Policy change leads to employee grumbling on Via Christi Health’s Facebook page before comments were removed

May 9, 20135:12 p.m.

WICHITA — A policy change related to employee cafeteria discounts led to a minor Facebook dustup for Via Christi Health this week.

Employees no longer will receive discounts at any of Via Christi’s cafeterias.

“It’s a cost-savings measure,” says Judy Espinoza, chief human resource officer.

Also, she says there were a range of discounts depending on locations, and some sites didn’t have any.

“It was very inconsistent.”

After the change was announced, some employees took to Via Christi’s main Facebook page to complain.

“It was very obvious the employees did not know they were on the public page,” Espinoza says. “You could tell from the language.”

Also, she says some comments tagged employees who weren’t part of the conversation although they appeared to be.

“That kind of crosses the line,” Espinoza says.

“I’m not a Facebook savvy person,” she says, but if she were caught in a similar situation, “I’d just be mortified.”

She says Via Christi made the decision to remove the comments after one employee who was tagged expressed concern.

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By Carrie Rengers | Tags: , , Filed under Facebook, Health care | Comments

You don’t say

March 29, 201311:07 a.m.

“The days of the giant club are over, and it’s time to freshen things up. Stay tuned!”

– A Facebook post from Doc Howard’s Lounge owner Bryan Shapiro on the Old Town bar closing this weekend

 

By Carrie Rengers | Tags: , , , Filed under Bars, Closings, Facebook, Old Town, You don't say | Comments

You don’t say

March 20, 20136:19 p.m.

“Good….gives him time to hone his computer skills.”

– Wichitan Lu Ann Allen’s comment on Facebook after reading REAP CEO Joe Yager has been placed on administrative leave following an e-mailed sexual solicitation, which he says was the result of a computer mistake

By Carrie Rengers | Tags: , , , Filed under You don't say | Comments Off

Shorty Small’s has closed, but there’s a chance it could open in Wichita again

Feb. 25, 20135:00 a.m.

UPDATED — Shorty Small’s last day in business in Wichita was Feb. 24.

“Yesterday was a very emotional, very hard day,” says Cindy Harsha, vice president of the Oklahoma City-based company.

“I just can’t begin to tell you how emotional and hard it was.”

The restaurant opened more than seven years ago on the southwest corner of 119th and Maple in the Westlake shopping center.

“We opened to some really great numbers,” Harsha says. “Then, after about a year or so, things were dwindling.”

The restaurant initially was a fast-casual concept, but Harsha says the neighborhood wanted something more, so the chain remodeled into a full-service restaurant.

She says diners “really had a lovely reaction to that.”

Sales didn’t remain strong, though.

“Wichita seems to have suffered some economic hardships,” Harsha says. “We’re not the only ones the economy has been mean to.”

Road construction in the area didn’t help either, she says.

Another retooling of the restaurant last year also helped, though.

“We did have a nice little bounce back of sales this last spring,” Harsha says. “It seemed like a curtain fell down this summer.”

She blames a combination of gas prices and Boeing’s planned departure from the city followed by the Bombardier Learjet Machinists strike in the fall.

“It just was pretty devastating to sales.”

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By Carrie Rengers | Tags: , , , , , , , , Filed under Closings, Real estate, Restaurants, West side, Westlake | Comments Off

Spirit AeroSystems shares award for crisis communications with American Airlines

Feb. 13, 20134:21 p.m.

UPDATED — Which is a bigger crisis for an aircraft company or an airline to deal with: An EF-3 tornado, or Alec Baldwin getting kicked off a flight for playing Words With Friends when he’d been told to shut down all electronics?

Turns out they’re both big deals for crisis communicators, so Ragan’s PR Daily recently awarded Spirit AeroSystems and American Airlines an award for best crisis communications.

“I was totally blown away,” says Spirit spokesman Ken Evans. “I thought we had a 10 percent shot.”

He figured no matter how dramatic the April 14 tornado was, it’s hard to top a celebrity crisis.

PR Daily says Spirit won because it lost all its traditional communication tools – e-mail, its website, even desk phones – but still managed to keep the public, the media and employees informed.

“We were kind of forced to think outside the box for us,” Evans says. “We’re a fairly conservative communications group. … I know that’s shocking to you.”

Twitter became one of the company’s chief communication tools. It also used YouTube and Flickr.

Evans says Spirit’s communications team made a case to management that it needed to reach out immediately, particularly to the media, “so that all of our local stakeholders wouldn’t panic.”

“One of the best results of the week was that our stock did not take a major hit even after that EF-3 tornado.”

He says the company learned lessons from the crisis as well.

“The one audience we didn’t spend (time) keeping up to date was an internal audience at other Spirit sites around the world. They were hungrier for information on a daily basis than we thought they would. They felt left out.”

Evans says the company is using some social media more these days than it used to.

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By Carrie Rengers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Filed under Aviation, Awards, Facebook, Twitter | Comments Off

Sullivan, Higdon & Sink lands Sonic account

Jan. 7, 201311:15 a.m.

WICHITA — “Route 44s for everyone!”

That’s how one Sullivan, Higdon & Sink employee heralded the news on Facebook that the agency landed Sonic as a client.

“It’s a great start for the new year,” says Lathi de Silva, vice president and director of brand reputation.

The agency’s Kansas City office will handle what’s called below-the-line communications for the chain’s 3,500 drive-ins nationwide. That includes in-store communications and any communications on Sonic lots. It also includes menu boards and any localized marketing for specific stores.

“We’re really building … what we call our food value chain practice,” de Silva says.

She says the agency serves clients from farm to fork on the food chain, such as Cargill and Borden Cheese.

“It’s just good for everybody to have these kinds of brands in our backyard,” says Sam Williams, SHS managing partner.

Though most of the work will be done in Kansas City, he says the Wichita office will offer support.

“Every time you win a national brand, it’s just huge when you’re a small, independent agency,” Williams says. “The thrill of winning never changes no matter how many times you’ve done it.”

He says the agency’s food connection goes back to the days it did print work for Pizza Hut when it was headquartered in Wichita.

“A farm-to-table strategy is very much in our DNA,” Williams says. “It’s been part of what we like to do for a long time.”

By Carrie Rengers | Tags: , , , , , , , , Filed under Advertising, Marketing/Public relations | Comments Off

You don’t say

Nov. 19, 20124:17 p.m.

“It’s not that we’re not here to make money. There’s just times when holiday with the family is more important than making a few dollars.”

– Hillside Feed & Seed owner George Sander, who had a Facebook post letting customers know he would not be opening early Friday because he and his store “lack the greed of the big box stores”

By Carrie Rengers | Tags: , , Filed under Facebook, Retail, You don't say | Comments Off

NuWay plans new way to sell its burgers

Oct. 31, 20125:05 p.m.

Chris Stong of NuWay holds one of the chain's a crumbly burgers and the new shipping container that will send the burgers around the country.

WICHITA — As NuWay Facebook (“NuWay Burgers”) followers have already gleefully discovered, the Wichita chain is in the process of preparing to ship its crumbly burgers nationally.

“Most everything is in place,” says director of operations Chris Stong. “We’re hoping to roll this out before Thanksgiving,”

He says there have been a number of tests to see how the plan might work.

First, he and his family ordered other frozen shipped food, such as Omaha Steaks and Chicago deep-dish pizza.

“We were just trying to see how others did it,” Stong says. “We’ve just never had the ability to do it.”

The chain settled on some Styrofoam containers that fit in a box with dry ice, which led to the next test. How do the frozen patties hold up in shipping?

“It seems to work pretty well,” Stong says.

He says the idea for shipping came from customers, who for years have been calling to order frozen patties.

“After several years, we finally go the hint: Hey, people like this.”

So the chain complied.

“All the stores keep a couple dozen available for anybody to come in and buy,” Stong says.

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By Carrie Rengers | Tags: , , , , Filed under Restaurants | Comments Off

East-side TJ’s Burger House closes over a dispute, landlord opens Burger House

May 21, 20125:31 p.m.

WICHITA — TJ’s Burger House owner John Abdayem is out of his east-side restaurant, but he says it’s not by choice.

Abdayem still has his Delano location, but he’s distancing himself from the former TJ’s at Harry and Webb with a sign at his Delano restaurant and through a Facebook post saying his landlord has inappropriately taken over the east-side space, which is now known as the Burger House.

Abdayem says he was interested in possibly closing his restaurant so a friend could open a combination hamburger and hookah business there, “which made the landlord very angry.”

Landlord Homer Morgan didn’t return a call for comment, but an employee of his says it was Abdayem who closed the business.

“The intention was not to even close until the end of June or even July,” Abdayem says. He says Morgan “went behind my back and told the employees of the plan on Wednesday.”

“He told them I was going to shut it down that weekend.”

Abdayem, who says he’s considering his options for getting the space back, says he can’t get back on the premises to collect his belongings. He’s also concerned his customers will continue going to the restaurant and not have the same experience as when he ran it.

“I want people to know that (my business) is no way affiliated with the east side.”

 

By Carrie Rengers | Tags: , , , , , Filed under Closings, East side, Facebook, Real estate, Restaurants | Comments Off

Sandra Denneler’s pinata cookies attract attention from thousands, including Pee-wee Herman and the Huffington Post

May 2, 20125:34 p.m.

WICHITA — She’s not going to quit her day job just yet, but Wichita State University art director Sandra Denneler is getting a lot of attention for some pinata cookies she created.

It was Cinco de Mayo 2011 when she first made the now-famous cookies. The year before, Denneler had made mini taco cookies that co-workers loved. She wanted to top them, so she created three-in-one pinata cookies. The middle cookie is hollow and spills mini M&Ms when broken.

Sometime in the last year, someone pinned Denneler’s recipe on Pinterest, and word spread.

More recently, the SheKnows food blog asked Denneler to create a tutorial on how to make the cookies.

So far, more than 40,000 people have “liked” it on Facebook, and more than 188,000 have pinned it on Pinterest.

“It was kind of weird because all these other blogs started posting it,” Denneler says.

The Huffington Post called this week and wanted to feature the recipe as well.

Even Pee-wee Herman commented on it on Facebook and Twitter.

“Oh, god, I was thrilled and excited and just laughing out loud because I thought of all people in the world, I never thought Pee-wee Herman would be a fan of mine,” Denneler says.

Her favorite comment came from one of his fans, though.

Denneler says the fan wrote, “Martha has finally been upstaged.”

“I was like, ‘Yes!’”

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By Carrie Rengers | Tags: , , , , , , , , Filed under Advertising, Facebook, Internet, Twitter | Comments Off