Chick-fil-A 'blessed' with increased sales | ajc.comChick-fil-A ‘blessed’ with increased sales
CEO credits affordable new menu and God for double-digit sales growth
By JOE GUY COLLIER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Chick-fil-A credited a loyal customer base, affordable prices and menu upgrades for helping it increase sales in 2008. God’s blessing didn’t hurt, either, a company executive says.
The Atlanta-based chicken chain reported Thursday system-wide sales for last year of $2.96 billion, up 12 percent from 2007. The company has increased sales every year since the first Chick-fil-A opened in Atlanta’s Greenbriar Mall in 1967. It was the 16th straight year of double-digit sales growth.
• Photos: New menu | Family business | Cathy tries hand at pizza
Truett Cathy recovering from surgery
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Same-store sales rose 4.6 percent. The company added 83 stores, ending the year with 1,422 outlets.
Chick-fil-A benefited by being a lower-priced option for consumers, said Dan Cathy, Chick-fil-A’s president and chief operating officer.
“We’re not a high-end, plush restaurant with a $30 average ticket,” Cathy said. “Thankfully, we’re a much more affordable part of your day type expenditure.”
He also was quick to thank his customers and God for the year. The Cathy family, which keeps stores closed on Sundays, is known for its involvement in church and faith-based charities.
“I do think that God has blessed our business,” Cathy said.
Among restaurants, the fast-food category is holding up better in the recession than full-service, higher-end eateries. In 2008, U.S. sales at limited-service restaurants rose 2 percent, compared to a 2.5 percent drop for full-service restaurants, according to Technomic, a Chicago restaurant research and consulting firm.
Chick-fil-A is among the fast-food players that are staying ahead of the industry pace. McDonald’s Corp., the biggest fast-food chain in the world, also reported this week a 4 percent increase in U.S. same-store sales and an 8 percent increase in U.S. operating income.
McDonald’s, by the way, cited chicken products as one driver of growth. It introduced last year a Southern style chicken sandwich and biscuit that bears a strong resemblance to Chick-fil-A’s own offerings.
Chick-fil-A, a privately owned company, does not disclose profit data. While sales increased in 2008, the company is being cautious this year, Cathy said.
In 2009, Chick-fil-A expects to add 76 outlets, down slightly from last year. The company has delayed a move by some corporate headquarters employees into new office space.
It also will keep staffing levels even at the corporate headquarters south of Atlanta. Chick-fil-A has a corporate staff of 732 employees.
Chick-fil-A won’t have layoffs and will replace staff members if they leave, but investments and hiring will be focused at the store-level, Cathy said. The chain plans to renovate 65 restaurants this year.
“I think all of our staff knows that against the coming economic backdrop, with where their friends and neighbors are, we’re eternally grateful to have a job and be with a healthy business,” Cathy said. “We want to make sure it stays that way.”
Chick-fil-A is rolling out an initiative designed to take their customer service the “second mile.” The first-mile elements, as Cathy explained, are the basics of the business — a clean parking lot and restaurant, hot fries and a smiling staff.
As part of the second mile, Chick-fil-A is teaching etiquette to employees, starting with training sessions for store operators.
Company employees are already known for responding with “It’s my pleasure” to customer thank yous. As part of the next phase, employees might be walking through the dining room asking customers, “Sir, may I refresh your beverage?”
Chick-fil-A also has new products in the works. In 2008, Chick-fil-A completed an aggressive product rollout that included a new chargrilled chicken and fruit salad, larger chicken strips and a chicken salad sandwich with chunkier meat and new wheatberry bread.
The restaurant chain expects to add a peach flavored milkshake this summer, Cathy said. It’s also testing a spicy chicken sandwich in some markets that could be added in 2010, he said.
“We are always tweaking and refining,” Cathy said. “The challenge you have with a 63-year-old family business is: How do you continue to stay relevant with the customer? How do you continue to reshape the business, retool the business?”
Truett Cathy, Dan’s father, opened his first restaurant, the Dwarf House, in 1946 before going on to create Chick-fil-A.
One Hall of a debate set for NASCARBy Greer Smith
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services
Published: January 23, 2009
Now the debates can begin in earnest. Since NASCAR broke ground three years ago on its Hall of Fame in Charlotte, talk has occasionally swirled about how many people should go in the first year and who should be in the class.
There is no more speculation about the number that will be among the first class, now scheduled for induction when the Hall opens in May 2010 -- presumably in conjunction with race weeks at Lowe's Motor Speedway.
The number for that class and all subsequent classes will be five, dashing the hopes of those who thought the first group should be as many as 10 to give the facility a kick start.
"Personally, I like five," Hall of Fame executive director Winston Kelley said. "As I fan, I like five because you get to focus on five people every year and they get their due. It could have been four or could have been six. Some people said, "You need a bunch of people in there early.' I didn't like that concept and gave my feedback to NASCAR."
The Hall will be located in downtown Charlotte and will be part of a complex that includes a 20-story office tower, studios of NASCAR's media group, a retail/restaurant building, parking and convention area space.
Those elected to the Hall will have their likenesses placed in a rotunda-like Hall of Honor that will be a centerpiece of the exhibit space. Other features of the Hall include an area known as the Great Hall, an area of changing exhibits, displays that detail what happens during a race weekend and will include a team transporter, a section known as Heritage Speedway that details the sanctioning body's history and technical evolution, and a section where patrons can choose any of 50 greatest finishes.
The first five inductees will be chosen from a list of 25 nominees that will be selected from a 20-member committee that includes Kelley, Hall historian Buzz McKim, seven NASCAR officials, seven track owners and reps from four historic short tracks -- one of those Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem.
Those selected to the Hall will be the five receiving the most votes from a committee of 47 people plus one vote that will be entered from the top-five in fan voting to the Hall of Fame Web site. The voting committee includes the nominating committee, 14 media reps, drivers, owners, crew chiefs and reps from the four car makes in the sport.
Drivers must compete for a minimum of 10 years and have been retired from driving for three years. Non-drivers must work in the industry for 10 years.
The 25 nominees will be announced in June. Voting will be completed by Sept. 15, with the results to be announced in October.
"People can go to the Web site and put their five selections, and your five and my five may not be the same," Kelley said. "If we have four alike, then you could say "why this person and not that person.' That's going to be the same from years 1 and 2 and years 8 and 9 and years 14 and 15. You'll keep that debate."
And there will be plenty of debate, because there are enough deserving candidates from NASCAR's 60 years to fill several classes without trouble.
The argument for many of those who will be considered is not if they belong in the Hall but when they deserve to be inducted.
That even applies to who needs to be in the first class.
At least three people should be locks as solid as ice in Alaska. Those would be NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. and seven-time champions Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt Sr.
As for the other two: It's hard to deny that David Pearson should be in with his 105 victories that are second to Petty's 200 and titles in all three years that he attempted to win the championship.
The fifth person could be Bill France Jr. (who guided the Cup Series' growth into a national sport); or R.J. Reynolds executives Ralph Seagraves or T. Wayne Robertson, who took promotion of the sport to a higher level through Winston cigarette sponsorships; or Junior Johnson (winner of 50 races as a driver and six championships as a car owner); or a driver from the earlier days such as Fireball Roberts, the first superspeedway ace; or a short-track legend such as eight-time Modified champion Richie Evans.
Because it is a NASCAR Hall of Fame instead of a Cup shrine and I have a soft spot for short track racing in general and modifieds in particular, my pick for the fifth spot is Evans, the New Yorker who held the record for most championships in any division for two decades, was versatile enough that he could win anywhere (including Bowman Gray and once embarrassing the competition in a Modified race at Daytona) and certainly would have won more titles if he had not been killed in a crash at Martinsville Speedway.
For the second-year selections, I'd start with the trio of Darrell Waltrip, Cale Yarborough and Bobby Allison -- all Cup champions with 80-plus victories.
The younger Bill France gets one slot. The other goes to Johnson.
The third year: Dale Inman (who was the crew chief behind six of Richard Petty's championships and one of Terry Labonte's titles); Herb Thomas (the first two-time Cup champ who was the first three-time winner of the Southern 500 on the way to getting 48 wins); two-time champ and winner of 46 races Buck Baker; and Rusty Wallace (one title, 55 wins).
The fourth year: Roberts, whose 33 wins includes four of the first 10 at Daytona; Ned Jarrett, who won 50 races and two championships before going on to TV work on CBS and ESPN; two-time champ Tim Flock with 39 wins; team owner Glen Wood, whose cars have won 96 races and was noted for revolutionizing pit stops in the 1960s; and Fred Lorenzen, who made his mark on the superspeedways while winning 26 times in the early '60s and becoming the first to win $100,000 in a season.
Fifth year: Legendary driver Curtis Turner; early Nationwide Series champs Sam Ard and Jack Ingram; Bobby Isaac, a winner of 37 races and a Cup championship; and RJR exec Seagraves.
Cops Bust Meth Lab at Funeral Home | NBC New YorkA funeral home might be a place for eternal rest, but police say an Arkansas man saw an opportunity to build a methamphetamine lab undisturbed by the living.
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There was just one problem—the funeral home was across the street from the sheriff's office.
Officers say Robert Lee Lewis left the light on in the basement of the Higginbotham Funeral Home in Walnut Ridge on Dec. 3. Officers noticed the light on after hours and walked into the funeral home through an open door.
Inside, police say they found all the components necessary to build a meth lab. Officers arrested the former funeral home employee when he returned.
The 43-year-old faces several drug charges and is free on $2,500 bond pending a Jan. 21 court hearing.
A telephone number for Lewis could not be found Thursday night.
Cowboy churches rope in new Christians - Kingsport Times-News OnlineCowboy churches rope in new Christians
By Associated Press
Published January 7th, 2009
WAXAHACHIE, Texas — Moments after flying headfirst onto the arena floor dirt, the man gets up and brushes off his protective vest as rodeo clowns rush in to distract the still-bucking bull.
The crowd cheers as the announcer reveals he’s fine, just before the chute opens with another cowboy atop a menacing bull.
But this isn’t a typical rodeo. It’s an outreach ministry of the Cowboy Church of Ellis County, which has grown from about 300 to 2,200 members since it began nearly nine years ago. The church about 30 miles south of Dallas now bills itself as the world’s largest cowboy church.
The movement is about 40 years old but has grown rapidly in recent years, especially among Baptists. The Midland, N.C.-based Cowboy Church Network of North America, supported by the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Missions Board, has started dozens of churches in 12 states and Canada since 2003.
The Baptist General Convention of Texas has launched about 140 cowboy churches since 2000 — the first in Ellis County. The congregations now perform about 10 percent of all baptisms among the group’s 5,700 churches statewide, officials said.
“It appeals to you because it’s ‘come as you are,’” said Chris Maddox, who attends the Cowboy Church of Ellis County. “You don’t feel judged based on how you’re dressed, how you talk, how you look. We’re not asking somebody to be something they’re not.”
Churchgoers wear cowboy hats and jeans, sing hymns accompanied by a country band and get baptized in horse troughs. Churches vary. Some have Western-theme sanctuaries; others meet in barns or on rodeo grounds, some on weeknights.
A few months ago the Cowboy Church of Mobile, Ala., started meeting at a nightclub called The Whiskey on one Sunday each month — when the bar is normally closed for business.
On summer Sundays in Jackson Hole, Wyo., horse whisperer Grant Golliher leads cowboy church services at the Diamond Cross Ranch. As he works with an abused or unbroken horse in the arena, he talks to the crowd about biblical parallels, and about an hour later he is able to ride the animal.
“We use an out-of-the-box method to get people to come, because people have so many walls up with church,” said Golliher. He’s not ordained but calls himself a “horse trainer with a message.”
Organizers say the churches attract everyone from rodeo participants and farmers to country music lovers and people who embrace the western lifestyle. Some don’t fall into any of those categories, but say they just haven’t felt comfortable in traditional churches.
“I met a man in a feed store who said he hadn’t been to church in 40 years, and now he’s going to a cowboy church,” said the Rev. Jeff Smith, a North Carolina pastor who founded the cowboy church network five years ago.
Larger cowboy churches have arenas and offer rodeo events, mainly to attract new members. They have brief devotions and sometimes baptize new believers in an outdoor trough.
“What a family life center is to a traditional church, an arena is to a cowboy church,” said the Rev. Charles Higgs, director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas’ Western Heritage Ministries.
Matt Ward, 15, who plans to become a professional bull rider, was among dozens who rode bulls earlier this month at a weekly event at the Cowboy Church of Ellis County’s arena. He attends another church near his hometown of Saginaw about 50 miles away, but came to the rodeo event because a friend recommended it.
“At other places, all they want to do is drink beer,” Ward said, referring to non-church arenas. “But there are a lot of nice people here, and it’s a lot safer.”
Some Baptist leaders say their cowboy churches have grown so quickly because they offer an alternative for those who associate churches with long sermons and pressure to donate or accept Jesus as their savior.
Many cowboy churches never mention tithing and don’t have offering plates; they tuck envelopes into the service programs or put boots out for those who want to give. Also, some pastors don’t have “altar calls” but encourage folks who want to follow Christ to see a minister privately.
“People think we’ve hung boots and hats on traditional Baptist churches, but we found a plan that was radically different,” said the Rev. Ron Nolen, executive director of the American Fellowship of Cowboy Churches and its Texas counterpart.
The Texas Fellowship of Cowboy Churches, which supports the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and the Cowboy Church Network of North America each have “schools” in which they teach people how to start cowboy churches. The new congregations are being formed at a time when attendance and baptism rates have stagnated in a large number of traditional churches, including many in the Southern Baptist Convention.
At a recent Sunday morning service at the Cowboy Church of Ellis County, the Rev. Jess McCabe, a visiting pastor, held up different sizes of deer antlers to illustrate his sermon about how people grow as Christians.
“That’s one thing about cowboy church — we all got room to grow,” McCabe told the congregation with a smile.
Woman finds 139-year-old baseball card in box of antiques - Big League Stew... - MLB - Yahoo! SportsWoman finds 139-year-old baseball card in box of antiques
By 'Duk
The strange story goes like this: Last summer, Bernice Gallego pulled an old baseball card from a box of antiques. She figured it might be worth something to someone, so she listed it on eBay.
The starting bid was $10.
But after getting a flurry of inquiries about whether the card was authentic or not, Gallego started to suspect she was holding something a little more valuable and immediately ended the auction.
Turns out her hunch was correct. She did have something more valuable. The card she found was made in 1869 and featured the "Red Stocking B.B. Club of Cincinnati," the sport's first professional team. It's considered one of the first baseball cards ever produced and its actual value could be worth more than $100,000 when she puts it back on eBay (with a higher starting price, of course).
Of course, the news that she had found a rare piece of early baseball history came as a shock to the 72-year-old Fresno, Calif., resident who said she's never been to a baseball game. Her tale, from unwitting discovery to learning about the card's history, is wonderfully captured by our old pal Mike Osegueda of the Fresno Bee. Click here to read it.
From the Fresno Bee:
"When I came to meet her and she took it out of a sandwich Baggie and she was smoking a cigarette, I almost fainted," (collector Rick) Mirigian says.
"They've uncovered a piece of history that few people will ever be able to imagine or comprehend. And it comes out of Fresno," he says. "That card is history. It's like unearthing a Mona Lisa or a Picasso."
Gallego said she doesn't know exactly where the box of antiques came from since she and her husband are collectors and frequently buy lots from different estates around California. She does have a history of being lucky, though, having once won $250,000 on a slot machine.
by : Yahoo! TechSEOUL (AFP) - South Korea's Samsung Electronics on Monday unveiled what it says is the world's slimmest LCD (liquid crystal display) TV.
The new product, measuring only 6.5 millimetres (0.26 inch) thick, is thinner than any other existing TV set, and even slimmer than most mobile handsets, Samsung said in a statement.
Its thickness is one seventh of Samsung's "Bordeaux 850" LCD TVs, which is currently the thinnest on the market, the company said.
The new product, which adopts an LED (light emitting diode) backlighting system, will be on display at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas from January 8 to 11, Samsung added.
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