When businesses in our little part of the country make national Top 10 lists, it's rarely a good thing. Tuesday was no different when we topped CBS' list of Biggest Business Blunders of 2010.
The event took place one Friday night in May, when Heather Ravenstein was working as a customer-service manager at a Wichita Wal-Mart. According to the Wichita Eagle, Ravenstein noticed a man walking quickly toward the exit with a $600 computer. He walked right out the door and set off the alarm. Ravenstein dashed after him and said, "Let me see your receipt, and I'll take this off for you," regarding the sensor that had triggered the alarm. Instead, the man showed her how hard he could kick her.
With the Kansas City Chiefs penciled into next week's NFL playoffs, it's high time for the media to start tossing around dreamy estimates of how much money a home playoff game will mean for Kansas City. By next Sunday, the stories go, area bars will be pouring liquid gold from their taps, and we won't even need the e-tax to pay for cops. We'll just pay 'em with Chiefs money!
Of course, the numbers are bogus. Especially when you factor in our bundled-up strippers.
The new face of selling toilet paper isn't a cartoon bear, cherubic baby or a totally unwatchable Zack Braff-voiced puppy. It's Missouri's murderers and rapists.
The prisoners in two Iowa clinks are wiping their bottoms with one-ply rolls created by inmates at Crossroads Correctional Facility in Cameron. And if officials like how the paper performs, they might make Iowa's incarcerated make their own TP. As the director of Iowa Prison Industries notes, toilet paper is a "high-consumption item."
Doing battle with soccer moms over Elmos and X-Boxes in the middle of the night doesn't sound like fun. But when retailers dangle unbelievable deals, it's hard to resist taking part in the biggest shopping day of the year, especially in these crappy economic times.
This morning, I participated in a Black Friday-themed discussion on KCUR's Central Standard (download KCUR's recording of me
umming and uhhing about where to stretch your dollars on the day after
Thanksgiving). As I write this, the podcast isn't available yet, but should eventually be available.
The long-ago-stalled West Edge project, a hotel and office development near the Plaza, looks to be on the verge of maybe getting completed sometime sooner or later. Perhaps.
The project started in 2005, when ad man Bob Bernstein teamed up with the city to build a hotel and headquarters for his agency. But four years later it fell apart when Bernstein's development company went bankrupt. Now the project is on the verge of being sold -- but nothing about the Star's story inspires confidence that they'll be rolling in mini bars and cubicles anytime soon.
We may not be known as the safest hamlet in the country or the most attractive, but entrepreneurial-minded folks looking for a place to start up a business may find a haven in Kansas City.
In a Fast Company article titled, "Why You Should Start a Business in ... Kansas City," the biggest draw was the number of mentorship programs available through non-profit organizations like the Kaufmann Foundation. The article interviews Bo Fishback, who runs Kaufmann Labs, a "startup incubator" of sorts which pays "entrepreneurs for up to six months while they
build out their startups." So what makes Kansas City such a dynamic startup town?
13th casino, which would hold the Missouri's last gambling license. The proposed casinos still in the running are in St. Louis, Cape
Girardeau and Sugar Creek, 10 miles east of Kansas City.
The Kansas City chapter of the American Institute of Architects is asking Highwoods Properties to redo its proposal for a law office on one of the Country Club Plaza's original blocks.
In a letter describing the Plaza as one of Kansas City's "few special places," the AIA board says the design of Polsinelli Shughart's headquarters "needs to be significantly reconsidered," which is a polite way of saying that it's too big and too ugly.
Addicted gamblers and aspiring blackjack dealers rejoice: There's still a chance Kansas City will be home to Missouri's Next Big Money Pit.
With one of Missouri's 13 available casino licenses up for grabs, state regulators are entertaining bids and plan to choose one lucky casino operator by year's end. And while they rejected one developer's proposal for a new Sugar Creek casino, a Las Vegas-based group is still in the running to build a $407 million casino in Sugar Creek, the Kansas City Business Journal reports.
Soundgarden's sludgy sound, last night at the Midland (review)
Royals fan sprints on the field, steals rosin bag
Oklahoma Joe's ribs named the best in the country by The Daily Meal
Story celebrates with a pig roast and other weekend possibilities
Homer's Drive-In: the oldest drive-through in the metro
Kansas House ignores Brownback, Senate, goes home early for long weekend
KCPD will breathalyze patrons at Tanner's tonight
Parisi's Pete Licata is a World Barista Championship semifinalist