May 8, 2020

https://nypost.com/2020/05/07/no-one-is-buying-breakfast-while-in-lockdown-and-its-bad-for-fast-food-report/

By Michael Hollan, Fox News

May 7, 2020 | 5:19pm

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day… but no one is buying it.

The restaurant and fast-food industries have faced many struggles during the coronavirus pandemic and breakfast may be the toughest, according to new reports. Those reports say people aren’t buying breakfast during lockdown or periods of social distancing as much as they normally do.

Multiple companies reported that breakfast sales had seen steep declines during the first quarter of 2020, WRCBTV reports. During this time period, many locations across the country were forced to shut down dining rooms and primarily focus on take-out, drive-thru or delivery orders due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski and Jose Cil, CEO of Restaurant Brands International (owner of Burger King, Popeyes and Tim Hortons) both reported that breakfast sales declined during the first quarter on recent earnings calls. Cil reportedly said that lunch and dinner orders have “shown more strength.”

Jay Johns, president of IHOP, chalked up the decrease to the fact that he considers breakfast “an easy meal to replace,” WRCBTV reports. According to the news outlet, Johns said that he believes that if customers are going to order a meal one time a day, it’s most likely to be dinner.

The decline in breakfast sales is reportedly a significant issue for these chains. For example, McDonald’s sales during breakfast made up about 40 percent of the company’s profits.

Many fast-food chains have recently made investments in the first meal of the day. Wendy’s recently introduced a full breakfast menu, which reportedly made up 8 percent of the company’s total sales, Business Insider reports. Meanwhile, other chains, like Taco Bell, have stopped serving breakfast at some locations. McDonald’s still serves breakfast but has had to cut the all-day breakfast option in some areas.

May 6, 2020

By Ben Cost

Get your zap-rackets ready.

Just in case you thought giant Asian hornets that can kill people weren’t terrifying enough, a graphic video shows one of the flying terrors stinging a helpless mouse to death. The skin-crawling clip was first posted in 2018, but has since resurfaced amid the murder hornet scourge expected to sweep the US.

The nightmarish minute-and-a-half video, which currently boasts almost 500,000 views on YouTube, shows the orange-and-black brawler locked in a deadly embrace with a mouse on the road in an unknown country. The behemoth hornet, which is the world’s largest at over 2 inches long, eventually emerges the victor and flies away, leaving the poor rodent twitching on the pavement from its multiple stings.

Giant hornets, which reside in the forests of East Asia, have killed up to 50 people a year in Japan using a potent quarter-inch-long stinger that can dissolve human flesh.

Needless to say, the mouse murder video sent shivers down the internet’s collective spine.

“The streets ain’t safe out here,” said one stunned YouTube commenter of the invader.

“Who’s here after hearing about murder hornets entering the US?” asked one internet insectophobe, in reference to the hornet plague currently winging its way toward the East Coast.

Murder hornets are actually quite tasty — if they don’t eat you first
Indeed, after surfacing in Washington in December, the insect interlopers are projected to arrive in the next two to three years in New York, where beekeepers say they’ll inevitably wreak havoc on local hives.

Unlike their counterparts in Japan, who’ve learned to “cook” Asian giant hornets to death like a giant beehive hibachi, the US’ European honeybees haven’t evolved any defense mechanisms. As a result, a small squadron of hornets can clear out an entire nest in a matter of hours, as seen in this shocking video from Japan.

It’s not just bees that need to worry. The Asian hornet’s sting can damage human tissue and feels “like a hot nail being driven into my leg,” one Tokyo entomologist told Smithsonian Magazine.

Even worse, “the venom is like a magnet to other hornets,” according to retired New York Police Department beekeeper Anthony “Tony Bees” Planakis.

“The worst thing anyone can do with these things is kill them,” he recently told The Post, adding that “that scent is going to be airborne, and the rest of the hive will come.”

May 1, 2020

According to driveinmovie.com

With the current Coronavirus situation , drive ins are looking like a great way to get out and see a movie with your family.

Cinemagic Drive-in Theater
1702 Jefferson Street Southeast
Athens, AL 35611

The Cinemagic Drive-in is a is a family owned single screen drive-in located in Athens, GA. The drive-in was opened in 1997, but they also have indoo…more about Cinemagic Drive-in Theater

Sand Mountain Twin Drive-in
10480 US Highway 431
Boaz, AL 35956

The Sand Mountain Twin Drive-in is located in Boaz, Alabama which is about 1 hour 10 minutes from each Birmingham, AL and Huntsville, AL.

411 Twin Drive-in Theater and Grill
300 County Road 265
Centre, AL 35960

This old solo screen, with a capacity for 250 cars, was first lit back in 1953 and had a run of 30 years before going dark. It then lay forlorn and o…more about 411 Twin Drive-in Theater and Grill

Blue Moon Drive-in
4690 US Highway 43
Guin, AL 35563

Located on Highway 43 between Guin and Winfield, Alabama, the Blue Moon Drive-in is a 2 screen drive-in theater that has been in operation since 1956

Henagar Drive-in
168 Gourge Road
Henagar, AL 35978

The Henagar Drive-in is a single screen drive-in theater located in Henagar, AL. It is a relatively new drive-in theater as it was just opened in 199…more about Henagar Drive-in

Coyote Drive-in
6200 Grand River Parkway
Leeds, AL 35094

The Grand River Drive-in is a 3 screen drive-in movie theater that originally opened in 2016.

King Drive-in
18478 US-43
Russellville, AL 35653

Opened in 1949, the King Drive-In is the oldest remaining drive-in theater in Alabama. The King Drive-in is a family oriented drive-in movie theater …more about King Drive-in

Feb 16, 2020

No matter who your primary provider is. No matter what product you have. At some point your internet is going to quit on you. For small businesses this used to be a risk worth taking when balanced against the cost of a secondary provider. That has changed….. VOIP telephone systems in the cloud, cloud based Point of Sale, credit cards over the internet and just the nature of our cloud based business models has made the internet a critical part of even the smallest small business. Two things that I ran across in my travels convinced me that even small businesses have a mission-critical need for internet access.

In little Samson Alabama population about 2000 (on a good day), the owner of the Piggly Wiggly has two internet services in his store. Why you ask? Because if he loses internet he can’t take credit cards which is 60% of his receipts. In the era of chip cards, there is no run the paper slip anymore. He can’t take EBT cards (which is 35 to 40 % of his receipts) and he really can’t take checks since he verifies them with an online service. He could take one but if its not good, he’s on his own. It’s actually really hard to take cash since his Point of Sale system lives in the cloud. He realized that if his internet was out he was done! Since at that time his was about the only grocery store in the area, his daily receipts were from 9000 to 15,000 dollars per day (albeit on razor thin grocery store margins). A day or two of that and he would be out of business, especially if it happened on his biggest day Saturday. This business owner is one of the smartest guys I have ever met. The extra monthly cost paled in comparison to what he would lose.

I have visited scores of small boutiques and retail stores over the years. Starting about 4 years ago, I noticed they all had some kind of an online, cloud based cash register. Once again, no internet……no cash register and no credit cards. Even Mom and Pop restaurants have gone cloud based. One particular customer of mine in Tuscaloosa only had to have his internet go out at high noon with 10 people waiting to pay for their lunch to get him on the band wagon. Of the ten,eight people said they would come back and pay when his internet was back on. I think he is still waiting on 4 or 5 of them to return. His average check is about 10 dollars so 40 or 50 dollars walked out never to return. That would just about pay for a redundant provider.

If you haven’t already, take a minute to estimate what no internet for a day or even half a day would COST you. When you do you will quickly see that the idea of a backup internet isn’t as crazy as it used to be. Then call me…I have some ideas for you.

Jun 18, 2016

What if you woke up tomorrow and your email address was suddenly yourname@bs.com?

If you use an email address that is controlled by your carrier it could happen. The operative word here being CONTROLLED. Entrepreneurs and self-employed people are well known for wanting to be the masters of their own destiny and the captain of their ship. There are tons of books and articles about how these kind of people struggle with being good managers because they have a hard time delegating because they can’t relinquish control. Yet every day, I see hundreds of these people putting one of the most critical communications and marketing tools of their business in the hands of a big corporation when their email address is something@yourcarrier.com. Why would you want to promote the telecommunications company you happen to be using every time you send or receive an email?

Three Reasons To Make This Change?

1. Email may be the most important business communications tool of the 21st Century.

How many emails do you send or receive every day? How many important documents do you receive or send each and every business day? How many new customers do you start to interact with VIA EMAIL? How important are those emails going back and forth between you and your customer base to keeping them happy AND KEEPING THEM AS CUSTOMERS? COME ON PEOPLE, THIS IS A BIG DEAL! Why in heaven’s name would you want to entrust that to a company that it takes you 45 minutes to get on the phone?

2. Sometimes YOU need to make a change!

   Nothing in our modern society stays the same for very long. Change is the only constant. All kinds of companies are merging and changing their focus. After being one of the first companies in the world in the PC business IBM decided that they needed to be OUT OF the PC business. IBM started the PC business and helped change the way we do everything but now THEY DON’T WANT TO DO IT ANYMORE! The email at bs.com is an example I used to use during the old Bellsouth days. Lots of folks had bellsouth.net email addresses, heck I had one. What if they had decided to shorten it? Shorter is better, right? Hence bs.com. The point is, companies you deal with sometimes do things that are not necessarily in your best interest. When this happens, you may have to look elsewhere for that product or service. If your email is @yourcarrier.com IT BELONGS TO THEM! The Number Portability Act federally mandated that you be able to take your telephone numbers with you to whatever carrier you chose, EMAIL ADDRESSES ARE NOT COVERED! The carrier OWNS that dot whatever domain and owns YOUR EMAIL. If you need to change carriers, you can’t take that with you. Even if you are not planning on going anywhere, why not go ahead and get this taken care of for all the reasons I have already mentioned above.

3. You probably already have it.

Just about every company and organization today has a presence on the internet. You probably have some kind of a website at a descriptive domain name. yourcompany.com or ifixyourfaucetts.net or something else that helps promote what you do. Almost every web hosting company on the planet INCLUDES email at your domain in their packages at no extra cost. You probably have this and you are not using it. You are wasting money that you have already spent.

Hopefully you are on board with this idea now and are ready to make it happen. 🙂

Here are the 6 simple steps to changing your email:

1. Get your new email up and running

Contact your hosting provider and get your new email set up. One of the benefits of email at your domain is you get to get rid of all the crazy extra stuff that you have to add because you aren’t the only John Smith on the system. Instead of being johnsmith154mz8911@whatever.com now you can be johnsmith@ifixyourfaucett.net or just john!

2. START USING IT NOW!

Forward your old email to your new one so that when you respond to email, they get your new email address. Change your printed materials and all your other advertising to reflect your new email address. Remember the old one is forwarded so you still get those.

3. Set up an autoresponder on your old email.

Auto responder is something every email has. It just basically sends an email to everyone that sends you an email an important message like “I will be on vacation all week.” Or “We got your message and will respond to it promptly” Just set this up on your old email to tell people that your address is changing.

4. Send an email to everyone you normally market to via email and let them know you are changing.

If you don’t have a list of emails that you regularly send information to you should. Most folks do. Send those people a message that your emails are changing. BTW send it from the NEW one and the old one.

5. Talk about the change.

Put it in your newsletter Post it on social media. TALK to your customers about it during your normal conversations with them. “Oh by the way Mr. Customer, we are changing our email addresses to whatever@yourcompany.com . “How hard is that?

6. Put up a sign in your office that notifies people about your new email address.

If you have foot traffic to your business put up a sign in the lobby or on the door or at the checkout counter or all the above.

If you follow these simple steps you will be surprised at how easy the change will be.

Dec 23, 2015

Abandoning a legacy system altogether simply isn’t feasible for some businesses.