Richmond Business & Commercial News

Waitstaff in DC accused of stealing credit card numbers

This is a sad story about people taking advantage of trust given to them by the general public.  No, it's not about the government or big-business (this time), but about the trust that we put in the waitstaff at our favorite restaurants.

Six servers at high-end restaurants in Washington, DC, were accused of stealing credit card numbers from customers and selling them to criminals who used the numbers to create counterfeit cards and charge $750K worth of items at local stores. (See the full article from the Washington Examiner here.)

Secret Service investigators cracked the Washington-area scheme after customers began complaining to their banks of unauthorized charges on their cards, Secret Service Special Agent Philip Soto wrote in a sworn statement filed in Alexandria’s federal court. Soto discovered patterns in the charges that led him to the restaurants, where managers helped him trace the stolen information back to specific servers.

“Every employee has a unique number they put into the register before ringing up a charge,” Clyde’s of Gallery Place manager Paul Walker told The Examiner. “With that system in place, we can point back to an employee very quickly. ... It’s very traceable.”

A few lessons to be learned and points to be made in light of this story:

1. Watch your credit & bank accounts for odd activity. You can't catch what you don't see.
2. Regardless of the poor example these servers have give, most servers are wonderful and extremely trustworthy.  Don't let a few bad apples make you disrespectful.
3. As an industry, retailers and restaurateurs need to use systems to make the detective work easier (at least) and stealing private data harder (even better).

It's a shame that these stories happen at all, and with a bad economy people become even more desperate.  The best that we can do is show that this type of behavior will be recognized and punished, without over-reacting and only seeing the negative.

Please eat at locally owned restaurants!

From the Back Page of the latest Style Weekly: 

An Open Letter (Please Eat With Us)
We tend to long for the things we have lost, but never seem to blame ourselves for not supporting them while they’re here.
by Carey M. Friedman

I can't say it any better.  Go read!  And when you go eat, support your local business owners.

Leave a comment and share:  What are your favorite local restaurants?

DC: New bars slated for 2009

This is a little outside of the Richmond-metro area, but once I saw this post by the Washington Post's GOGBlog (Going Out Gurus), I felt the need to share.  Fritz Hahn has put together a great list of the new bars that are already slated for opening in 2009 in the District.

There is a lot of action here in Richmond, too.  I'll be sure to share the news once the owners of each establishment give me the green light to make it public.

There may be hard times overall, but there are still entrepreneurs willing to take a chance to see their dreams come to life!  If you have the money and the drive to succeed, there are a lot of opportunities and great deals for the savvy owner.

Update on Bogart's new location

I posted last January about the pending closing of Bogart's at 203 North Lombardy Street.  Since then, a new location was chosen and the construction on the new space began.

Check out this update on the status of the build-out at Cary & Granby Streets for the relocation of Bogart's in the Fan -- via RVAjazz:  "A drive by Bogart's"  (a thorough update, too!)

Per the blog posting, the new Bogart's is on track to open "no later than" January 20th.  If anyone has information, please share!

Today's Grand Opening at White Oak Village (pictures, too!)

Today was the big day for the Shops at White Oak Village!  The eagerly anticipated shopping center was formally introduced to the community this morning, and while the line of speakers patting each other on the back for a job well done was the agenda for the event (and well deserved!), the important news is that this is not your typical shopping center.

Every developer says that their shopping center is unique, but this time it was proven.  Not only was the environment taken highly into consideration in the construction and build-out, but the way the traffic is controlled and the landscaping is done lends to a very pedestrian-friendly environment.

Then again, this is the same developer that did Short Pump Town Center and that was a new style for the area, too.  I have to say that it is refreshing to see that there are developers doing such high quality work and not just churning out the same strip mall over and over again.

UPDATE #4: White Oak Village

Lately I have seen a flood of inquiries for information on the newest addition of shops in the East End of Richmond -- The Shops at White Oak Village.  From all of the internet traffic, it is easy to believe that this shopping center will be a huge hit.

With the GRAND OPENING occurring this Monday, October 13, it is an appropriate time to revisit the project and see how everything stands for the public unveiling.  All of the shops that were revealed in the previous post (3/27/08) have been confirmed, plus quite a few more.  Take a look at this page of the official website for the directory of shops.

Several comments from the previous post called for a fitness center, a Chipotle, and a movie theater.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as though any of those are on board yet -- except that there is a Qdoba scheduled to open right away!

There is a grand opening event on Monday that I will be attending, so I will be sure to report back with my impression of the overall project and see if I can bend the ear of an insider to find out about any other hot pieces of info to share! 

Be sure to check back next week for the update, or just subscribe using your feed reader or by typing your email address in the "subscribe" box under my picture along the left hand side of this window (be sure to confirm your address when the service sends you their email).  If there is anything else you would like for me to find out, leave a comment and I'll see what I can do!

(In the meantime, take a look back through the other updates for this project on this blog:  5/15/07 and 6/15/06)

When legislators go crazy, but oddly harmless at the same time

File this under:  "Some people just have too much time on their hands."

A county in the state of New York is considering legislation that would require restaurants to list the prices of daily specials.  Apparently even that isn't going far enough for some folks, and these same legislators are tempted to require lists of prices for desserts, cocktails, and coffee.

I wonder when this same county is going to regulate the font on the menus and the quality of the paper that they use?

Has anyone else found this to be a problem in their restaurant experiences?  I can't think of an example where the consumer "needs to be protected" from not having a list of prices.

How to decipher the wine markups when dining out

The Wall Street Journal had a very thorough article on the intricate nature of restaurant wine pricing this past Friday, 8/15/08.  ("Cracking the Code Of Restaurant Wine Pricing")

While I appreciate a good wine, but I have never felt terribly inclined to order the most expensive wine on the list so the advice of ordering the more expensive wines in order to get the best value (i.e., smallest markup) doesn't really work for me.  That's not to say that the advice isn't sound, only that it doesn't fit my tastes -- or budget.

My usual strategy is to either find a wine that I know and like, or experiment with a wine from a region that has won me over with good but moderately priced wines.

That being said, it is very interesting to read about the pricing strategies and some of the reasoning behind the seemingly arbitrary pricing structures of wine lists.

If any of the information from the article rings particularly true, or you have additional advice to share – please do!

(The article was found through a series of posts on other blogs: “Restaurant Wine Pricing” by pjpink at River City Food and Wine pointed to “Figuring Out Restaurant Wine Pricing” by vcuspoon at Anything Wine, who pointed to the original article.  Visit these posts to find their perspectives on the article, as well as other comments from their readers.  Thanks to both for highlighting the WSJ article!)

Prominent restaurant closes, who wants in?

It is big news in Richmond when a long-standing local restaurant stalwart closes.  Even the usual blurbs about openings and closings can get blown into a full-out article in the RTD. 

The recent closing of La Petite France demonstrated that even titans can fall.  La Petite had operated at 2108 Maywill Street since 1971, and had a strong following for its French fine-dining experience.

There are always a multitude of possible reasons why a business closes its doors, and there is no point in trying to make guesses from the outside -- and it's always a shame to see it happen.  The most-recent owners of the business made some statements as to why they made their decision, and you can see those in the RTD article from Thursday's edition.

As for moving forward, the building owners are prepared to make a good deal for a qualified tenant looking for a fully-equipped restaurant and has told Bandazian & Holden to find someone ASAP.  Get in contact with me and let's see what we can do.

I want my free Wi-Fi!

Several months ago I was very early for an appointment at a local Starbucks.  I thought that it would be a great opportunity to catch up on some online research and emailing.  After getting my drink and settling in, I was surprised to find that the Wi-Fi at Starbucks was no longer a free access hotspot.  Instead, I had to have an account with one of the mobile phone carriers! 

I was floored by the absurdity of a coffee shop without access to the internet.....and then promptly forgot about it when I realized it was a good opportunity to just relax and read a magazine or a newspaper.

A recent article on Richmond.com brought the memory back, and I thought I would share it here with you:  'Eat Beat: Wi-Fi Hotspots'.  In the article, there is a partial list of locally-owned establishments that offer free internet access to their customers.  The comments below the article help fill in some of the gaps in the list.

The point is that I'm glad that Starbucks is making such a blatantly selfish move that is undoubtedly driving traffic to their locally-owned competitors.  I'm still floored by the mistake, but I'm happy that it gives us one more reason to seek out small businesses that truly do understand what we need.