Today between 5-7pm the Great food truck race Show is stopping by Star Bar<
, Rattle Inn and Ranch 616 to tape for the Food Network. As if it isn't crowded enough down there – but great press and exposure for Austin. Valentina's – better stock extra brisket tacos today!
Archive for the ‘Shop Austin’ Category
New Non- MLS Listing 710 A Meriden Located in Deep Eddy
Posted in Austin, Buyers, Houses, Shop Austin, tagged 710 Meriden A, Austi Texas Home Search, Austin Deep Eddy Listings, Central Austin Area Homes, Deeo Eddy Neighborhood Homes, Deep Eddy Area New Non MLS Listing, Deep Eddy Homes Austin Texas, martha small homes, Martha Small Listings, New Listings Austin, Non MLS Listings on January 7, 2014| Leave a Comment »
710 A Meriden – $549,000
- Exceptional location in Deep Eddy only minutes to Downtown Austin and Zilker Park
- 2BR, 2.5BA, 2LIV + 1DIN with covered porches
- Open floor plan built by Eix & Blackwell in 2006
- Tall ceilings, abundant windows and modern finishes
- Many rooms pre wired for stereo and tv
- Seasonal downtown views from master and master deck
- Entrance to one car garage off Hearn
- HOA with next door unit only – very low costs
- Casis, O Henry and S.F. Austin High Schools
Please contact me for showings and more information
Martha Small – 512-587-0308 – Martha@MarthaSmallHomes.com – MarthaSmallHomes.com
Mark your calendars! The Pecan Street Festival is back this month! September 28th and 29th
Posted in Austin, For the Kiddos, Shop Austin, tagged 2013 pecan street festival, austin kid friend events, festivals austin 2013, festivals in austin 2013, festivals in september 2013, kid activitys in austin 2013, martha small pages, Martha Small Realtor, september 2013 pecan street austin, shopping austin, to in austin september on September 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Originally crafted by the Old Pecan Street Association to help revitalize the downtown city streets and businesses, the Pecan Street Festival has been a contributing factor in the transformation and positive progression of 6th Street and its surroundings for over 30 years. As the largest arts and crafts festival in central Texas, the Festival generates an estimated 43 million dollars in economic impact annually and attracts over 200,000 attendees per show. As a non-profit charity organization, O.P.S.A. donates a large portion of Festival proceeds to the city of Austin and local non-profit organizations alike and is constantly striving to improve upon Austin’s fantastic image and way of life. It has been a long and fun road and we cannot be happier to be a part of this amazing community and city. – See more here
Compliments of: Martha Small | Austin Portfolio Real Estate | 512.587.0308
The South’s Tastiest Towns: Austin
Posted in Austin, Shop Austin, tagged 78703, academy award nominations, architectural details, austin, austin summer camps, austin texas home for sale, austin texas real estate, central austin luxury homes, food, living, restaurants, summer on April 17, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Where smoke and swagger meet urban ethnic style with a twang.
Star Tastemaker
Tyson Cole of Uchi and Uchiko, who shook the scene with his landlocked sushi mecca andhas launched talent such as Top Chef contestant Paul Qui, whose first solo venture, qui, opens in Austin this month.
Best Bites
Brisket ($10/plate) with espresso BBQ sauce at Franklin Barbecue; Hill Country Board (pain au levain, sausage, venison pâté infused with Real Ale Brewing Company’s Sisyphus barley-wine ale, pickled vegetables, and house mustard; $15) from Easy Tiger Bake Shop & Beer Garden; Laura Sawicki’s Miso-White Chocolate Semifreddo ($9) with crispy rice, coconut sticky rice, and mango sorbet at Sway.
Nightcap
A Joe Buck (corn whiskey, Dijon syrup, lemon juice, and ginger beer; $12) at Midnight Cowboy.
Compliments of: Martha Small | Austin Portfolio Real Estate | 512.587.0308
Original Article by: Story by Paula Disbrowe
J.C. Penney will also have to woo its workers
Posted in Austin, Shop Austin, tagged 78703, academy award nominations, architectural details, austin, austin summer camps, austin texas home for sale, austin texas real estate, BSC national Championship, central austin luxury homes, jc Penney's, shopping on April 15, 2013| Leave a Comment »
As the stumbling retailer tries to rebuild ties to shoppers, it has a massive employee morale problem to deal with as well.
Under ousted chief executive Ron Johnson, J.C. Penney (JCP -1.47%) had a massive housecleaning, sweeping away thousands of jobs as it eliminated popular clothing lines like St. John’s Bay.
Now, returning CEO Myron Ullman has a knotty problem on his hands: how to revive those brands with a company suffering from deep morale problems and an employee base that has shrunk by 23%, reports The Wall Street Journal.
When Johnson completed his first full fiscal year on the job, Penney employed only 116,000 people, down from its recent historic level of 150,000, according to the report.
While the ex-CEO argued that the job cuts were needed to boost Penney’s financial performance, the opposite resulted: Loyal customers fled, with many angered at his decision to dump St. John’s Bay. Sales plunged 25% last year.
St. John’s Bay may have been a linchpin leading to Johnson’s failure. MSN moneyNOW readers often cited the disappearance of the casual-wear clothing line as the reason they abandoned Penney stores.
“If JC Penney brings back the brands that they ditched, St. John’s Bay women’s jeans for instance, I will think about shopping there again……but not until then,” one reader wrote on Thursday.
And it turns out that Penney is planning on bringing back the clothing line, which had brought in annual sales of a billion dollars, The Journal notes.
Why would Johnson single-handedly get rid of a brand that racked up such huge sales? The former Apple executive wanted to “de-frump” the stores and instead brought in edgier designers such as Cynthia Rowley. The problem, though, was that Penney customers had been happy with those comfortable clothing lines. Feeling alienated, many of them swore off shopping at the retailer.
Johnson misunderstood the store’s customer base, which tends to be older than 55. One-third of its customers earn less than $35,000 a year, according to BloombergBusinessweek. Getting rid of coupons also alienated his price-conscious customers.
Penney plans to return coupon advertising to newspapers, activist investor William Ackman said on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. The company needs to “calm the vendors,” he added.
But what to do about those morale problems? According to The Journal, the layoffs weren’t pretty. Because Penney didn’t have enough staff to cut people in face-to-face meetings, groups of employees were ushered into Penney’s auditorium to hear the news. Sometimes more than 100 people were fired at once, the story notes.
With Ullman’s plan to bring back St. John’s Bay, he might be taking one step toward dealing with his alienated customer base. And getting rid of Johnson was likely a big boost to internal morale. According to the New York Post, clapping and laughing erupted last Monday at an employee meeting when word of his ouster was announced.
Compliments of: Martha Small | Austin Portfolio Real Estate | 512.587.0308
Original Article by: Aimee Picchi
How to get the best deals on Cyber Monday
Posted in Shop Austin, tagged 78703, academy award nominations, architectural details, austin texas home for sale, austin texas homes, austin texas real estate, black, BSC national Championship, central austin luxury homes, christmas, cyber, deals, friday, independence title austin, monday, online, shopping on November 26, 2012| Leave a Comment »
In a one-day blitz of shopping, consumers are expected to empty their wallets of more than $1 billion on Cyber Monday, the online shopping spree on November 26, according to spending projections from research firm, ComScore.
The day follows closely on the heels of Black Friday on November 23, which kicks off the holiday shopping season at stores, and is often the busiest shopping day for retailers.
Come Monday, not every web-browsing window shopper will hit the “buy” button, and 65 percent of shopping carts are typically abandoned by online shoppers, says the Baynard Institute in Copenhagen. These consumers may be motivated by a belief, often correct, that there’s a better deal out there.
Cyber Monday 2012 may offer the best deals on technology products this year, says Brian Hoyt, senior writer for RetailMeNot.com, a coupon code site.
That’s because merchants have held back their best deals for the Black Friday-Cyber Monday shopping bonanza to whittle down their inventory, and they are likely to sell out without needing to discount further, he says.
Here are strategies that should help you navigate Cyber Monday and enjoy the best possible prices this year.
MAKE A LIST
Successful Cyber Monday shopping is not about aimlessly browsing or getting everything in one place, says Hoyt. It’s about honing your list down to specific items and searching for the lowest prices for each of them.
One way to do this is to browse at stores over the holiday weekend, to scan bar codes of desired products into a price-checking application like Red Laser, and to check reviews or browse ads at home.
“If I were a consumer trying to be as thrifty as possible, I would invest my time at the aggregated websites that are compiling the Cyber Monday deals,” says Andrew Baker, assistant professor of marketing in the College of Business Administration at San Diego State University. (Some such sites are http://dealnews.com, http://cybermonday.com and http://slickdeals.net)
And, when stores are shut, check for deals online.
“That’s what retailers want you to do,” says Dan Olds, who runs Gabriel Consulting Group, a retail trend watching firm.
MAXIMISE SAVINGS
Once you’ve narrowed down your wish list, it should take minutes to find the lowest price, says RetailMeNot’s Hoyt. Simply plug the item into a search engine like Nextag, Google Shopping or Pricegrabber, and evaluate.
Then, enter details on the stores with the best prices into a coupon code site (such as http://RetailMeNot.com or http://couponcabin.com, http://dealcatcher.com) to see if there are codes that come up.
When you do the math, you may find that the merchant in the No. 2 spot may be offering a 10 percent discount deal or free shipping, offering better overall value than the store in the top spot.
Indeed, try to avoid shipping costs altogether.
To broaden your chances of finding deals, “Like” and follow your favorite stores on Twitter and Facebook; some retailers will post deals just for their online fans.
If you are an active online shopper, you may receive personalized deal offers as the holiday season progresses. For example, if you like to buy Coach handbags at Nordstrom, you might see offers to get 20-percent off of Coach accessories.
“The conversion rate of a typical coupon deal is less than one percent, which is very low, but the conversion rate for tuned and personalized offers is much higher – in the 5 to 10 percent range,” says Kevin Sterneckert, vice president of retail research at Gartner Group.
Lands End, LL Bean and CVS are among retailers who are tapping their databases to entice shoppers with customized offers.
Should you jump at these deals? Only if the items are on your shopping list and you’ve done your research on prices.
BEST PAYMENT METHODS
You can reap additional rewards by picking your mode of payment wisely.
For online shoppers, Brian Kelly of ThePointsGuy.com recommends checking your credit card’s rewards website and visiting retail links from there. Some cards will offer a 5 percent bonus for such transactions. You can check your card benefits for details.
This year, PayPal is offering price-match guarantees and free return shipping for purchases made using PayPal. Citi, Visa and MasterCard also frequently offer price matching. Other shoppers rely on various reward and cash-back cards to maximize their benefits.
If you’ve taken all these steps and still don’t like the deal you’re getting, you could take your chances and wait – December 17 is “Free Shipping Day” (http://www.freeshippingday.com) for procrastinators who want a day of their own.
Compliments of: Martha Small | Austin Portfolio Real Estate | 512.587.0308
(Additional reporting by Chelsea Emery and Lauren Young; Editing by Linda Stern and Bernadette Baum)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012.
Toys R Us Black Friday ad is leaked
Posted in Austin, For the Kiddos, Shop Austin, tagged 78703, architectural details, austin summer camps, austin texas home for sale, austin texas real estate, black, BSC national Championship, casis elementary, central austin luxury homes, christmas, clint small custom homes, friday, highland hills terrace, holiday, r, sale, season, shopping, thanksgiving, time, toys, us on November 12, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Toys R Us says it’s starting its sale at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day. Meanwhile, other major chains’ BF ads hit deal sites.
Shoppers might have had a hard time keeping up with the flurry of Black Friday ads landing on deal sites over the weekend.
It seemed a new ad was leaked every couple of hours, including the popular parent destination, Toys R Us.
TRU’s 32-page ad boasted a whopping 200 doorbusters — most about half price. Many consumers who commented on deal sites such as BlackFriday.Gottadeal.com thought it filled a toy gap this year as Wal-Mart and Target focused more heavily on video games and electronics.
Like several of its discount rivals, Toys R Us is starting its sale at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, with doorbuster sale prices on Thursday night and a separate sale on Saturday.
While not every hot toy was deeply discounted, there are many good bargains to be found, including:
- Fisher-Price Rock Star Mickey — $19.98 (now selling for $40).
- GeoTrax on the Go Zoo — $14.99 (regularly $30).
- $15 bonus iTunes gift card with $50 iTunes gift card purchase.
- 40% off all Lego sets.
- Video games, buy one, get one for $1.
- Skylanders Giants Starter Pack for $49.99 (regularly $75).
- Garmin nuvi 50 5-inch portable GPS for 79.99 (regularly $120).
- $5 board games, including Monopoly and Scrabble.
Some deals are to be found only in stores. And a footnote at the bottom of the ad said that online prices “may vary.” Online shoppers, however, can snag free shipping at Toysrus.com and Babiesrus.com this season.
Be warned: While Toys R Us is offering a price-match guarantee through Dec. 24, last month it said it would not match competitors’ Black Friday prices.
Other Black Friday sale ads leaked this weekend, include those of home-improvement giants Lowe’s and Home Depot, and department stores Kohl’s and J.C. Penney. For once, troubled Penney’s did not even try to keep up with rivals’ Thursday openings, instead, pushing back its sale to 6 a.m. Friday, and eliminating last year’s free snow globes for shoppers.
Bah, humbug!
Compliments of: Martha Small | Austin Portfolio Real Estate | 512.587.0308
Original Article by: MSN Money partner