Tag: Cincinnati

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Business Development News

Belgian immigrant finds business success in Cincinnati

[This story was originally published in the Cincinnati Business Courier print edition on January 21, 2011. Visit the original story for more comments, thoughts and opinions on Taste of Belgium’s business growth – Randy.]

 Nearly four years ago, Belgian immigrant Jean-Francois Flechet baked and sold his first waffles at Cincinnati’s historic Findlay Market. Since then Flechet has seen his waffle business grow in sales, staff, locations, cities, offerings and exposure. Now that Taste of Belgium has opened its second Cincinnati location at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (NURFC), Flechet has his eyes on yet even more growth.

“The food is creative and fresh,” Stephanie A. Creech, external relations manager with the NURFC exclaimed. “Additionally, we’re all looking forward to their upcoming early morning opening so that those who arrive early to the Freedom Center or who park in The Banks can enjoy a fresh cup of coffee or a latte and a waffle before starting their work day.”

The first day Taste of Belgium was at Findlay Market Flechet says he sold 50 waffles. Now, he states, they serve hundreds of people on an average Saturday and baked over 1,000 waffles this past Labor Day at the historic market.

The passionate Flechet, who can often be found offering up free samples of his popular waffles at Findlay Market, says that the early help of Jean-Robert de Cavel, Jean-Philippe Solnom, Bryan Madison and Johan Kars is what has allowed him to reach the level of success Taste of Belgium currently enjoys in Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus.

“At first I was doing absolutely everything myself. I was making the dough at one of Jean-Robert’s restaurants and I would bring it to Findlay early in the morning and would start baking at the back of Madison’s produce store.”

Three-and-a-half years later Flechet now has close to 30 employees, one of the most prominent spaces inside Findlay Market, Taste of Belgium at the NorthStar Café inside the NURFC, locations in Columbus’ North Market and Wexner Center, and is about to sign an agreement that will give the Taste of Belgium business its first stand alone store that will offer “much more than waffles.”

Flechet says that he has signed a letter of intent for a store located inside the Gateway Quarter of Over-the-Rhine. Once open, he says that Taste of Belgium will centralize all of their production activities for the Cincinnati region there, include a bar, and affordable food offerings. But Flechet is not content with simply appeasing the masses flocking to the Gateway Quarter.

“I made vegan waffles this past National Vegan Day so that my friend Dan Korman at Park+Vine could finally have a waffle. We are also making French macaroons with the new pastry chef we have on board.”

Following his expansion in Cincinnati, the plan is to start franchising the business elsewhere in the United States.

“Cincinnati is a great place to run a test [business]; if the concept works in Cincinnati it can work anywhere,” explained Flechet. “We are also working on a new website to improve shipping, and we hope to start producing our waffle irons in the U.S. soon, but right now I’m just having a lot of fun.”

Taste of Belgium photography by UrbanCincy contributer Thadd Fiala.

Categories
News Transportation

Midwest High Speed Rail Association to host happy hour discussion in Cincinnati

The Midwest High Speed Rail Association will be meeting in Cincinnati on Wednesday, January 26 at Arnold’s Bar & Grill.  The meeting will take place from 6pm to 8pm and reportedly will include an “informal discussion” about high-speed rail led by executive director Rick Harnish.

The event is free and open to the public, but food and drink will not be provided by the Midwest High Speed Rail Association.  Food and drink will however be available for purchase from Arnold’s.

Those interested in attending are encouraged to RSVP online or by emailing mailto: Mark@MidwestHSR.org, but anyone is encouraged to show up at the time of the event and join the conversation.  Arnold’s Bar & Grill is located in the heart of downtown Cincinnati at 210 East 8th Street.

Categories
Development News Transportation

Five Day Design Challenge hopes to spur visionary public transit ideas

Michael Schuster Associates (MSA) is looking for a work week’s worth of revolutionary thinking. The Cincinnati-based architecture firm is sponsoring the 2011 Five Day Design Challenge, a competition calling on local and international thinkers from any discipline to generate ideas for solving real challenges facing Cincinnati and other mid-sized U.S. cities.

Dave Schuster, Visual Media Director at MSA, felt that the time was right for a deeper look at transit in Cincinnati. “We decided to focus the FIVE Competition on transportation this year because it’s very pertinent to the current social climate of the city,” Schuster explained.

“2010 saw an incredible amount of debate regarding the 3C line, the widening of I-75, the streetcar project, and more. With new development happening in The Banks, the casino and numerous projects in between, strengthening connectivity to and within the city will be essential to the long term growth of Cincinnati. Not only that, but with issues in pollution and global warming and the heavy costs associated with commuting, creating a more robust transportation network will be a great asset to the city now and in the future.”

On Feburary 3, 2011, MSA will release the full details of the project brief and all applicants will then have exactly five days to solve the problem given to them. Context information relevant to the specific challenge will be released before, but releasing details too early would spoil the fun.

This year’s design theme revolves around public transportation and infrastructure. There is sufficient evidence concluding that designing roadways to add more cars and lanes only encourages traffic congestion, which in turn encourages more sprawl, increased obesity, stress, commute times, isolationism and dependence on foreign oil.

Multi-disciplinary teams of designers are encouraged to sign up for the competition. Registration fees are only $40 and is ongoing through February 4. The jury committee consists of Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls, Cincinnati Art Museum Director Aaron Betsky, local architect Michael Schuster, transit guru John Schneider, and Michael Moore, Director of the City of Cincinnati Transportation and Engineering Office. Together this panel will choose the top five winning designs, who will receive a total of $5,555 in prize money.

“We hope that the competition will raise an awareness and excitement about transportation problems within Cincinnati,” said Schuster. “By asking the question, ‘Can better design help public transportation?’ we will begin to see an emergence of ideas that have the problem solving potential to shape and define Cincinnati in a positive and creative way.”

Categories
Business News

Love for Tucker’s

The overwhelming response to the incident at Tucker’s last week has been nothing short of amazing.  Please continue to support this keystone of the Over-the-Rhine community. Love over fear.

Categories
Business News Politics

It’s time to comprehensively reexamine Cincinnati’s neighborhood boundaries

As the housing market continues to be difficult, homeowners around Cincinnati are looking for every advantage they can get. In some recent cases this has included those around the Hyde Park neighborhood to petition Cincinnati City Council to merge their residential pockets into the more desirable neighborhood.

These residents claim that being included in the Hyde Park neighborhood will immediately improve the value of their home due to how it is listed in the Cincy MLS. Maybe so, but nothing is in fact changing other than a label.

Over time Cincinnati and its unique and identifiable neighborhoods have changed, but there are several turf wars, so to speak, going on around town. Pendleton struggles for a separate identity from Over-the-Rhine; Covedale is doing the same with West Price Hill; portions of Oakley and Evanston want to be included into Hyde Park; and try to not even unravel the complexities going on in Uptown between Clifton Heights, Fairview, University Heights, The Heights, Clifton, and Corryville.

Surely the residents and business owners know their respective neighborhoods best, and city leaders should listen. The current approach of waiting until a certain homeowners association or some other group of concerned citizens comes forward is a reactive way to run a city. Instead, the city should empower its citizens in the ongoing Comprehensive Plan and completely redraw all of the neighborhood boundaries within city limits.

Should Fay Apartments, Millvale, English Woods, East Westwood and California all be their own official city neighborhoods? And likewise, shouldn’t places like Covedale, Pendleton and O’Bryonville be given consideration for neighborhood status. I think so, and I think city officials should be looking at all of these issues so that they can be resolved once and for all.

One way to solve this issue in a non-biased way would be to define what in fact a “neighborhood” is. Currently Cincinnati has 52 neighborhoods and 37 neighborhood business districts. A good starting point might be that a “neighborhood” has to include an associated neighborhood business district or cultural center. Right away this would eliminate places like English Woods and Fay Apartments from the list of official neighborhoods as they are nothing more than housing projects. Instead they should be included in the neighborhoods that surround them.

There are many potential ways to approach this, but something needs to be done. These designations help determine how the City allocates funding to Community Councils, impacts the property values of homeowners and small businesses, and these designations help to define one of the most unique things about Cincinnati – its diverse, vibrant and identifiable neighborhoods.