News and notes from around town:

• Longtime downtown restaurant Teller’s, 746 Mass., has adopted a new business strategy as a new general manager and chef have come on board.

The restaurant no longer wants to be known simply as an Italian restaurant. About a week ago, the restaurant changed its menu to what general manager Tom Wilson calls World Cuisine. The menu still contains some pasta dishes, but is meant to be a bit “simplified and expanded,” Wilson said. Now, the restaurant offers steak and potatoes, pork chops, roasted chicken and some international dishes such as Osso Buco.

The change is part of a turnaround plan that Wilson — who had a 20 year management career with the Macaroni Grill chain — is implementing. That includes a new executive chef. Patrick Chow-Yuen moved from Denver to join the restaurant about six weeks ago. Chow-Yuen has been in the industry for 40 years and was trained in France. He’s worked at several top hotels in Europe and North America. Closer to home, he previously was at the Ritz Carlton in Kansas City.

• So, you thought you had a lot of trick-or-treaters? At a recent meeting of Downtown Lawrence Inc., merchants discussed how popular trick-or-treating has become downtown. Kathleen Swanson, an owner of Spectators and Hobbs said her two businesses went through 80 pounds of candy in about an hour on Halloween.

“I think that probably was the most positive public relations event we’ll have in downtown all year,” Swanson said.

She encouraged downtown merchants to think of ways to make the event more lucrative for merchants. She said one possibility is to begin a service that takes photos of children in their costumes but requires parents to come back downtown later in the week to pick up the prints.

• A company run by a Lawrence resident has been named one of the best small companies in America by Forbes magazine.

Olathe-based NIC Inc. was ranked 92nd on the list, and was the only Kansas company to be ranked. Lawrence resident Harry Herington serves as the company’s chief executive officer.

Founded in 1992, the company dubs itself the nation’s leading provider of official government websites and also provides other online services and online payment systems.

Forbes ranked companies that had been publicly traded for at least a year and had revenues of between $5 million and $1 billion. The company, which has about 600 employees, made the list with sales growth of about 19 percent over the last year and earnings growth of about 15 percent.

• Area residents who want to see more public transportation options between area cities, should pay attention to the success or failure of a new bus service out of Wichita.

The Kansas Department of Transportation and a private provider will start the Beeline Express on Tuesday. The new service will provide two round trips each day between Salina and Wichita and one round trip between Wichita and Pueblo, Colo. The bus will stop at several cities along the way, including Hutchinson, Dodge City, Garden City, Syracuse, Newton, McPherson, Lindsborg, and several cities in Colorado.