The Mud Bay Blog doesn’t often rave about a product you can buy in the grocery store. Safeway’s baked potato soup with bacon, available in its Signature Café, is worth an exception. The soup is that good.
Continue reading
Category Archives: Business Beat
Great Potato Soup
New Paint, No New Tenant
Just sprucing up the exterior
Darn. I thought I had a scoop. Last Friday, when I noticed that part of the Oyster Bay Plaza is being repainted (see photo), I thought that we might be getting a new business soon at 4205 Kitsap Way in Bremerton. That would be news as the space has been vacant for years. But in a call to the Bradley-Scott agent who is trying to lease the space, I learned that he hasn’t found a new tenant. The owner is just freshening the building a bit.
The retail space in the photo is in the same building as the QFC. It was occupied by Rite-Aid until about five years ago, when Rite-Aid moved to its own building a few hundred yards east of there. It’s not the only empty space in the Oyster Bay Plaza. Blockbuster left a big space to fill when it closed last fall. I just hope that new tenants are found in time to bring in additional customers to help keep the QFC open. Their sales seem to have gone off a cliff since Win Foods opened last year.
Posted in Business Beat
Tying the Knot with Comcast
In a post last December, I joked that because I bought a customer-owned modem I was “Married to Comcast.” I should have called it a pre-nuptial agreement. The real wedding took place today. We just tied the knot for at least two years.
Continue reading
Posted in Business Beat
Twinkies—Goodbye for Now
Is this the end of a sweet ride?
In happier times the Mud Bay Blog ran the above photo in a post titled Must Be a Great Job. My tribute to the passing of Hostess Brands snack cakes is simply to run the photo again only with a different and sadder title.
I don’t know whether to blame labor or management (or both) for the Bakers Union strike that caused the company to announce that it is shutting down its operations and selling its brands. So I’m not going to take sides. Hopefully, sooner than later, some enterprising investor will figure out a way to start making Twinkies, CupCakes (my personal favorite), and the rest of the sinful Hostess treats again. Then maybe the Twinkies van, with a new logo, can get back on the road.
Hide the Deals
In case you haven’t spent enough already…
You expect to run into lots of advertising on web sites run by for-profit companies. Still I was surprised to learn that Bank of America allows online vendors to promote themselves while you are reviewing your banking transactions. (Is no area free from commercials?) The above screen capture shows an example. Directly under the entry for my credit-card purchase from the Orvis Company is a message to shop at Sports Authority and earn 10 percent cash back.
Bank of America benefits of course. First they probably charge the vendor to post the message. Second the offer is only good if you use a BOA credit or debit card. You learn this if you click the offer to get the details. In fairness to the banking giant, you can opt out of learning about additional ways to spend money by clicking the “Hide Deals” link. But I wonder which way the screen was set by default. I’m not sure how long these “helpful” messages have been there. The Orvis/Sports Authority deal is the first one I have noticed.
Posted in Business Beat
Film Piracy Dilemma
What should you do when the theft of intellectual property affects you personally? In my case I bought a DVD online that I’m almost certain was recorded from a television broadcast and sold without a license. My dilemma is that I want to add the film to my small collection and cannot find it for sale anywhere else.
Continue reading
Call It WalBucks
Now Open Bucks
Now that it’s open, it needs a name. Or at least a better name than “West Bremerton Starbucks.” That’s what a recent article in the Kitsap Sun called the latest store (see photo) to join the Starbucks empire.
Continue reading
In Case You Didn’t Know
Would a liquor sign send an unnecessary message?
Let’s be clear. The Liquor sign in the photo is a fake. Can you tell? :) Although I think the sign looks great, the QFC on Kitsap Way has not filled in the big gap on its storefront between the Deli and Seafood signs. I did it for them using Microsoft PhotoDraw just in time for the June 1st end to Washington’s 80-year monopoly on retail liquor sales. Beginning on Friday, QFC and many other retailers in the state will begin selling liquor as a result of the 59 percent yes vote on Initiative 1183 last November.
In QFC’s case a row of shelves in the wine shop will be cleared out and stocked with some of the more popular brands of spirits like Smirnoff vodka, Jack Daniel’s whiskey, and Tanqueray gin. By one count, liquor will be available at more than 50 stores in Kitsap County. Previously we had six state stores. Because consumers can expect to find the hard stuff for sale in so many places, QFC will probably cool it on adding a liquor sign. They did include a liquor insert in this week’s grocery circular. Prices shown are for cardholders of course.
Posted in Business Beat
Dancing Man in Port Orchard
Where’s your smart phone?
Readers of the Mud Bay blog know I can’t resist stopping to take a picture whenever I see a dancing man in Kitsap County. Clearly I haven’t found all of them. I spotted a new one today during a rare weekday trip to Port Orchard. The dancing man outside Talk’s Cheap on Bay Street (see photo) might have been jumping for joy for months about the store being an authorized Verizon retailer. I wouldn’t know. I only pass through the county seat on Sundays on my way to Annapolis, where I park and ride my bike along Beach Drive.
Name This Bucks Contest
Windows were installed last week.
Two previous posts, Tallbucks and V-Bucks, show pictures of the Starbucks that’s being built at the corner of Kitsap Way and National Avenue in Bremerton. The post titles are interim names I gave the building at the time the photos were taken. A reader has suggested that the Mud Bay Blog sponsor a contest for a final name for the building as it nears completion (see photo).
Continue reading
Mud Bay Blog 