If Clark Griswold from the the classic comedy “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” wrote a business plan, surely it would look something like this: More than a mile’s worth of Christmas lights strung through a couple of downtown Lawrence buildings, and an old camper parked out front ...
There certainly have been times I’ve entered a bank branch worried that my account will be empty. Now, it appears there are times I may enter a bank branch to find the actual branch empty — as in no employees. Indeed, Bank of America is opening a new type of branch in Lawrence. The ...
The one-block stretch of 14th Street between Ohio and Tennessee long has created dilemmas for Lawrence police officers. It is the center of a bar district at the edge of the University of Kansas campus, so you can imagine the types of questions a police officer has to wrestle with while on ...
Even before the pandemic, a part of the Lawrence economy was ailing — county residents were seeing their incomes grow at one of the slowest rates in the state. New federal numbers released Tuesday show that income growth in Douglas County ranked 101st out of the 105 counties in Kansas in ...
As many an empty corner at a cocktail party can attest, no one really wants to hear me talk about my job. Regardless, I am going to share some news from the job front today because the Journal-World does have a new project I want people to know about. The Journal-World and its sister website ...
I’m not sure that there is universal agreement that my home has become more valuable as I spend more time in it, but home prices in Lawrence certainly have been soaring as the pandemic produces more homebodies. The latest report from the Lawrence Board of Realtors shows home sales increased ...
Yes, I will hike up a hill for a cinnamon roll, but I may roll back down it if I have one too many. For folks not quite up for that adventure, a bakery at the top of Mount Oread is now expanding to flatter ground on Iowa Street. McLain’s Market has signed a deal to locate in the old Slim ...
Maybe it should be no surprise that in 2020, where one month feels like one year, Lawrence is seeing some new projects geared toward an aging population. Plans have been filed at City Hall for two new living communities that focus on serving seniors. The first is an expansion of an existing ...
A company best known for providing Lawrence homes has a new home of its own, and it also is spending more time than ever doing business outside of Lawrence. First Management — which owns and operates hundreds of apartments in Lawrence — has finished work on a new corporate headquarters in ...
When it comes to Donald Trump and Kansas, not much has changed in four years — even to a tenth of a point. As I started going through the unofficial election results from last night, I noticed a statistical coincidence that seems worth passing along. According to the unofficial statewide ...
Now that election season is almost done, maybe you will want to spend more time at a driver’s license office to get your fill of government fun. Or, maybe not. Regardless, area residents now have — for the time being — a second option for renewing their Kansas driver’s licenses. The ...
Whether you are an undecided voter or a fully decided one who simply hasn’t marked your ballot, time is quickly running out. To state the obvious, Election Day is tomorrow — Tuesday, Nov. 3. But surely you knew that already. If nothing else, you were clued in by the fact that no ...
Personally, I don’t think roller coasters and the year 2020 mix well. (After all, there is a lot of screaming and little social distancing, which makes it only slightly less dangerous than Thanksgiving dinner.) But the state’s retail economy seems to be on such an up-and-down ride. Each ...
The former location of Wake the Dead Donuts in downtown Lawrence is now serving as the home for a business that you certainly might have thought was a goner. If you recall, Argana Cafe was the subject of a previous Town Talk this summer. The Moroccan restaurant opened in an old Pizza Hut ...
The idea of adding amenities to make the Kansas River more of an attraction in downtown Lawrence is as old as some of my fish tales. Both have filled more time than boats. But in fishing parlance, the bobber is starting to bounce a bit on the idea of the Kaw becoming a community gathering ...
When Dan Hughes, co-owner of Sunflower Outdoor & Bike, started planning to add a cafe to the store, he figured menu items that could easily fit into the jersey pocket of a bike outfit would be key. Indeed, such offerings are important, but that’s not always how the menu ends up getting ...
It’s campaign season, so you certainly will hear people grumbling about the topic of what government is good for. Well, in Lawrence it has become clear what it is not good for: Job growth. The latest employment numbers from the state of Kansas show that the Lawrence metro area — i.e. ...
I don’t know why, but I think Edgar Allan Poe would be pleased that a bookstore named after one of his most famous works will be located in a building that used to hone people’s axe-throwing skills. Indeed, that’s the plan for the Raven Book Store in downtown Lawrence. After more than ...
Usually, a tab is the only thing that scares me at a bar. That may not be the case at a new pop-up bar in downtown Lawrence that has created a haunted mansion theme for its guests. “It is a lot like exploring a Scooby-Doo mansion, except you will have alcoholic drinks,” Edward Schmalz ...
Story updated at 8:28 p.m. Oct. 6, 2020: A snack food company has chosen Lawrence for a new production facility, economic development officials announced late Tuesday afternoon. City commissioners will consider preliminary paperwork for a deal that will allow Pretzels Inc. to locate in ...