Business Notebook: Coming to Cape: Custom cutlery, flavorful food, health-care hacking

Aside from Southeast Missouri State University's River Campus, there hasn't been a great deal of development along Morgan Oak Street in the past decade or so. Once a heavily-traveled avenue that led to the old Mississippi River bridge, Morgan Oak now has an over abundance of vacant lots and underutilized buildings.

But there's something interesting happening at 509 Morgan Oak, once the home of Cape Feed & Seed Co. but vacant for several years.

Artist and custom knife maker Steve Watkins is renovating the building, which, in a few weeks, will become the new home of Ironman Forge, where he will craft high-end cutlery along with other handmade custom blades.

Watkins, who lived here for many years before moving to North Carolina, is returning to Cape Girardeau with a vision to not only build a forge on the lower level of the old seed company building, but to also create a gallery and showroom on the building's upper level, as well as a bar area toward the rear of the building.

I plan to write a business feature on Steve's forge later this summer once he begins making knives. In the meantime, you can learn more about Ironman Forge on his website, www.ironmanknives.com.

Restaurant updates

Bandana's Bar-B-Q will open at 4 p.m. today in the former location of Bob Evans, 156 Vantage Drive near the Drury Plaza Hotel & Conference Center.

According to a social media posting last week, the restaurant will be open from 4 until 10 p.m. daily this week for dinner service only. After that, the restaurant's hours will be 11 a.m. until 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 a.m. until 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.

As reported in the Southeast Missourian in April, Bandana's is a St. Louis-based barbecue restaurant chain featuring "southern style" barbecue pork, beef, chicken, ribs, turkey and sausage.

An opening date for Trio, a plant-based restaurant at 1027 Broadway, will be announced soon, according to owner Laura Schumpert.

"We have passed all inspections and are moving forward with staff training," she told me last week. "Our menu is comfort food with a twist."

Trio's menu is filled with items such as a "jackfruit sandwich" that Schumpert said tastes and looks like pulled pork, but is made from a young green jackfruit topped with rainbow slaw and served on a pretzel bun.

Once it's open, the restaurant's hours will be 10:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. It will be closed Mondays.

Creative Edge wins awards

Creative Edge, a full-service marketing agency headquartered in Cape Girardeau's Marquette Tower, recently received national recognition for six video projects as part of the 40th annual Telly Awards program. The video productions were for Saint Francis Healthcare System, Carbon Recall SEMO, Community Caring Council (now Community Partnership of Southeast Missouri) and Bobcat of St. Louis (three projects).

The agency's award-winning video productions were selected from among more than 12,000 entries submitted by marketing agencies and media outlets in all 50 states and five continents.

This was the first year Creative Edge entered the Telly Awards competition. The agency's entries were judged by the Telly Award Judging Council comprised of more than 200 representatives of advertising agencies, production companies and television networks.

"I am extremely proud of our group," commented Varonnica Kim, the agency's vice president of creative services. "I have always known my team was world class, but now it's proven."

In addition to video production, Creative Edge also specializes in other services, including digital strategy and social media management.

Health-care hackathon slated for this week

The Marquette Tech District Foundation is partnering with Saint Francis Healthcare System to sponsor a "health-care hackathon" later this week.

According to Chris Carnell, the foundation's program director, more than 100 participants, mostly computer programmers, will be in Cape Girardeau from Friday through Sunday as part of the competition aimed at building technology solutions to health care problems. At stake will be $50,000 in cash prizes.

The competition will take place at Dempster Hall on the Southeast Missouri State University campus.

"While the main focus is to build innovative solutions for Saint Francis that impact the community, a secondary objective is recruitment of talented people to Cape Girardeau," Carnell said. "Organizations such as Vizient, Red Letter Communications, carGO and Codefi will be there to showcase our tech community and discuss potential opportunities here."

People on the Move

Tony Buehrle

Tony Buehrle has joined the Community Partnership of Southeast Missouri (formerly Community Caring Council) as the organization's director of program advancement.

Before being named to his new position, Buehrle was director of business development for Hendrickson Business Advisors. Over the past 40 years, he has also held sales and marketing positions with the Notre Dame Regional High School Foundation, SuperValu/Wetterau/Nash Finch and Markolf Meat Co. In addition, he served as director of food and nutrition services at Saint Francis Medical Center and was in restaurant management with the Drury Corp.

Buehrle serves as a board member of the Notre Dame Regional High School Foundation, as treasurer of the Southeast Council on Philanthropy, as a member and past president of Cape West Rotary, as a member of the St. Vincent De Paul Parish & Foundation Endowment Board, Knights of Columbus Council 11205, and is a life member of the Friends of Saint Francis Medical Center.

Marla Mills

Old Town Cape executive director Marla Mills, who recently announced she would be leaving the organization, will be joining KLG Engineering and will be responsible for business development and special projects.

Announcement of Mills' new position was made at a recent meeting of the Old Town Cape Board of Directors.

KLG Engineering, in the Marquette Tower in downtown Cape Girardeau, was founded by Kelly Green and specializes in engineering projects and consulting for municipalities and businesses. Green started KLG Engineering in 2013 after she had worked for several years with the Missouri Department of Transportation and the City of Cape Girardeau, where she as the city's traffic engineer, the city engineer and assistant city manager.

Chamber happenings

• The Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce's July Business After Hours is set for 5 until 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Top of the Marq, on the seventh floor of Marquette Tower. Leadership Cape alumni are invited a half-hour earlier, at 4:30 p.m.
• The Jackson Area Chamber of Commerce will host it's July Business Breakfast from 7:30 until 8:30 a.m. Friday at the Jackson Civic Center.
• Representatives from both chambers of commerce will be on hand at 11 a.m. Friday to help Aloha Pools & Spas, 1728 N. Kingshighway in Cape Girardeau, celebrate its 50th anniversary with a ribbon cutting.

Business license application

John Dudley of Jackson has applied for a business license to open Carpe Momentum School of Jiu-Jitsu at 10 N. Sprigg St. in Cape Girardeau. According to the business license application, the business will offer instruction in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and self-defense and will open in mid-August.

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