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  • Thread starter marksimpson7843
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How would I go about campaigning Steak 'n Shake to start opening Canadian locations? I'm totally serious.
 
Well, here's who they won't be asking:

pamela_anderson_01_91755a.jpg
 
I would love to see some more Chili's in Canada...a few more Ponderosas/Bonanzas wouldn't hurt either. And Bob Evans!

Neat. I know in Starbucks in the UK and US, Wi-Fi's provided by T-Mobile.
_____________________________________________
Oct. 7, 2005. 01:00 AM
Starbucks, Bell Canada to offer Wi-Fi at coffee shops

Starbucks and Bell Canada plan to roll out wireless Internet service at the coffee retailer's shops across Canada, U.S.-based Starbucks said yesterday.
The wireless fidelity service will allow customers to access email or the Internet from Starbucks outlets, the company said.
"Our customers will find that Wi-Fi service at Starbucks comes with great extras, like the ability to listen to free music clips from CDs featured in our stores," Colin Moore, president of Starbucks Coffee Canada, said in a statement.
The service provided by Bell Canada will offer high-speed connectivity, a uniform log-in process and the ability to bill usage to regular monthly carrier statements or a credit card.
The first wireless hotspots will open at 140 Starbucks stores in Ontario. The service will expand to more than 400 shops in B.C., Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan over the next year.
Seattle-based Starbucks announced this week its same-store sales around the world rose 10 per cent for the five weeks ended Oct. 2 compared with a year earlier, boosted by its espresso drinks. It said it expects October same-store sales growth to be in the range of 3 to 7 per cent.
Starbucks opened 1,672 new stores in fiscal 2005, which ended on Monday, ahead of its global store opening target of 1,500 stores.
 
I don't know why open so many women/children stores without menswear. It's annoying!
________________________
H&M Continues Expansion in Toronto
Three new stores to open in Toronto this fall.

Swedish-based clothing retailer H&M will open three new stores this fall at Scarborough Town Centre, Square One and Erin Mills Town Centre, adding to the eight existing stores in Toronto.

Scarborough Town Centre, opening September 15th, will occupy over 13,000 square feet and will feature H&M lines for women and children.

Square One, opening October 13th, will occupy over 16,000 square feet and will feature lines for women, teens and children.

Erin Mills Town Centre, opening October 27th, will occupy over 17,000 square feet and will feature lines for women (including lingerie), men and children.

Additionally, H&M will re-open its Oakville Place location on September 29th, to include a children’s section.

“Enthusiasm for the H&M brand continues to build in Toronto and it’s exciting for us to open in all of these new areas to better service our customers, says Lucy van der Wal, country manager, H&M Canada.

“Clearly there continues to be a need for stylish, quality clothing at affordable prices. And with fall finally here, the timing is perfect.â€

H&M currently has eight other store locations in Toronto. They include: Fairview Mall, The Promenade, Markville Shopping Centre, Toronto Eaton Centre, Vaughan Mills Shopping Centre, Bloor Street (a new Trend Concept Store, the first of its kind in North America), Oakville Place and Yorkdale Shopping Centre.
 
M&M Meats to open as many as 225 more stores countrywide within 6 years
ALLAN SWIFTSun Oct 16,12:39 PM ET
MONTREAL (CP) - M&M Meat Shops, one of the country's most successful franchise operators, is making a big push in Quebec as the Kitchener, Ont.-based company celebrates its 25th anniversary.

Mac Voisin, chairman and co-founder, said M&M has plans to open 40 to 50 outlets in Quebec during the next five to six years, to add to the 59 already established.

"Quebec is probably the biggest area of growth in the next number of years," Voisin said in an interview in Montreal.

After opening its 400th meat shop last month in Pickering, Ont., Voisin said the company shows no sign of slowing down, despite a saturation in some of its Ontario suburban markets, where 209 of the stores are located.

"We expect in the next five or six years there will be 600 to 625 outlets across the country," Voisin predicted.

M&Ms are spread from Victoria to Whitehorse to St. John's, Nfld., employing about 2,200 people. All are franchise operations with the exception of three company-owned training stores.

Voisin projects sales this year to reach $423 million. A private company, M&M does not reveal profits or losses.

M&M stores are typically found in city suburbs, where its frozen-meat and ready-to-serve dishes cater to two-salary, two-car families in a hurry.

But Voisin said that while there is still room for growth in those markets, M&M is developing a new concept of a smaller store aimed at regions and downtown cores.

"We want to go more into smaller rural markets where we can't go in with a fullsize store because it wouldn't make economic sense, and also into downtown cores where people live and work." Compared with the current store sizes of 1,200 to 1,500 square feet, the new model will have 800 or 900 square feet.

The first small-scale store to test the market will be opened next month in Mount Forest, Ont. about an hour north of Waterloo.

Voisin said M&M is also open to growing through acquisitions of other food retailers, and eventually taking its concept to the United States.

Last year his company lost a bid to take over the Laura Secord chocolate store chain.

M&M stores carry some 350 products, including cakes, prepared dishes and hors d'oeuvres along with its staple of "flash-frozen" meat cuts.

The company is also in the middle of a six-year program to redesign all the stores, at a cost to the franchisee of $25,000 to $50,000 per store.

The company buys its meat from national brand suppliers like J. M. Schneider Inc., McCain Foods Ltd. and Maple Leaf Foods Inc., selling it under its own label in a plain white box, contrary to the brightly coloured boxes sold by its supermarket competitors.

The company has also opened counters at 12 Mac's Milk convenience stores in Ontario, that belong to Quebec-based Couche-Tard Inc.

Voisin said the Mac's Milk outlets "are working reasonably well, and we'll open more of them, although that's not going to be a primary focus of expansion."

John Winter, independent retail analyst in Toronto, said M&M has been successful by having loyal customers, a good image, and keeping to its core product which is good quality meat.

"It sticks to its knitting and presumably because it's so large it can get good prices on its purchases," Winter said, adding that M&M stores generally have good locations.

Winter said the company has probably benefited from the decline of mainstreet butcher shops.

Voisin, the second of nine children, and his associate Mark Nowak opened the first M&M Meat Shop in 1980 aimed at barbecue fans. Voisin relinquished the title of president of Gary Decatur last June.
 
Bowring

So now I believe Benix owns Bowring, Benix & Co., Barnes & Castle, Basil & Cooke, and (I believe) Stokes too. Why would Circuit City/InterTan want to buy more of the sites anyway?
_________________________________
Oct. 28, 2005. 01:00 AM
Benix gets okay to take over most stores from ailing Bowring
DANA FLAVELLE
BUSINESS REPORTER

Toronto-based kitchen goods retailer Benix & Co. has won court approval to buy the assets and assume the leases of financially troubled giftware and furniture chain Bowring.
Benix has offered to take over all but eight of Bowring's 64 stores, including both its traditional mall-based gift outlets and its larger suburban power-centre home-furnishing stores.
The deal is subject to the approval of Bowring's landlords by Nov. 8, according to documents filed in court by insolvency experts RSM Richter Inc., which acted as monitor and receiver in this case
Calls to Benix were not returned yesterday.
Bowring filed for bankruptcy court protection on Aug. 16 owing $20.6 million to creditors. Its parent company, Tereve Holdings Inc., blamed increased competition from big-box retailers and changing mall demographics.
Tereve's chairman and chief executive officer Sarah Everett said in an affidavit its core customers, women between 35 and 54 years of age, were no longer shopping in malls as malls became more youth-oriented. Instead, older women were now shopping at power centres.
Bowring planned to close most of its mall-based stores and sell the leaseholds to InterTAN Canada Ltd., a subsidiary of consumer electronics company Circuit City Inc.
But Bowring's landlords nixed the deal. So, the leases went back on the market. At the same time, Bowring was looking for a buyer for its off-mall stores. Benix ended up making offers for both.
Benix's plans for the Bowring stores were unclear yesterday. Benix is a privately held business run by Fred Benitah, whose brother Isaac has interests in Fairweather, International Clothiers and Montreal-based Les Ailes de la Mode.
 
Re: Golf Town

Golf retailer's got game
STRATEGIES In a mere 7 years, Stephen Bebis has turned Golf Town into Canada's
largest golf chain
Nov. 13, 2005. 01:00 AM
SHARDA PRASHAD
BUSINESS REPORTER

Forty-one years of age is a bit late in life to take up any sport, never mind golf, which can drive even lifelong devotees to the breaking point and beyond.
But it didn't take Stephen Bebis long to find a way to combine his new love with his adulthood passion for entrepreneurship.
Five years after picking up his first golf club, he launched Golf Town in 1998. Now it's Canada's largest golf retailer, with 24 stores.
"It was just about opening up a couple of stores," says Bebis, now 53. "I wanted a nice life and I wanted to play golf," he adds, pausing for a moment to see if his bluff was credible.
Then the confession: "The vision was to open 20 to 25 stores and to be the category killer. It was to be number one."
Golf Town is the fourth largest golf retailer in the world and in the third quarter, ended Sept. 30, earned $60.9 million, up 12 per cent over last year.
Golf Town is a big-box retailer that sells golf clubs, bags, clothing and other golf accessories. It also boasts an in-store golf school called the Academy at Golf Town, with driving ranges and CPGA instructors on staff.
Retail consultant John Williams, of the J.C. Williams Group, says the company has succeeded because Bebis understands that Golf Town is not in the "deep discount game." Instead, Bebis gives golf-savvy customers a one-stop shop for clothing, equipment and lessons, with knowledgeable staff.
Not only is Golf Town competing against other retailers, it's also competing against pro shops at golf clubs.
"It's as good as pro shops, but provides the value of a mass retailer," he says.
Bebis says the idea for Golf Town came from former chief executive of Molson Canada Marshall Cohen. The Molson executive saw the success of the U.S. chain, Golf Galaxy, and thought Canada — with one of the largest golfing populations in the world — would be an ideal market for a similar concept.
Cohen and Bebis had worked together when Bebis was with Molson-owned Aikenheads Home Improvement Warehouse. To start Golf Town, they each invested personal capital and joined with other investors, including Manulife Financial Corp., which bought an 80 per cent stake.
"I had made enough money," says Bebis, who made $740,000 last year. "I really just enjoyed (business) and I loved winning."
Despite spending five years at University of Massachusetts, Connecticut-born and Boston-raised Bebis never earned a degree — something about changing majors and not correctly calculating the number of credits required to graduate.
Besides, he adds, winning isn't about academic success, it's about winning in the corporate boardroom.
Bebis held senior positions at U.S. retailers Sears and Grossman's Lumber before becoming a buyer at Home Depot in 1984. Seven years later, he was vice-president.
Shortly after, Molson decided to start Aikenheads in a bid to thwart Home Depot's anticipated Canadian foray.
Bebis was contacted by a recruiter to head up Aikenheads. "At 37 years old I could be CEO," he recalls, thinking about the Canadian opportunity. "I could define the business."
He accepted the offer in 1991. "I had no offices, no phones, I lived in a hotel. I built the company to $1 billion in sales in three years and then Molson's made a fortune (when it sold Aikenheads in 1994)."
Ironically it was sold to Home Depot — the company it had been created to challenge, and Bebis's former employer. Bebis stayed on as head of Canadian operations for two years, then stepped down because he didn't want to lead a subsidiary of a larger company. He wanted his own company.
Returning to the United States, Bebis accepted a stint as the chief executive of an American sports company operating under bankruptcy protection. Then he got the call from Cohen about Golf Town.
Although Bebis initially worried no one would show up on Golf Town's opening day in 1998, his fear was misplaced. The store turned a profit from day one.
It became an income trust in 2004 because, Bebis says, the market was hot for the investment vehicle and the trust offered the best opportunity to go public.
You would think that Bebis would be content that Golf Town has achieved its original goal of being a market leader in Canada. No such luck.
Because Golf Town has a non-compete clause with U.S.-based Golf Galaxy, expanding into the United States isn't an option.
So Bebis's strategy is to build the corporate-promotion side of the business. He recently hired a vice-president in an effort to corner the market in a sector he says is large and fragmented.
Bebis is more than the cut-throat business executive he portrays at first. Golf Town is a strong supporter of the Prostate Cancer Research Foundation. Its annual golf tournament has raised nearly $300,000 in the three years it has run.
"I decided to support the foundation because a large percentage of our customers, men between 40 and 55, are prime candidates for the disease," he said in an earlier interview with the Toronto Star.
This past summer Bebis accepted the position of chair of the board and now gives time as well as money to the cause.
Be it golf, business or charity, Bebis believes in only one approach: have a winning game.
 
That's too bad. Whole Foods is a really cool supermarket. Maybe they'll open one by Harbourfront now.
 
It would be nice if the Dominion's near my apartment in the Annex could expand. It's very small with limited selection. The parking could be replaced with rooftop parking.
 
"It's very small with limited selection"

You should see the one at Yonge & Lawrence...
 
La Senza focus is growth at home
Nov. 26, 2005. 01:00 AM

MONTREAL—Encouraged by yet another positive quarter, lingerie retailer La Senza Corp. said yesterday it will expand its Canadian operations next year and rejected suggestions about converting into an income fund.
"As we continue to expand and develop, we lean against (an income trust proposal)," president Laurence Lewin said in a conference call.
The Montreal-based company will open 15 to 20 stores in Canada next year instead, boosted by the success of three new fashion lines launched this year — La Senza Candy, Spirit and Love — as well as a men's underwear line. The expansion will also include the introduction of La Senza Express stores, which will open at converted Silk&Satin stores.
The chain had ventured into the U.S. market 18 months ago, opening five stores in New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts, but closed them after they failed to generate sufficient ssales volumes.
Those closings helped La Senza post a $2.6 million net profit or earnings of 19 cents per share in its third quarter, ended Oct. 29, compared with a loss of $853,000, or six cents per share, for the same time last year.
Quarterly sales rose to $97.1 million, up 18.3 per cent from $82.1 million for the third quarter of the prior year.
Shares closed yesterday in Toronto at $20.91, up 91 cents.
 
Sales help lift Forzani's Q3 profits
Dec. 2, 2005. 04:59 PM
CANADIAN PRESS

CALGARY — Sporting goods retailer Forzani Group Ltd. reported an improved third quarter compared with a year ago and a nearly 20 per cent increase in quarterly sales Friday, helped by its acquisition of the Nevada Bob's and National Sports banners.
The Calgary-based retail chain said strong back-to-school sales also helped boost revenue to $306.6 million for the quarter ended Oct. 30, up from $257.4 million a year ago.
"We had a strong quarter in footwear, hockey and clothing which happen in August and early September," Forzani president Bill Gregson told a conference call with analysts.
"We did have a weaker quarter in ski, snowboard and outerwear, which typically happen beginning in October, (but) those trends of tougher sales in ski, snowboard and outerwear have been reversed in November and are positive."
Excluding the acquisition of Nevada Bob's and National Sports sales were up 8.4 per cent at $279 million.
The company's third-quarter profit rose to $6.5 million, or 20 cents per share, from a year-earlier $6 million, or 18 cents per share.
The company said comparable store sales from corporate stores were up 3.2 per cent, while franchise comparable store sales increased by 8.1 per cent.
The corporate store results included an increase in comparable store sales of 4.2 per cent at the firm's SportChek and Coast Mountain Sports banners, and a decline of 0.9 per cent at the company's Sport Mart stores.
During the quarter, the company opened two SportChek stores, closed two Sport Mart stores and assumed the operation of one franchise store.
At the end of the quarter, the company had 256 corporate stores and 198 franchise locations.
"You will see a few less Sport Marts at the end of next year compared to the end of this year," Gregson said.
Looking into the fourth quarter, Forzani suggested it would not have to discount its inventory significantly to clear its shelves and maintain its margins.
"We believe the improvement in margin will continue in through the fourth quarter and with our inventory in a better shape we don't have as much reason to be as promotional or move as much inventory as we have in the prior year," Gregson said.
Forzani shares (TSX: FGL) were down 13 cents at $12.85 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
The Forzani Group Ltd. operates stores across Canada under the SportChek, Coast Mountain Sports, Sport Mart and National Sports banners.
The company also has online sites and is a franchiser under the banners: Sports Experts, Intersport, RnR, Econosports, Atmosphere, Tech Shop Nevada Bob's Golf, Hockey Experts and Pegasus.
 
Selling out city Buy the Pound
Clutter-happy devotees of downtown shrine can never survive move to sterile suburban locale
By SHEILA GOSTICK
Storefronts are filling up with what those out of the know might call used clothing shops. Actually, they're boutique-style galleries specializing in curated shows of "vintage" wearables. Same crap, bigger price tags. It's when the rag moguls accost me in the street that it's simply too much.

I just knew the white guy in the Jiffy Pop hat was going to bug me. "Nice jacket." Of course, he didn't stop there. "Wanna sell it?" I tried to ignore him. He followed me, continuing with his filthy suggestion.

As he was getting into his Land Rover, I heard him on his cell. "Yeah, it's red and white...."

I'm no conspiracy theorist. He was definitely describing the leather number with the lightning bolt I got directly from somebody who swears it's identical to the one Evel Knievel wore to ride off a cliff in Colorado.

Sure enough, as I was bending to pick flowers in the backyard of the abandoned house that fell down, I heard another voice behind me. "How are you doing today?" My immediate reaction was, It's a cop. In a way, it was. A store clerk – sorry, "clothing gallery associate" – sent by the boss to try to talk me out of my magic jacket.

Maybe he's on commission, I thought. I calmly explained that money is the root of all evil. Money folks have ruined the neighbourhood, and their propositions are lousy with offensive assumptions.

Of course, everyone has their price. I might have considered, say, two grand. But not then. I was in mourning for my beautiful and stylish Aunt Mary, the artist, who wore second-foot – so to speak– lucite heels into her 80s.

I had taken a load of clothes, including Bing Crosby shoes, to a shmatta salon just the day before to buy gin for her wake. I got $50 for stuff that will fetch many times that. But in this instance, no one was pressuring me to sell my own clothes for roughly the same price they used to charge at Buy the Pound.

Downtown Toronto is poorer since the loss of Buy the Pound on Adelaide East, which was sold off to make way for much-needed condominiums. The outlet, which was run by Goodwill Industries, formerly the Crippled Civilians or Crips, had a Hades-like atmosphere.

But even there I wasn't much of a shopper. Mostly I find stuff hanging on fences, like my other jacket from the Edmonton Journal. My winter boots were laying on a lawn.

The Pound was more a place of worship where I went to look at the congregation for as long as my allergies would permit. It was frequented by a rich crop of eccentrics with the perseverance and imagination to see the possibilities in piles of dross. Where did they go?

To Emblem Court? That's where the Pound went. To get there, you must go to Kennedy station. Kennedy station is dark and dingy with an escalator laying in pieces on the floor. At first I think the pictures on the staircase are part of some government-funded art project. In fact, they're ads for a bank. A bit disconcerting to be stepping on a giant baby's face.

The driver of the 57 bus wheels out of the station so fast that kids go "Whee!" We turn up Midland and whiz past single-family homes, apartment towers and plazas, a factory outlet for Royal Doulton wedding china, ducts and smokestacks belonging to Atlantic Recycling ("We saved 9,300 trees today").

Beyond the stop for the Midland RT and just north of the 401, you have to be watching to jump off at Emblem Court, a dead end that's called something else on the east side of the street.

On the corner, I recognize the name of Bedessee Imports, a company that sells cricket equipment and Caribbean products. I have their calendar, which features Jesus pointing at his bleeding heart and lists holidays like Dhulendi and Pongal, with a picture of Marshall's Sardines "with original Scottish taste." Something for everyone. Just like the old Pound.

Rather a desolate location. A few tractor trailers sit on the road. There's no sidewalk, but ditches line both sides. A Goodwill truck barrels past as I jump aside. It feels like industrial Mexico – industrial anywhere, I guess. Water flowing in a drainage ditch attracts birds. On the embankment, bright red apples decorate a hardy little tree. The Umbra plastics factory is at the end of the road. A freight train rolls by to the north.

The Goodwill Community Outlet doesn't look any bigger than the old Buy the Pound. But it does look very empty. Through a glass partition you can see a warehouse three or four times as big as the Adelaide space. On the retail side jazz music plays like in a real store.

It's very depressing. I listlessly pick at a few garments, not old, but new seconds. A lot of the stuff has tags from its last appearance on a Goodwill rack. There are a few shoes, unlike the vast footwear maze of the old place.

A gal stands on a chair in front of a mirror to try on clothes – a collector type. It's still $1.99 for a pound, 99 cents after 100. I suppose you could find stuff here, but everyday devotion at this location is out of the question for the ex-devotees.

The VP of marketing for Goodwill, Mitzi Hunter, says later the company sold its former property "to ensure it is able to serve its mission to the community'' and to "create cleaner, brighter facilities and more efficiencies. There are communities in need in the Scarborough area,'' she says, pointing out that downtowners now have a new store at Bloor and Sherbourne.

But taking the back way out through the industrial zone feels even less safe than the way in, especially for a woman. I guess I should've known better heading all the way up here.

It's like when they closed the racetrack on Queen Street in the 90s. Those characters never followed the horses way out to Woodbine near the airport. The Pound and the old track were distinctly part of an urban fabric that the desolation of the burbs has made impossible to recreate.
 

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