Author: Jonathan Serrie

A new quick serve franchise opens in Atlanta.

Restaurant franchises have a taste for expansion despite the economic downturn. And the trend is especially hot in Atlanta.

“I believe it’s a hotbed for franchising because it’s not a pedestrian city,” said Garth Snider, president of FranchiseOpportunities.com. “It’s a commuter city. People are in their cars. They’re going home, on the way to work. They understand established brands, which franchising is all about.”

Established restaurant brands provide a less risky alternative to the high failure rate of new startups. Tried and true concepts are especially appealing to those new to the industry. And the bumpy economy has brought many newbies to the restaurant business.

“A lot of franchisees I’m working with are former CPAs, former attorneys, people who worked for bigger companies that have been downsized,” said Jimmy Davis, a tenant representative with Colliers International. “A lot of these people got good severance packages. They had a good nest egg. They have something saved away where they’re looking to invest. But they don’t want to do it in the stock market.”

Over the next 10 years, the National Restaurant Association predicts the number of food service industry jobs will increase more than 10 percent nationwide — and more than 15 percent in Georgia.

A new area of growth is “fast casual” restaurants, which provide more variety and ambiance than fast food, but are still inexpensive enough to do well when people have less to spend. (See my related blog).

Small planes bring relief to Haiti's isolated regions.

A scrappy network of individuals, small charities and private pilots is getting humanitarian supplies into some of the most isolated parts of Haiti.

“There is a community that is hungry and can not wait for red tape involved with making things happen,” said Rose Emily Bermudez, executive director of Childspring International, a faith-based medical charity. “What we have is a big heart that is open for the people of Haiti and we’re ready for action.”

Churches, pharmaceutical companies and individuals are donating medical supplies and other items to Childspring, which operates out of a small office in a Midtown Atlanta church. The organization hauls the items by truck to an airport in Daytona Beach, Florida.

From there, private pilots load the goods into their small planes for delivery to the Haitian island of la Gonave (see my related blog for more details). The trip often involves a stop in Jamaica for refueling and to purchase food for the relief effort.

“Food is cheap in Jamaica,” said pilot Andri Wiese. “You can buy a bag of rice for $30, a bag of beans for $60. And those are 100 pound bags.”

Wiese, who runs several skydiving businesses, says volunteering for humanitarian missions in Haiti was a no-brainer.

“You can see these areas that haven’t gotten any help, and no one’s going to do it unless we help these other groups out,” he said. “We are there. We have the infrastructure there. So, it’ll be wrong not to try and help out.”

The small planes land on dirt roads and open fields, bringing supplies to missionaries and relief workers in remote parts of the country.

“They have been like angels in terms of the assistance to us,” said Pastor Jean Thomas of the Haiti Christian Development Fund. Thomas’s organization serves the people of Fond-des-Blancs, a small rural town in Haiti’s southern peninsula.

Because Port-au-Prince was Haiti’s primary hub for the distribution of goods, earthquake damage to the city’s already fragile infrastructure hindered the flow of supplies to outlying areas.

Reaching those places during the initial days after the quake would require some out of the box thinking.

“We knew from flying into Port-au-Prince that the harbor was a mess and the airport was a mess before the earthquake,” said pilot Tony Zarinnia. “So, when I heard that they were going to send all kinds of supplies down to Port-au-Prince, you knew kind of where that was headed.”

From his Michigan home, Zarinnia started working the phone — calling relief agencies, missionaries and pilots to coordinate some of the first flights to these isolated areas.

“Without these planes, I just don’t know what people would have done,” said Jan Nielson, co-founder of Missions International of America — a small relief organization serving Les Cayes, also located on the southern peninsula.

“The planes have been a lifeline for many people, and not just in the fact that they have food,” she said. “When the Haitians see a plane landing, they know they haven’t been forgotten. So, the plane itself shows them hope.”

H1N1 activity appears to have leveled off. But public health officials are still urging Americans to get vaccinated against this unpredictable and potentially dangerous virus.

Patients reporting flu-like symptoms account for 1.9 percent of doctor’s office visits, according to the latest monitoring by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That figure is below the national baseline of 2.3 percent (a figure based on the average number of flu-related doctor’s office visits throughout the past three years).

Nevertheless, H1N1 continues to cause hospitalizations and deaths in a small number of those infected. So, the CDC recommends that Americans take advantage of the recent abundance of vaccine.

According to a national phone survey, 23.4 percent of Americans have received the H1N1 vaccine — with the highest vaccination rates among children. The CDC estimates that 37 percent of Americans under the age of 18 have been vaccinated.

For more on the lessons learned from the H1N1 flu pandemic, please read my related blog.

The crew of the USS Bataan is in constant motion, keeping a steady flow of humanitarian supplies into Haiti.

Over the weekend, the USNS Sacagawea cruised alongside the Bataan to transfer huge shipments of food, water and other relief items. The amphibious capabilities of the Bataan make it an efficient platform for moving these life sustaining essentials rapidly into Haiti.

Helicopters carry food, water, and Marines, while hovercraft called “LCACs” deliver heavy equipment to assist a relief effort of gigantic proportions.

“How do you begin to tackle infinity?” said Capt. Thomas Negus, commodore of the Bataan Amphibious Readiness Group. “We knew this was a disaster of enormous scale. And so we are not only trying to provide initial and immediate relief and supplies. But, in so doing, we’re trying to be very structured in the way we approach it so that we’re really creating a sustainable system.”

Negus said that a long-term priority for the mission is helping to restore and support Haiti’s infrastructure, which was all but destroyed in the January 12 earthquake. However, “in these early days, it’s all about saving lives.”

The Bataan’s shipboard hospital continues to treat earthquake survivors. Some of the patients joined the crew for their weekly karaoke/talent show.

With her arm in a sling, Ketcia Cirius sang soulfully in French and then thanked the Marines and sailors for their efforts in Haiti.

“There are a lot of people right now living on the streets and with the elements,” Cirius said through a translator. “But God has been gracious and he’s doing a wonderful thing through you for us.”

The survivor’s speech drew hearty applause — a positive note to end the first week of the mission. It was also a rallying cry for the hard work in the days and weeks ahead, as American Marines and sailors begin to tackle infinity.