A Unique Downtown Dining Experience

Recently I had the privilege of planning a dinner for a group of people who were in town for a conference.  Since I do not usually do things the conventional way, I planned a “progressive dinner” through the downtown for this group of about 25 people.  The diners were from all over the state of Kansas, so I thought that this would give them a great opportunity to experience downtown El Dorado and the many locations that make it unique. 

The group began their journey at Robin’s where they shopped and dined on spinach artichoke dip and hummus from Jacob’s Well.  Always the perfect host, Robin provided wine and other drinks.  From there, they traveled up Main Street to the Art Room 114.  This is one of my favorite locations in downtown because Brenda has designed this gallery so simple, but elegant with open space to hold a group of people.  Soup and salad was served while they browsed the most recent gallery show that the Art Room has on display. 

Further up Main Street, the group was greeted in front of Walter’s Flowers and Interiors with a rose petal-scattered entryway into the beautiful store where they snacked on sandwich wraps made across the street at Willie’s.  They were in awe at the beautiful displays and items in this downtown jewel.  Many left Walter’s with treasures that they purchased.   

As the evening continued, Alfredo and his staff at Fiesta Mexicana provided great ambiance and even better food as they dined on tacos and burritos.  With the large space in this restaurant, the group was able to all sit together at one large table and enjoy each other’s company.  They were finally lured away from the margaritas and queso by the sound of a live band and the smell of amazing pie in Jacob’s Well.  Here they finished off the night socializing and enjoying the relaxed atmosphere that Jacob’s Well has captured. 

While this was a very involved dinner which took over two hours to complete, this group of people will never forget their dinner in downtown El Dorado.  While this is only the second time downtown businesses have hosted a dinner such as this, we would sure like to do it more often.  If you have a reunion, office party, or a large group of friends who would like to experience a downtown progressive dinner, please call the El Dorado Main Street office. 

Spring is in the air!

Have you noticed the hanging flowers are being placed back on the light poles in downtown?  Last year ws the first time the City of El Dorado hung the hanging pots that overflow with pretty flowers.  After speaking to City Manager, Herb Llewellyn, he told me that they are doing them a bit different this year.  Last year, full size plants were purchased and planted in the pots.  This year, the city employees planted starter plants months ago and had been growing them in one of the public works buildings.  This has greatly reduced the cost of the plants, with the same end result.  The flowers sure are nice hanging throughout the downtown and we are so thankful for City employees who care for them.  After talking about the labor involved in watering, Herb told me that they are placing irrigation systems in many more places throughout the community to reduce the labor costs.  For example, the beautiful flower beds in front of the City Building had always been watered by employees.  They now have placed sprinklers in that area to reduce the employee costs.  All of this results in positive improvements in the community and shows that we are proud of our community and how it looks to residents and visitors.

Pinterest...isn't that just for recipes and fashion?

Last week at the National Main Street conference, a topic that kept being discussed was the new craze in social media, called Pintrest.  Many Main Street directors had still never been on the site, but the speakers all instructed us to start learning about it.  Recently ranked as third in the social media websites (behind Facebook and Twitter), Pinterest has shocked all of the marketing experts and it has grown faster than anyone could have imagined.  If you are not familiar with the site, here is a brief summary of what it can do.  Pinterest is a virtual pin board.  You create your board topics such as recipes, places that I would like to travel, craft projects and etc.  The pictures that you "pin" then lead back to blogs which show tutorials/recipes or the websites that they were originally found on. 


Latte Art which can be found on
ilovethewell.com and also on Pinterest.

 So how does this apply to small businesses?  Well, if done correctly you can lead more people to your blog or website by pinning pictures that are interesting to people.  For example:  There is a trend called Latte' Art.  If you search on Pinterest using those words, you find hundreds of pictures of designs made into coffee drinks.  Jacob's Well has a post on their blog where they show some of their latte art creations.  By pinning one of the pictures and labeling it "latte art" it pulls up anytime anyone searches for it.  If they click on the picture, it will take them to the Jacob's Well website.  Clear as mud??  You really have to play around with it to understand how to make it work. 

El Dorado Main Street now has a Pinterest account.  While we just started it today and are learning how to make it work for us, we will be helping other businesses do the same...when we figure it out.  Believe it or not we are getting help from high school students on how to do all of this stuff.  Find our Pinterest boards HERE

Business in Baltimore



Kansas Main Street group in Baltimore



Last week an

El Dorado Main Street

volunteer and I attended the National Main Street Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.  While this is the third National Main Street Conference that I have attended, this one was very different than the past two years.  Location, Location, Location!  The past two years have been in the Midwest.  With Des Moines and Oklahoma City as host cities, the experience itself was very similar to if it had been held in Wichita.  I love living in the Midwest, but being in Baltimore was a completely different world for me.  I was able to see the resources that they have on the east coast, the differences in architecture (oh my, lots of different architecture), and how they behave differently than most cities in the Midwest.  What I learned and observed made me think about some of our assets, behaviors and architecture in a slightly different way. 

If you have traveled to the East Coast (or many other places in the country), you are familiar with row houses.  These narrow, but tall structures are everywhere in the Baltimore area.  What was very interesting to me was the use of these spaces for commercial retail and dining.  Here in Kansas, when I talk to new business owners, they usually want large open spaces and have troubles considering small spaces because of the inability to have more floor space as well as storage.  I visited so many shops that were less than 1,000 square feet in size (which is very small compared to most retail shops around here).  The way that they used every space for the optimum use and tied in with the characteristics of the building made the stores very charming.  The best use of space that I visited was a small restaurant named the Blue Moon Café.  This place was recommended to us by a couple locals to check out.  If you are a fan of the Travel Channel TV show “No Reservations” with Anthony Bourdain, you may have seen their “Captain Crunch Stuffed French Toast” featured on the show.  We were told to go early to get a seat.  We walk in at about 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning and grabbed the last available table.  The place seated about 40 and was a bit smaller than our Jacob’s Well here in El Dorado.  On the walls were large, loud paintings by local artists.  The walls had blue retro wallpaper, the ceiling was wooden as well as the flooring and there was a stone fireplace right near our table.  We quickly realized that this was an old home that was transformed into a restaurant.  Within 15 minutes there was a crowd of about 25 people outside in the 40 degree weather waiting for tables.  When one was available, a waiter would open the door and call “NEXT!”  The vibe of the place was so neat, but also very comfortable.  Our waitress explained to us that they were open 7 days a week and 365 days a year.  Even more impressive was that the hours of operation were 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m.  This place, even though it was so small and quaint, had gained the reputation of being the place to get a good breakfast. The use of space was brilliant and had I not been there myself, I would have not have understood why the Blue Moon Café was so successful. 

Finally, an observation during my week in Baltimore was the importance of appealing to pedestrians.  Everyone walks or rides bikes all over the city there.  Because of this, merchandise is moved outside, musicians are outside, and artwork is outside.  Here in El Dorado and many areas across Kansas, signs are meant to attract the drivers in their cars as they pass by.  In areas such as Baltimore, the signage is lower and much more detailed.  It almost seems more personal as you walk by a business.  They make an effort to invite you into their store with displays and other attractions. 

While we are very different in many ways, I think that we could learn a lot here in Kansas from the way that those on the East Coast do business.  It was refreshing to see a completely different approach to success and it gave me many ideas to share with our downtown businesses.    

Representatives from Washington D.C. Visit El Dorado

This week two representatives from our nation's capital visited our community.  The two ladies work for HUD and the task at hand was to meet with the group who is working on the HOPE VI Main Street projects.  After reviewing the requirements for money disbursement, the contract between the City and HUD, and fielding many questions; they were given a tour of both buildings. 
Our group has been working together on this project for about two years, so with the expertise of our grant administrator, City staff and building owners we were able to address any concerns that were expressed by HUD.  Several times the ladies mentioned that we have a well-prepared group and that they were impressed with the readiness of our community. 

During the tours, I took some more pictures of the progress that has happened recently.  The Ellet Opera House, as I explained in earlier posts, had a collapsed roof.  This caused a lot of damage to the upper floor.  Every time it would rain or snow, the damage would worsen.  The owners of the building have recently replaced the roof.  You can see below the nice bright white roof.  This picture was taken from the 4th floor of the old Commerce Bank building.

In addition to the new roof, there has been clean-up taking place inside the building.

On the main floor, there has also been some clean-up happening.  It is always very interesting what you might find when cleaning out these old buildings. 

This odd arch was found in the very back of the retail space.  There are a couple guesses as to why this arch was built in such a way.  No matter what the reason, it is definitely interesting. 

As progress continues, I will try to keep posting pictures.  We are hoping to document every step of the process. 

Historic preservation, economic development partnership highlight Main Street training

                                                                               

Bringing two different philosophies  together under one development plan to better enhance and move forward work being done to revitalize

Main Street

communities across the state was the topic of a day-long seminar provided by

Kansas Main Street

during its winter quarterly training sessions held in El Dorado, January 12 and 13. Todd Barman, senior program officer for National Trust Main Street Center, was the presenter. 

The training session challenged current Main Street communities to not only embrace the role of economic development as a necessary part of future historical preservation and central business district development, but use of its basic tenets to move downtown projects and revitalization efforts forward to engage both entrepreneurs and developers was vital to continued success in this economy.

“We came away with the idea that the

National Main Street

four-point approach of design, organization, promotions, and economic restructuring are building blocks for the continued improvement of our downtown areas, but need to be addressed from an economic development point of view” said Lindsay Baines, Director of El Dorado Main Street. “At the same time, we were challenged to look at our programs and projects with an eye toward heritage and human assets, much the same way as a developer would. It was refreshing and a bit daunting at the same time.”

In asset-based economic development, heritage assets include a community’s built history (design) and its cultural history (promotions). The human assets encompass cultivating and recruiting entrepreneurs (economic restructuring) and engaging the general public (organization) in the events and projects in the central business district.

Having a downtown development plan picks up where the economic development philosophy leaves off. According to Barman, the successful private, for-profit commercial developers attract investors and tenants by helping them see a vision of themselves making money as part of a successful place, namely

Main Street

. 

Kansas Main Street

communities would then, in essence, become successful non-profit developers for their own districts.

The seminar also provided development process exercises to help local

Main Street

leaders itemize the downtown heritage and human assets, summarize their programs’ market research efforts, help build credibility and trust within their communities, and determine how they are inspiring action among building owners, store owners, volunteers, entrepreneurs, and shoppers.

 The second day of training focused on the delivery of

Kansas Main Street

products and services that program directors felt they need for professional development and what they in turn could use to continue expansion of a sustainable and successful

Main Street

program. The retreat format gave all directors the opportunity to voice specific products and services they could use to keep them fresh and motivated to grow their programs.

Excuse Our Mess!

I could not help but notice as I drove down Central towards Main Street all of the construction workers on the South side of the street busily in and out of the buildings.  Not only do we have major construction happening in the Ellet Opera House (HOPE VI Main Street grant award winner), but also Robin's is having new flooring put in and some construction completed as well. 




The metal facade' has been taken off of the front of the building and exposing the
beautiful, original transom windows.  For those excited about preserving historic buildings, this is very exciting!




Here is a reminder of what the building looked like with the metal facade'
covering the transom windows




See that man up there in the middle?  They are working on the roof of the
building.  Before all of the work started, you could see the sky from
inside...and there were a couple hundred feathered friends who made this space their home.






















Entrance to upper story a couple months
ago.  Wish it was a wider pic.



Entrance now with exposed transom windows

+


A little further West on Central is the construction happening in the empty lot.  If you have not noticed, those guys are moving fast!  With a goal of being completed by April...they are not wasting time.

 This picture on the left is a couple weeks old, it has changed quite a bit since this was taken.  I will get some more on here soon.

This picture is of the vault that will be in the building for KS Secured Title.  They have records that date back to 1868!