawamba and Monroe counties as being in a DO drought, a classification given to areas that show dryness but are not yet in drought OR for areas recovering from drought. Click here for the map.

This time last year, the entire state was in some stage of a drought, with 38 percent of the state in a D3 extreme drought. The highest classification is a D4 exceptional drought.

Alabama, Georgia and the Carolinas are still hurting, though. See the map.

Well, this is a different take on our current gas situation. The darndest thing is that it actually makes sense.

Chris Pummer writes the Shades of Green column for Marketwatch. Here’s an excerpt (full text) of his column that ran Wednesday entitled “Eight reasons you’ll rejoice when we hit $8-a-gallon gas”:

Consider the world of good that would come of pricing crude oil and gasoline at levels that would strain our finances as much as they’re straining international relations and the planet’s long-term health:

1. RIP for the internal-combustion engine
2. Economic stimulus
3. Wither the Middle East’s clout
4. Deflating oil potentates
5. Mass-transit development
6. An antidote to sprawl
7. Restoration of financial discipline
8. Easing global tensions

His column (full text) goes into more detail for each reason.