Second North Sprigg sports bar to vie for college crowd

Last week, I told you about the new Coach's Sports Bar and Grill, which is expected to open in October on North Sprigg in the building formerly occupied by the old Rhodes 101 Stop.

This week I'll tell you about Coach's future neighbor and direct competitor for the college crowd.

Cape Girardeau developers Bobby and Robby McDonald are also looking to tap into the college market with their plans for a new 5,000-square-foot sports bar that will open a few blocks down on Sprigg in the same building currently occupied by Burritoville, Mr. Goodcents and DC's Cafe.

Actually the sports bar -- tentatively titled Club Semo and slated for an August opening -- is located in the space beneath those restaurants and the entrance is behind the building off Olive Street.

The new bar will seat around 300 and feature a 30-by-17-foot dance floor, a double bar on one end and a single bar on the other. A stairwell will be put on both sides of the building leading down to the bar, allowing for shared parking between the restaurants and the bar. The gravel lot behind the building will be paved over as well for additional parking.

The McDonalds, who also own the entire strip mall and various other developments, say they are considering making a Southeast Missouri State University ID card a requirement to get in.

"It's geared toward college students, and those are the customers we want," Bobby McDonald said.

Bobby McDonald has several female college students as tenants at his various apartment buildings, and they've all told him the same thing.

"They keep telling me they want a place they can go and meet other students their age -- and not be hit on by 30-year-old men," McDonald said. "I'm giving them what they said they wanted. If we can get the girls here, the guys will follow."

The McDonalds also promise to keep the prices reasonable for cash-strapped students.

They also plan to have food available from the restaurants upstairs, with a waiter taking orders and bringing food down. An adjoining room will have pool tables and video games.

"It will be a clean, safe place for college kids to come so they can party and meet people their own age," Bobby McDonald said. "Then it's close enough so they can just walk back home. It's the perfect college place for college kids."

Furniture finale

Almost a year after opening, Main Street Furniture in downtown Cape Girardeau has announced its plans to close its doors this fall.

General manager Eldon Nattier said no exact date for closing has been set, but he said the furniture store at 45 N. Main probably will shut down about Sept. 1.

The owners, Ed and Shelley Bishop, who own another store in Caldonia, Mo., said they decided to close the store when they learned that Nattier was leaving to devote more time to his bed and breakfast, the Rose Bed Inn, and its new catering business.

"Replacing Eldon would be impossible," Ed Bishop said. "He is an integral part of the operations, handling all the operations, freeing us to develop other locations."

Nattier had worked with the company three years at its other store.

Nattier admitted that the store wasn't doing as well as the owners had hoped.

"Especially when they tore the street up," Nattier said. "It really hurt when they dug the whole street up for a month. But that's not the reason. If Ed and Shelly lived closer, they would have kept it."

Nattier said that the building's owner, David Knight, has the building back on the market.

Land ho

Cape Girardeau real estate investors Eric and Karla Marquart and Mike and Debbie Annis have formed a company called SEMO Land, LLC. One of their first moves as a company involved buying several residential subdivisions in Southeast Missouri, including Forest Hills off Sprigg Street, Ashland Courts off Boulder Crest in Cape Girardeau, as well as subdivisions in Fruitland, Malden, Miner, Dexter and Poplar Bluff.

They bought the subdivisions from a Texas company. They plan to sell some of the lots to other builders.

"We felt like Cape needed more affordable housing," Eric Marquart said. "And this is affordable housing, compared to what's being built in Cape."

Marquart said that his informal search of Cape found houses that reached $450,000, but the houses in their subdivisions will cost around $100,000.

"There isn't any place to build a lower or moderately priced house that I can find," he said.

They closed on the property about a month ago.

Fired up

Worried you might be fired? Then the best day to avoid your boss is on Friday.

That's the day of the week human resource pros are most likely to give workers their walking papers, according to HRnext.com.

In an online poll conducted by HRnext.com and its affiliated Web site BLR.com, human resource professionals picked Friday as the best day to let a worker go. Monday was second, at 24 percent, but the three middle days of the week lagged far behind, with Thursday getting 13 percent of the vote and Tuesday and Wednesday each receiving 12 percent.

A total of 2,350 HR professionals voted at the two sites during the week of May 13.

Friday was picked by the majority because it gives fired workers the entire weekend to "cool off" and receive support from friends and family.

But others said breaking bad news on a Monday or in the middle of the week meant fired workers could quickly file for unemployment compensation or take advantage of counseling or other services offered by their employers.

Economic recovery

Let's wind up our chat this week with a bit of good news.

Most chief financial officers at U.S. companies are optimistic that the national economy will return to solid growth by the spring of 2003.

According to an e-mail survey of 260 chief financial officers conducted by Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and Financial Executives International, an association of senior executives, 10 percent of the CFOs believe there will be solid increases in earnings by companies over the next nine months.

All but one of the CFOs said the nation's gross domestic product is likely to grow by 2.3 percent.

See y'all next week.

Scott Moyers is the business editor for the Southeast Missourian. Send your comments, business news, information or questions to Biz Buzz, 301 Broadway, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699, e-mail to smoyers@semissourian.com or call 335-6611, extension 137.