CBF Archives

Sales are up at Ron Jordan’s Hen Quarter restaurant. But will that gain sustain? The owner of the Bridge Park dining spot said the combination of a new menu and a surge in support related to the Black Lives Matter movement are driving that increase. “I do think that some of it, unfortunately, is going to become a blip,” he said. Attention moves fast and customers compelled to spend money at Black-...

When Dr. Hal Paz stepped into a newly created role at Ohio State University last June, he told Columbus Business First, “I want to be at the place that defines the next century of what healthcare looks like.” No one could have imagined this century. "What has happened in the past year is incredible, unbelievable, remarkable," Paz said, in the latest episode of Columbus Business First's Crisis Mana...

When Lorraine Lutton started as CEO of Mount Carmel Health System in early April, Ohio had just passed 100 deaths and 1,000 hospitalizations from Covid-19, and the region's hospitals were almost finished building a field hospital in the Greater Columbus Convention Center. A lot had changed in the world in the month since she'd accepted the job. But Mount Carmel proved it was up to the task, Lutton...

One Columbus entered this decade with a sense of accomplishment and a revised mission to do better: Instead of "growth for growth's sake," the organization wants to build equity in every economic development project. Then a worldwide pandemic opened wealth gaps into chasms – making the work of job creation and retention more urgent than it's ever been, while scattering the economic development wat...

The coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc on small businesses from across the Columbus community – but Columbus Urban League CEO Stephanie Hightower says that “We may be in the same storm, but we’re not in the same boat.” Minority-owned businesses have been disproportionately impacted, Hightower said in Columbus Business First’s latest episode of our new Crisis Management podcast. “We all know th...

Paradoxically, many technology companies have been historically wary of running their business in the cloud, connecting only through technology instead of face-to-face. Working from home was seen as a temporary or emergency fallback, say when a child was home sick. Then the coronavirus pandemic sent pretty much every office worker home, and entrepreneurs were pleasantly surprised to find out how e...

Kelley Griesmer recently found herself chatting with a male colleague who found himself struggling to find balance amid the pandemic. With his kids home from school it was hard to start working until midday, and he worried that coworkers would be questioning his commitment to his job as he dealt with distractions at home. “And I said, ‘You realize that’s how working mothers have felt every day of...

Ohio restaurants can open up for dine-in seating Thursday. But there’s bound to be a learning curve as operators welcome customers back in to an environment where there are new rules. Social distancing, masks and other new processes and procedures are the new standards in place by the state, which is trying to balance reopening businesses with a hope of continued stifling of the spread of Covid-19...

Amazon.com is known for a lot of things these days, but books are no longer top of mind when you think of the ecommerce giant. For the nation’s independent booksellers, that presents an opportunity as welcome as it is unexpected. The coronavirus pandemic has upended the business models of countless industries and caused pain for small-business owners nationwide. But entrepreneurs are fighting back...

Lt. Gen. Michael Ferrier, who is president and CEO of the National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus, said veterans have many important lessons to offer during the global coronavirus pandemic. For instance, Ferriter said, there are several corollaries between veterans that have been through during their deployments to what those on the front lines and first responders are experiencing right...

It’s been a long two months for Charles Penzone Inc. but the salon chain is going to take an extra two days before welcoming customers back. Although the state is allowing hair and nail salons to reopen Friday, the six Penzone Salons + Spa locations around Central Ohio will take two days for internal training and team-building before accepting clients on Sunday, May 17. “We're gonna walk through e...

With funding and major customers in hand, cybersecurity startup Finite State Inc. is in the rare position of hiring aggressively and growing by as much as 10 times despite the coronavirus pandemic. The Columbus company raised $12.5 million in venture capital before much of the investing world went into hybernation, and it recently signed "seven-figure" contracts with large utilities that want to p...

EDITOR'S NOTE: After this podcast was initially published, Seventh Son revised its reopening plan. The brewery is now holding off on reopening until a date that is still to be determined. Delivery has been a hit for Seventh Son Brewing — but it can only do so much. The Columbus craft brewery, like others around the state, launched an online ordering and delivery service quickly after the state clo...

Covid-19 has Piada Italian Street Food reconsidering more than just sanitation and cleanliness. The Columbus-based restaurant chain, which has 40 restaurants in seven states including Texas. That means it’s been able to open some of its dining rooms, albeit under capacity restrictions. The bulk of the business is still in Ohio though, where restaurant operators wait on guidelines. Piada Executive...

Schoedinger Funeral and Cremation Service like other businesses has had to adjust to operating under the shutdown in place about to slow the spread of Covid-19. With the ban on large gatherings and the guidelines on social distancing, many families are opting for small, private ceremonies or are postponing commemorations until the restrictions are lifted, said Randy Schoedinger, CEO of the sixth-g...

Early on in the coronavirus pandemic, Joanna Pinkerton and her team and her team at COTA realized they had a problem. At a time when public health officials were encouraging people to keep their distance, entering a bus and paying a fare required passing within 6 feet of a driver. The COTA team quickly realized they needed to pivot, asking passengers to enter in the rear of the bus – where there a...

There's an irony about decision-making during times of crisis, Pelotonia CEO Doug Ulman says. "You have to make tons of decisions with imperfect information," Ulman told Columbus Business First in the latest episode of our Crisis Management podcast. "That can be really challenging, but the opposite of that is paralyzation." Ulman is in charge of the annual Pelotonia bike race that attracts thousan...

Dublin-based Updox LLC added video chat to its secure physician communications network last year, but adoption was middling, about 220 telehealth visits per day. In the coronavirus pandemic, it's soared to 45,000 a day. The health IT company signed on 10,000 clinician users in the space of just three weeks. "We did feel fortunate, but not so much just straight to business opportunity, but more: If...

Lisa Arledge Powell started to journal at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic to track her learnings and leadership at this trying time. She ended up with quite a story. The president of MediaSource, a Columbus-based communications agency, didn’t just have to figure out how to best serve the company’s clients, she had to do so while having the coronavirus herself. Both Arledge Powell and her son we...

Faced with pandemic-related restrictions that make its traditional direct-sales model unworkable, Dublin-based IGS Energy opted to retrain its employees for different roles rather than laying them off. "Our first concern was for our employees and heir safety and our customers," CEO Scott White said. Check out the latest episode of our Crisis Management podcast to hear more from White on how he's m...

It didn't take the coronavirus pandemic for Christie Angel to become aware of racial disparities in public health. Angel and her team at YWCA Columbus were already studying the ways that racism is considered a public health crisis in itself. So the racial disparities playing out in the coronavirus pandemic – which looks to be "infecting and killing black people in the United States at disproportio...

How can customers experience a treasure hunt when they can leave their house to go hunting? That’s the quandary that face The Book Loft, the historic German Village book shop known for its 32 rooms filled with potential finds for voracious readers. In our latest episode of Crisis Management, Gary Lovely, a bookseller and marketing manager at the shop, talked to Columbus Business First about how Co...

Covid-19 has disrupted many businesses across Columbus, but the pandemic poses a unique challenge for those with new leaders. Jonathan Moody was named CEO of Moody Nolan Inc. January 1 after several years as president, taking over management of the 230-employee firm his father founded in 1982. But in a matter of weeks he went from managing 12 offices around the country to hundreds of work-from-hom...

Wolf’s Ridge Brewing had been anticipating its biggest year ever. It expanded production in January but by March — like all breweries and restaurants — business restrictions caused by Covid-19 sent it scrambling. A new home delivery program for beer went live right as the state closed dine-in business. Co-owner Bob Szuter said through the first month delivery sales have actually offset the loss in...

Heather Whaling founded her businesses during the Great Recession, so running a business amid an economic crisis isn't totally new for her. But the coronavirus pandemic and its ensuing economic impact have forced her to take steps she never had to before – including laying off a few team members – while helping clients navigate a rapidly changing environment that’s thrown everyone’s Q2 marketing p...