Everybody’s business

The cream rises
Last week, I mentioned $1 cones on Tuesday nights at Baskin-Robbins. Well, let’s all prepare to eat way too much ice cream. (Unless you’re lactose intolerant or don’t believe in eating dairy; then you’ll have to watch us eat without you.)

Valerie Wong of Baskin-Robbins e-mailed me to let me know that beginning this month, “Chico’s Baskin-Robbins rolled back the price of scoops to one dollar all day every day as a thank you to our regular customers and to extend the excitement of Tuesday Dollar Nights to all week.”

Coffee to go
One of the Java Detour drive-through coffee franchises in Chico is for sale, according to an ad posted on www.bizben.com. The asking price is $1.25 million with 30 percent down, but annual revenue is $509,000.

Java Detour, a regional chain, opened a kiosk at First and Mangrove in August 2000, and followed it up with a second location at East Avenue and The Esplanade in spring 2003.

I can’t figure out which of the two is for sale, but the “traffic count” is listed at 48,000 cars per day, the ad says.

Mike and Steve Binninger of Davis opened both stores, and while Mike has been great about comments in the past, I wasn’t able to get in touch with him by press time.

Frozen assets
I thought I may have mentioned this before, so I searched the News & Review archives and only came up with a story about freezing funds for foster care, so here goes:

The Foster’s Freeze building at 900 Broadway is for sale as part of a package of commercial and residential lands, according to online real estate data. The asking price is $999,995 and the place to call is Tracy Realty.

Help little ol’ Wal-Mart
I’m not a big Wal-Mart fan, and shop there as little as possible. I managed to avoid the chain retailer for nearly seven months, but then fell off the wagon when I exhausted all other resources looking for a particular craft item. Once back on the horse, I went there several times in succession—it’s like crack, I tell you.

I went there over the weekend to return a piece-of-crap clothing item that had broken (one thing I’ll say for Wal-Mart, they’re great about returns) and noticed a table with a box asking for customer support.

“Wal-Mart’s Customer Action Network keeps customers informed whenever government tries to limit your shopping choices or interfere in Wal-Mart’s ability to offer Everyday Low Prices,” read the card, which you can fill out if you want to be “a supporter of a Wal-Mart Supercenter coming to Chico. “You can use my name and count on me!”

Poor, oppressed Wal-Mart needs help fighting small, local governments. Best thing, membership in CAN, the card says, is “FREE.”