Steve, the owner had setup a private party for Grooveshark to celebrate our 100,000 user mark, which I’m happy to say we’re going to be approaching the 200k mark very soon.

Lux is a great addition to the downtown landscape, it’s catering to the upscale crowd, just like Sharab or 101 Downtown.

The drinks are a little pricey, but it goes perfectly with the upscale decour. Steve had renovated the place and created an outside patio on the second floor. You can walk up to the outside patio from the black, stainless steel staircase that’s infront of the bar.

Inside, there are marble countertops, high-quality wooden stools, and plenty of seating. What Steve told me is they want to design the place for young professionals looking to go on a date and not have to yell at each other to have a conversation.

Next time you’re looking for a place to drink downtown, and are looking for a nice upscale place, stop by Lux, you’ll enjoy your visit.

We have worked on Enterprise Internet applications, and specialize in design and deployment of e-commerce sites, social networking sites, and pretty much any web presence a business is looking to establish.

As a company, we got together after attending the University of Florida in Gainesville. We had our sights set on developing a music platform that would put all of the world’s music online, for everyone to enjoy, and with Grooveshark Lite we launched that project.

Web Design and Development in Gainesville

Now, as Grooveshark is fully autonomous, we are setting our sites on new development projects. We are available for sub-contracting work and are taking on our own original projects.

Our range of services include PHP, Python, Perl, Flash, ActionScript, Flex, JavaScript, Ajax, jQuery, MySQL, and XHTML/CSS. Some of the projects we’ve completed for Grooveshark include:

http://widgets.grooveshark.com/
http://listen.grooveshark.com/
http://grooveshark.com/
http://tinysong.com/

Please take a look at our full services offering in this pdf:

Escape Media Group Web Development in Gainesville, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville Florida

Gainesville is the hub of North Central Florida. 110,000 residents live in Gainesville, and 50,000 of which are at the University of Florida. And these students get hungry. They like to eat out, and they like to get delivery to their dorm or apartment or house, because nobody likes cooking.

There are a number of current delivery options for Gators, and there are also a number of startups that have been spun out of this huge Gainesville delivery market.

Gainesville Delivery is Big Business

ChompMenus
This company was started by some college students going to Penn State. They were hungry late one night, and wanted to order food, but didn’t have any menus infront of them. Their solution? Create an online menu for their college town.

They’ve taken this model to the University of Florida, and now they have ChompMenus. It’s a directory of online menus for local restaurants, and they charge restaurants to be a featured restaurant on the website. Simple model, but easy to execute. The biggest challenge is selling the contracts to the restaurants, but it’s definitely something that can easily be duplicated or replicated in towns across the country.

Gator Food
So you know what you want to eat, but your favorite restaurant doesn’t deliver. What are you to do?

That’s where Gator Food comes in. They also have an online menu option like ChompMenus, but take the extra step of providing a great service for restaurants. You can call it “outsourced delivery,” they provide delivery services for restaurants.

So say you just opened a small pasta shop, Lucas Pasta in Gainesville, instead of having to hire a delivery driver, get insurance, and go through all of that hassle. You can work with Gator Foods, and they take care of all the delivery for you.

This is a great model and I think one of the areas that has the biggest opportunities for local businesses. Take an aspect of a business model, say delivery, which causes a lot of headaches for business owners, and create a business strictly out of delivery.

How To Start Your Own College Company

The best thing about being in college is everyone loves the city they’re in. All you have to do is shout “Go Gators,” and you’ll immediately receive a warm reception.

Apply this same methodology for working in your college town. We’re all Gators, so let’s see how we can work together. Small business owners like to work with fellow entrepreneurs and they LOVE to see kids in college trying to blaze their own trail.

So if you come up with an idea, start setting up meetings, talking to local business owners, and see what you can accomplish. The ideas mentioned above are simple, but what they did that you didn’t do is get off their ass and start the company.

So get going, if you have an idea, act on it, and let’s start building the next great set of college busineses, big or small.

Mortgage rates can climb very quickly, especially if you have an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM), and the resulting increase in mortgage payments may be unmanagable for many home owners.

As a result of these higher mortgage payments, you may be forced to sell your home, and often for much less than it’s worth, as the real estate market has take an incredible dive as of late.

Renting Your Home To Avoid Foreclosure

To avoid foreclosure and selling your home for much less than it’s worth, you may be able to easily rent out your home, and cover most if not all of your mortgage payment. It is a renters market, and there are a lot of people looking to rent homes right now.

Many of them can’t afford to buy a house, or don’t qualify for a mortgage, as a result, there are a lot of former homebuyers who are now looking to rent a home.

Renting out your home can be a great resource to help you pay your mortgage, and to continue to allow your home to appreciate.

Placing an ad in the classified section or hiring a realtor can make it very easy to start renting out your home to prospective renters.

This is just another tip to help Floridians who are at risk of losing their home, and can save their mortgage and their home by renting it in the state of Florida.

So last night, Stephanie, my girlfriend, suggested we check out Lucas Pasta. We live right around the corner, downtown, so we walked over to check out the new restaurant.

It’s located on University and 6th Street, where the AOIMedia office used to be (Gator Growl). They converted the office building into a restaurant, and after countless Alachua County Government forms later, they now have a kitchen.

The restaurant reminds me a lot of a Pinkberry or Red Kiwi yogurt shop you might find in California. The closest Gainesville restaurant would perhaps be 101 Downtown, given that they’re both pitched as being trendy, in the South Beach kind of way.

Lucas Pasta Menu

So the menu is pretty simple. You pick out your type of pasta, whether it be fettuccine, spaghetti, rotini, penne, whole wheat pasta and tortellini. Once you choose your pasta, you choose your sauce, pesto, marina, lemon and mint, alfredo, etc.

I went with tortellini with pesto and Stephanie got fettuccine with lemon and mint. My tortellini with pesto was amazing, but the lemon and mint was a little too bland for our tastes. We could smell the mint, but couldn’t really taste it.

After sprinkling on some parmesan cheese, it tasted much better.

Lucas Pasta as a Restaurant

So the restaurant itself is more of a ice-cream shop type. There is a counter, where you can order, and a couple of chairs for waiting for your food. It has a bar to sit and eat, but the way it’s configured right now, I’d say it’s more of a take-out restaurant.

It has a nice modern feel, expensive furniture, and a great piece of art on the wall (I’ll need to take a picture next time I’m there).

I’m not sure if they do any sort of Gainesville Delivery but they need to make that very clear, perhaps look at Gator Food as an optional service.

Lucas Pasta Suggestions

What would I do if I owned Lucas Pasta? Well for starters, I would install more seating, and perhaps look into expanding onto the patio. Right now it felt uncomfortable to sit and eat, and I felt like I was being more of a nuisance to them than a guest.

Also, since the restaurant just opened, it’s crucial to create loyal customers as soon as possible. For anyone that walks into the restaurant, I would ask them “how did you hear about Lucas Pasta?” and I would offer them a coupon or some incentive to get them to return.

Walk-ins are free for a restaurant, so you need to capitalize on them and keep them happy and wanting to return.

Also, the location is a bit askew, and you might say it’s a bad location. You can’t really tell the restaurant is open from the outside, so I would put up a big plackard or stand telling people to come in. There isn’t much foot traffic, so the sign has to be big enough for people to see it when they drive by.

The owner told me their busiest hours are between 12-2 and 6-8, meaning it’s all working people going to the restaurant. What that tells me is they need to go to all of the local offices and introduce them to their product. Perhaps bringing over a couple big containers of their pasta to all restaurants downtown, and give them a coupon or incentive to come in. “All downtown restaurants get $2 off any meal.”

Building up your core business is essential right now, and downtown there aren’t many good choices for lunch. It’s either an expensive sit-down restaurant or Quiznos.

Lucas Pasta in Gainesville

Lucas Pasta is a welcome addition to the Gainesville epicurean community, and I look forward to returning, and hopefully I’ll see some nice changes next time I swing by.

Lucas Pasta is located on University Road and 6th Street, right across from Central Florida Office Supply and next to Hookah Hut, where the AOIMedia used to be.

Amnon had approached me prior to writing the story, and even link-backed to my site. So for those of you coming over from the DailyKos, please subscribe, and become part of the Wise Startup Blog community.

As for the rest of you, I’m available for weddings and birthday parties, $50/hour.

On October 22nd, 2008, the narrow strip right along 1st avenue, downtown, just infront of the Hippodrone packed in 11,000 Obama supporters.

The balcony outside our office was supposed to accommodate about 50 people, but somehow we ended up with 300 or so spectators.

True to political fashion, Michelle’s arrival was a little late, as I heard she was held up in Jacksonville, but once she began speaking, the crowd roared and cheered “Obama, Obama, Obama,” just like you saw on those McCain “attack” commercials.

Michelle told us about her personal story: her father was a blue-collar fireman, who never went to college, and neither did her mother. Her father was stricken with MS, but still worked every day of his life.

They worked to give Michelle the opportunity to attend Princeton for Undergrad, and then Harvard Law School. She is the working class example America is so proud of, and Michelle was a very impressive speaker.

She closed her speech, and then proceeded to shake hands in the crowd. This being my first political rally, it almost felt like a Gators’ football game, there was the big crowd, the cheering, and everyone was so happy..

Now, for those of you who missed it, here are more pictures from her appearance.

Michelle Obama Gainesville Rally Pictures

I can see why people travel across the country for this.

The streets are starting to get packed, and Michelle should be here around 3. Enjoy the pics.

There is quite a production in setting up a First-Lady Presidential stage. The street was blocked off from 9am this morning, and the production crew has been at it all day long.

Our building managers have sent us numerous emails explaining the procedure tomorrow, and where to park, how many guests we can invite, etc.

We’re actually limited to 1 guest per person, so let me know if you want to be on the VIP list.

Michelle Obama at the Hippodrone in Gainesville

I’ll be sure to post pictures tomorrow after the event, and let you guys know what she says..honestly I don’t really care what she says, it’ll be exciting either way.

We’re also planning on hanging the Grooveshark banner from the balcony, I’ll let you know how that plays out.