STRICTLY BUSINESS: RESTAURANTS LOOKING AT CAPE MARKET

Logan's Roadhouse, the "peanuts-on-the-floor" steakhouse, is looking at the Cape Girardeau market.

Ditto the Lone Star Steak House.

Plans are already under way for The Lion's Choice Restaurant and the Bob Evans Restaurant.

By September, the Buckner Building micro-brewery and eatery may be in place in downtown Cape Girardeau.

This list of restaurants may join the more than 110 restaurants already in Cape Girardeau by the end of the year.

Jimmy John's Sandwich Shop is already here.

Jimmy John's, an Elgin, Ill., chain which has more than 70 restaurants 31 in Illinois, including Carbondale, and three in Missouri, including Cape Girardeau offers a variety of sandwiches, including roast beef, ham, tuna, and others.

The Cape Girardeau restaurant, owned by Ed Thompson, provides seating for 30. "We also do a big drive-through and delivery service," said Thompson.

Jimmy John's opened in March.

Logan's Road House is looking at a site on South Broadview.

Steaks account for about 40 percent of Logan's restaurant sales, but the chain, headquartered in Nashville, Tenn., also offers other American fare such as pork chops, burgers and ribs.

The company has about 60 company-owned and six franchised restaurants.

Logan's Roadhouse restaurants feature Wurlitzer jukeboxes, and gas-fired mesquite grills. And, of course, peanuts. You can just hull the peanuts and toss the shell on the floor.

The Lion's Choice Restaurant here will be in the vacated Hardee's building in Cape West Park, just off Interstate 55.

And Bob Evans Restaurant will be on the opposite side of the Interstate. Bob Evans Farms Inc., headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, owns and operates more than 430 full-service family restaurants in 21 states under the Bob Evans Restaurant and Owens Family Restaurant names.

Mark Sprigg and Phil Brinson have their brewery tanks and equipment on hand, and are anticipating a September opening for the micro-brewery.

Almost half of all adults in the nation, 46 percent, are restaurant patrons on a typical day. Industry sales projections by the National Restaurant Association's "Pocket Factbook" predict sales of more than $376 billion this year from more than 830,000 restaurants in the United States. There are more than 11 million restaurant employees.

Cape Girardeau has its share of workers in the food business, and gets its share of eaters every day.

As many as 3,000 restaurant workers are employed in Cape Girardeau County. A recent report by the U.S. Census Bureau indicated sales in Cape Girardeau County for food services and drinking places during a recent year totaled more than $75.5 million, and sales at limited-service eating places were more than $37.3 million in the county.

zBox solving

e-commerce

delivery problem

M.J. "Tony" Paikeday has joined a growing list of area inventors.

More than 60 patents have been granted to Cape Girardeau residents during the past two decades, from a remote control for alarm clocks to a device for operating on the back of the human eye, from spatulas to bibs, cat litter additives to fire resistant insulating compounds.

Other inventions that received patents in the area include a mop head with entirely replaceable parts.

Now enter the zBox, an idea of Paikeday, who became frustrated after shopping online.

Paikeday, a graduate of Cape Central High School and University of Virginia School of Law, and now an assistant district attorney in Cupertino, Calif., tired of the "Sorry We Missed You" notes from delivery companies.

Time and again Paikeday was frustrated after shopping online. He was rarely at home to receive the books he ordered from Amazon.com or the shirts he bought from LandsEnd.com. Unable to leave the packages on his doorstep, UPS delivery workers posted notes on Paikeday's door, instructing him to retrieve his order from their warehouse.

A recent article in "Industry Standard" magazine explained how Paikeday, son of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph M. Paikeday of Cape Girardeau, eased his problem.

It was during repeated trips to pick up his online orders that Paikeday began dreaming up a better delivery system. After all, he thought, convenience is what makes shopping online so appealing.

Paikeday, joined by wife, Tina Shah, came up with a simple solution to home delivery problems -- the "last mile" of e-commerce. They began designing what is essentially a bigger, better mailbox.

The zBox, which shares its name with the San Francisco company that Paikeday and Shah launched last year, is a bin that consumers place outside their front doors. The box's lock is activated by a keypad. The container measures about 10 cubic feet -- plenty of room for most packages. A light on the box indicates if there's anything inside.

"Our goal is to own the doorsteps across America," say Paikeday and Shah, whose product is now being tested in neighborhoods outside of San Francisco.

ZBox isn't alone. In what has suddenly become a hot niche market, two other competitors are at work on their own versions of a better mailbox MentalPhysics of Arlington, Va., has begun field tests with its depository while Atlantes of Menlo Park, Calif., says it will begin tests this month.

Both zBox and MentalPhysics plan to make money by charging consumers a monthly subscription fee. Atlantes' plan is different: It will try to make most of its money selling the box to delivery companies, which would then provide it to consumers.

A major dividing line between the companies is technology, said an author for Industry Standard Magazine. ZBox avoids high-tech gadgetry to keep its costs down. Both MentalPhysics and Atlantes will make wireless technology standard on their products. The wireless connection could allow people to be paged or to receive an e-mail notifying them of deliveries. A wireless option will be available with zBox.

The success of these companies depends on support from major package carriers, including the U.S. Postal Service, UPS and FedEx. Each has been in discussions with zBox, MentalPhysics and Atlantes.

Big carriers like FedEx are already using technology to track packages as they make their way toward their final destinations. But FedEx can't send an instant notice when a package has arrived at someone's doorstep. Both MentalPhysics and Atlantes say their technology can do that without requiring major infrastructure upgrades from delivery companies.

For their part, delivery companies want to reduce the number of visits they make to a destination because every additional trip to the same address eats into profits.

"Our entire profitability is based on efficiency," says Steve Holmes, a spokesman for UPS, the nation's largest delivery company, headquartered at Memphis, Tenn.

Meanwhile, some delivery companies have taken steps to reach more residential areas when people are home.

FedEx officials said in March that the company will begin providing evening delivery and appointments to many of the nation's biggest cities. The post office is looking into ways to provide deliveries by appointment.

Despite those moves by the big shippers, zBox's Paikeday is sure there's room for his company's innovations. "I recognized that when e-commerce took off, the problems I had were going to become a mass market opportunity."

ZBox has its own Web page -- Zbox.com -- where information is available on how to rent your ZBox.