Sandwich chain Potbelly is prospecting for franchisees in Wichita. The chain has 216 company owned restaurants in the eastern part of the country and is looking for a cheap way to move west.
The chain’s plan is generally for one owner per store, and hasn’t said how many it wants to put here. Its gimmick is that its a quirky, authentic neighborhood sandwich place complete with potbelly stoves and live music reminiscent of the original Potbelly antique store in Chicago that started selling sandwiches to boost traffic. For more info, go to www.potbelly.com.
The following blog includes translation captions:
Chris Dodd, the day-late and dollar-long U.S. senator from UConn land, has stepped to the plate with a bill to freeze credit card rates immediately – a month or more after those moneychangers stepped out of their temples long enough to jack the rates up to loan sharking levels.
At the risk of causing the heads of all our free market pals to explode, Dodd’s bill, while doubtlessly well-intentioned (Editor’s note: Well-intentioned, meaning “a meaningless cosmetic action designed to fool the electorate into thinking we’ve done something”), is predictably dead on arrival in the Senate, where the poor, unfortunate banks – some of them flush with TARP funds – have convinced senators (read: sent contribution checks) they need more time to comply with the stringent new regulations (read: blast our card holders into bankruptcy to help cover our bad loans).
It evokes memories of President Obama’s pledge to reel in financial derivatives and oil speculators – which has now been quietly replaced by a Barney Frank bill to help both continue running amok.
As does my cynicism about this extremely belated piece of legislation from Sen. Dodd.