The restaurant scene is much more competitive today, and the significant downsizing of Ruth's Chris' lunch business (it's now only open on Fridays) is evidence of new networking and entertaining trends. Whether it's a change in how the oilfield industry entertains, the "dress-down" attitude of the local business community, more professionals working from home and easier communication because of technology, networking in Lafayette is moving in new directions. And power lunches at pricey restaurants ' where extravagant meals and liquor can help secure a business relationship ' are no longer at the top of the list.
"Every industry has its own traditions, but I think people today are so busy that they use structured events to see people," says Henry Florsheim, the Lafayette Economic Development Authority's vice president. Florsheim surmises today's business community is under pressure to be more productive during the day.
Jerry Prejean, senior vice president/private banking manager at IberiaBank, says his clientele ' mostly doctors ' rarely commit to lunch meetings. "Their practices are busier, so it actually costs them to breakaway for lunch," says Prejean, who's gotten more creative in his efforts to nurture and secure business.
"We're doing more specialized entertaining," he says. For the Jerry Seinfeld performance in April, for example, the bank hosted a group of clients ' many in the same age group heading down similar career paths ' for a pre-show gathering in the courtyard at Café Vermilionville, a fine dining restaurant on Pinhook Road. There wasn't much talk of bank business, but it offered clients an opportunity to build new relationships. "They were impressed with the circle of clients that were there," Prejean says.
Bankers like Prejean may be taking their cue from pharmaceutical representatives who in recent years are turning to group entertainment to connect with doctors and introduce their products. "They are a phenomenal boon to our business," Ruth's Chris General Manager Patrick Fleming says of the drug company reps. "[But] again, that's all dinner."
Such after-hours schmoozing is alive and well, insists Fleming, but the clutter of restaurants in recent years has just made it too easy for people to make other choices for lunch. "They're every place now, and you're going to get more," he says. Competition was the driving factor behind the decision to shutter the lunch business in early July. Metairie-based Ruth's is primarily a dinner concept, and the Lafayette Ruth's was among only a handful of the chain's 39 corporate-owned restaurants that opened for lunch. Others in Louisiana include New Orleans and Metairie, along with Baton Rouge, one of 49 franchised stores. The company does not have plans to stop serving lunch at those stores.
Fleming worked as a landman in Lafayette from 1980-1986, so he knows how oil money flowed back then. Since that time, however, a lot of the white-collar jobs ' and the entertaining budgets ' have moved to Houston.
Fleming expects more restaurants to be dinner-only, saying it's a tough market for higher end eateries to make it during lunch. Outback Steakhouse, Doe's Eat Place (a new steak and tamale restaurant a block from Ruth's that also only opens for lunch on Fridays) and the Bonefish Grill location coming to River Ranch only serve dinner.
Open in Lafayette since 1977, Ruth's previous Pinhook Road site, a dark and musty space housed in a former college hangout, was the stereotypical hot spot for clandestine gatherings and big business deals ' much more so than the richly-appointed and airy current location, where it's been since late 1998.
Whether over lunch or at another type of social event, relationship building is critical to success, says LEDA's Florsheim. "Most people I know do business with people they know," he says.
That's the premise behind the Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce's annual Business Over Breakfast, biannual Eggs & Issues and monthly Business After Hours functions. Patricia Parks, the chamber's events coordinator, says the BAH has been held since 1985 and that more breakfast networking opportunities were added recently at the urging of the membership. "I think it's because a lot of them have children or other obligations after 5," she says.
The networking from Business After Hours, held from 5 to 7 p.m. at a different business each month, does tend to stretch later into the evening, Parks says. "Most people carry the party elsewhere. Any place downtown is fair game, and La Fonda is another popular place," she says. "It's probably more partying, if I had to guess, but it's very possible they're continuing the business conversation elsewhere."
According to at least one study, there's good reason to enjoy a couple of drinks after work. In a July 13 Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, Syracuse University associate professor Arthur C. Brooks writes of an association between drinking and higher earnings. Of workers identical in education, age and other characteristics, those who drank earned 10 to 25 percent higher wages (economists guess that moderate alcohol has health benefits that make people more productive ' or alcohol acts as a social lubricant). Beyond two drinks, wages tend to fall.
The study didn't address drinking at lunchtime.
Still, Ruth's of Lafayette is hoping the power lunch isn't dead. Fleming says the objective is to consolidate it into Friday business, and the plan seems to be working. "It's going great, and we're also seeing increases at night [during the week]," he says.
IberiaBank has a corporate philosophy that requires employees in its private banking division to network, and Prejean says golf and hunting outings are still big forms of entertainment, though he believes some level of business will always be done over lunch. He says Ruth's was a good place to impress a client.
"I wish [Ruth's] was open, quite frankly," Prejean says.
JUNE 19 Former Saint Steve Gleason, who is paralyzed by ALS, released a statement Tuesday in response to the Atlanta radio station's skit making fun of him and the disease, this Picayune post reports. What did he say? He said he'd accepted the apology of the DJs who did it, notes that at least the incident has got people talking about ALS, and asks anyone who is burning to take action about it to do so -- by helping him fight ALS.
JUNE 19 Blogger Ian McGibboney takes a look at the Gleason incident in this post. He makes a good argument about the difference between having free speech and being free from consequences for your speech (which none of us is). He also admits that many of us got upset before we listened to the skit -- but lets us know that the reality is far worse than we can imagine. It was the incredibly bad judgment, even more than the actual speech, that probably got those DJs fired, he opines.
JUNE 19 Washington Post blogger Aaron Blake writes about Sen. Guillory's switch to the GOP in this post. He writes what most political watchers in Louisiana know: Guillory was a Republican before he decided to run for the senate seat in a mostly-D St. Landry district, and has switched back now that he plans to run for Lt. Gov. in a mostly-R state. But how come Blake missed Guillory's appearance on a TLC pageant show? Now that is a video we'd like to see. (Again).
JUNE 19 Here's another Washington Post blog post about a Louisiana politician, and it's just plain scathing. Ezra Klein says Jindal's Politico post was "insulting" to the intelligence of voters, and adds that Jindal is personifying the "stupid" he's railed against, by being an "elite" who convinces GOP activists of "things that aren't true." Me-ow.
JUNE 19 Here's Gov. Jindal's post in Politico, in which he asks the GOP to get over losing to Obama (again) and stop "the bedwetting." (Uh, what?) He gives his Republican buddies what is probably a nerd's idea of a coach's motivational talk, which starts with a list of accomplishments that they can't seem to exploit and ending with an absurd description of liberals that sounds like a character treatment for a Fox "News" movie scripted by Gordon Liddy. Sure, he's preaching to the choir, but even the choir's not this gullible.
JUNE 19 Lamar Parmentel read Gov. Jindal's post on Politico, but thinks it was so dumb it probably was published in the wrong paper. This post by Lamar on the Daily Kingfish opines that possibly Jindal's post was destined for the Onion -- because the governor couldn't possibly be serious here. If you listen closely, you can hear the staff of the Kingfish giggling.
JUNE 19 Blogger Robert Mann posts from Turkey, a country he has visited several times in the past few years. Mann gives an interesting overview of the current political and societal climate of the country, which -- if you're living under a rock and don't know -- is experiencing protests and turmoil these days. Mann promises to post as much as he can during his trip, which should be fascinating reading.
JUNE 19 Blogger CB Forgotston says the legislature is keeping the vicious cycle going with its funding of new buildings for the community college/technical college system. Universities across the state need maintenance and improvement on existing buildings, and the solution is to build new buildings at other schools? By the time the bonds are paid off, those buildings will be falling down, too, CB says.
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