- November 18, 2024
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When the Flagler County Chamber of Commerce surveyed local residents about their satisfaction with county economic development efforts in 2012, 70% weren’t happy. In 2014, the chamber did the survey again, polling about 800 residents. This time, just 21% said they were dissatisfied.
Garry Lubi, chairman of the Flagler County Chamber’s Economic Alliance Council and senior vice president of commercial banking at prosperity bank, wasn’t sure exactly what drove the change in perception. But he had some theories.
“I think some of that is that, generally speaking, the unemployment is rate down,” he said. “You’re seeing the service industries, restaurants and others, that seem to be seeing improved sales results.”
One of those restaurants is Blue at the Topaz, a fine dining restaurant on Oceanshore Boulevard that specializes in seafood.
When Kelli O’Reilly became the restaurant’s manager in June 2013, she worried she wouldn’t be able to keep it afloat.
“I had a feeling of hopelessness,” she said. “I had a feeing like I wasn’t sure how I was going to make this work. Something had to change. We needed a turnaround.”
A former journalist and television martial arts announcer, O’Reilly struggled to handle the math-heavy financial side of the restaurant business she’d taken over in June 2013 after the death of her uncle and a divorce from her husband, who’d both managed the restaurant with her since it opened about 11 years ago. But she went to Palm Coast Business Assistance Center area manager Joe Roy for advice.
“My friend Cindy Dalecki said, ‘You have to talk to Joe Roy,’” she said. “I really needed help with my financial statements.”
The help was free, and the BAC spent several hours a week working with O’Reilly over the course of nine months. “The BAC was able to help me come up with some really good financial plans that allowed me to make some changes to my menu to make it more profitable,” she said.
Roy took the restaurant’s invoices and created spreadsheets to crunch the numbers. Some of the changes were small, O’Reilly said, but had a large financial impact.
Seafood paella came off on the menu, as did some other dishes with shrimp, clams and mussels. The restaurant cut its lunch hours, and now opens at 4 p.m.
“It was only a few percentage points, but it makes a huge difference,” O’Reilly said. “Probably the ‘aha moment’ was when I could write a check without worrying or not whether it’s going to bounce. I know what my income is, and I now what’s going out, and it’s controlled.”
And she has more customers.
“The customers are slowly starting to come back,” O’Reilly said. “I’ve been told time and time again by long-time customers that this is the best food that they’ve ever had, the people seem happier, the attitudes have changed. They don’t know why, but they definitely can sense it.”
The restaurant’s April sales were 30% higher than January sales, she said, and her feeling of hopelessness is gone.
“I’m completely hopeful,” she said. “It’s total attitude change from a year ago. I have more understanding, just more knowledge, of the financial workings of everything that goes on around here. I definitely did not have handle on the minute details that it turns out are really important.”
Blue at the Topaz won the Best Ambience award at the chamber’s Flagler Restaurant Week event earlier this month.
Flagler County Chamber Chairman David Fowler said those kinds of changes in the day-to-day welfare of local businesses have helped shape people’s perception of economic development efforts.
“I think that a lot of public perception of economic development is reflective of the current economy,” he said. ‘The economy is much more robust today than in 2012. The job market is improving, wages, sales are improving as well, and I think a lot of that makes people feel like economic development efforts are much better off than in 2012.”
But there have been other changes, too he said, that are more neatly tied to county efforts.
“We’ve had some success stories through the efforts of (Flagler County Economic Opportunity Executive Director) Helga van Eckert, with some pretty big businesses moving to the county,” he said. “And I think the public has become educated about what economic development is.”
Fowler said local and county efforts are more coordinated in the past, that there’s a continuity of goals between the different groups working on economic development — attempting to diversify the county’s economy, for instance, so it’s not so heavily dependent on tourism and real estate.
“I think at this point in time, it’s a true partnership with every entity involved,” Fowler said, “and I think they do their best to make sure it’s a win for all parties.”
