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Please visit our COVID-19 resources page for digital resources, updates or virtual events (past and upcoming). 
May 20, 2020
FACES & PLACES

During the last few weeks, the Fort Worth Chamber , in partnership with the City of Fort Worth, Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber, Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber, and Visit Fort Worth , was able to distribute more than 500 boxes of PPE to local small businesses to #ProtecttheFort! With the financial support of Facebook's Fort Worth Data Center and Hillwood , the partnership distributed masks, gloves, and hand sanitizer to the Fort Worth business community.
PRESS YOUR LUCK
Click on the links below to enter for prizes
Read this only if you’re not hungry: Mr. B has been ordering his Dough Boy Donuts online and walking from the car to the curb to get his exercise in before eating four or six or 10 donuts a weekend. It’s really unfair to go to the Dough Boy Donuts website and see the big smiling face of owner Melvin Roberson, who looks sculpted, as if all he has gained is muscle since opening on Camp Bowie in 2014. How do you fry, heat and aromacize fresh donuts all day and not have Mr. B love handles? Again, life really isn’t fair. Dough Boy Donuts is rated for mature audiences because no donuts are dressed until you order them. Mr. B ordered cheesecake and Oreo donuts, a dozen vanilla donut holes and a cinnamon roll. He ate them in the car while he followed the Dough Boy Donuts food truck around town. Hey, it would be time for a snack in a couple of hours. Melvin has a dozen donuts for two readers.
An outstanding Cast: Texas is open for bidness and if your favorite restaurant wasn't open at 25 percent, it likely could be this week at 50 percent. Mr. B -- have masks, might travel -- is thinking ahead and game planning his food feast journey as a “Reservation for One, please.” A leading candidate is the Cast Iron Restaurant in the Omni Fort Worth Hotel mostly for the Texas Pecan Rocky Road Bread Pudding. An unconscious consumption of calories that is so worthy! But staring Mr. B from the Cast Iron home page was a Berkshire bone-in pork chop with a chipotle peach relish to drool for. Named for Warren, it’s the money pick! According to all reports, y’all have been imbibing more and may be going through withdrawal pains. May Mr. B suggest the smoked margarita penne? Cast your lot with Cast Iron as soon as it re-opens and bring this $50 gift card along.
Rats! And double rats! Mr. B drove 39 miles during April (and felt guilty every one of them.) On May 12, he started the Rio and fan-belted a rat, who had been resting peacefully alongside his cousin, who managed a rapid escape. Needless to say, the first call was not to 9-1-1. It was to Doug Cookston at Jerry's Express Car Wash. “Bring it over, Mr. B. I’ve got a clothes pin I can clamp onto my mask and we’ll deodorize the Rio,” he said. Jerry’s doesn’t just clean the outside, the wheels and the interior. It does engines and undersides. It has waxes and polishes and rust-free magic potions. Mr. B went with the one-month membership; he can wash the Rio every day for a month. EVERY DAY. And Doug threw in a clothes pin and one of those fragrance trees to hang from the mirror. He’s got a one-month membership for a daily wash for one car for one reader.
Congratulations to the May 13th
Prize Winners:

  • Gaye Hannak, Lighthouse for the Blind
  • Susan Taylor, Cantey Hanger
  • Adrianne Porcelli, purpledoor marketing
  • Norm Robbins, Mark M. Jones & Associates
HE SAID, SHE SAID, THEY SAID
Quite neighborly: Looking for retail space? Might consider being near Chicken Salad Chick. Owner Meggie Schissler says the team quite often delivers -- from six feet -- daily leftovers to its retail neighbors.
5th best innovation EVER: Behind only Adam, Eve, the wheel and the Internet, Galderma’s DYSPORT has tested successfully for the temporary treatment of moderate-to-severe frown lines between the eyebrows in adults under 65. Ninety-five percent of participants (90% female) were highly satisfied with the twice-yearly treatment and 97% thought the treatment looked natural.
Just wondering: The Chamber has launched a serious, online discussion forum . It’s an opportunity to engage quickly with peers on a variety of business, HR, resources/supply chain and leadership topics. Mr. B engaged, asked and was booted off. His questions:
  • Will recovery for shared-plates restaurants be a bit slower?
  • I was a blonde; will I need a new photo ID?
  • Corn chips are considered a vegetable, right?
The future is now: Michael Sherrod, Entrepreneur in Residence at TCU’s Neeley School of Business , says the pandemic has accelerated changes that had been forecast, such as a 4-day work week, less real meat, more facial recognition and the “Zebra” entrepreneur, one who bootstraps and owns a business to keep for cash flow, not to flip and sell. Looming, long-term concerns are going to be privacy, who owns data and robots in the workplace.
Worth chewing on: Vicki Cisneros, President at Cisneros Restaurants (Los Vaqueros) , had an interesting take during a Chamber forum on selling going forward. “…the fact that more people are in their homes, this is a prime time to develop customer ‘intimacy’ and go back to various types of grassroots marketing for sales. You may find yourself dealing in quality for a while, rather than quantity.”
“George Jetson is alive and well in Fort Worth.”



--Mayor Price Is Right
on Hillwood's Mobility Innovation Zone
COVID-19 pix of the week: This is what three tons of produce looks like. It is a small part of the food needed to feed 3,600 families a month. Carlo Capua of Z’s Café and Locavore partnered with Blue Zones on this project.
Stark contrast: WRG , which designs workplaces and provides furniture-plus for businesses, universities, hospitals and governments, finished its new showroom at 707 W. Vickery March 17. Shelter-in-Place began March 24. The showroom has been empty, never officially opened. Managing Director Greg Carter says he’s ready to host small groups, by appointment only. Of great irony is that his team has built a real-world example of post-COVID-19 workplace ideas in a 100-year-old industrial warehouse.
Location, location, location: Peter Healey, veep of account management at data dynamo Buxton , says: “Where a business is located should not be based on miles to your target market, but by how many minutes to drive to the location.” People, he said, are wired by time, not distance. He also suggests, “For retailers, access should be your No. 1 consideration.”
Funster punsters: Netty Matthews, a Chamber veep, has a merry and growing band of punster playmates. It plays out like this – Netty: “I decided to sell all my chiropractic magazines. I have lots of back issues.” And a sampling of the ripostes: “Getting rid of them was a major adjustment.” “Don’t give up; take another crack at it.” “Save them on a disc.” And, “I threw mine out.”
UPCOMING EVENTS
To comply with Tarrant County's recommendations on public gatherings, our in-person programs are currently on hold. Please see our upcoming virtual resources below.
Wednesday, May 20
Leaders Online
Wednesday, May 27
WIN Roundtable
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