Dayton’s low self-esteem

Photo of a protestor of the Sidebar in Dayton Ohio

Two sides to a public lynching of a small business owner: Sidebar

My very first clients for The Next Wave were restaurants. The Video Deli, The Third and Linden Market, Sodexo Marriott’s in house catering for Hobart in Troy, Pacchia. Since 1990, I’ve worked with many small businesses, but, of all of them, restaurants are by far the toughest. Employees act more like free-agents, you are judged Read More

Invented in Dayton: Rob Lowe

While Kevin Bacon made the concept of 6 degrees of separation famous, Dayton should be famous for 1.2 degrees of separation- in my time in Dayton, I’ve criss-crossed with Rob Lowe a few different ways, never actually meeting him- but I have talked to him on the phone once. His father was the first attorney Read More

A Yellow Bike in Dayton

The Yellow Bike test balloon

Several years ago I proposed that Dayton join Denver in being one of the first to roll out the BCycle bike share system. It would have been about a $2 million investment, and would have put Dayton on the map in the news cycle as a major player and forward thinker in bik- sharing systems. Read More

Why Dayton needs to stop acting like a city in decline

Last night, I had the honor of attending the Dayton Public Schools Superintendent’s Scholars ceremony for kids getting straight A’s (yep- one of the Esrati household is brighter than most). There, we got to hear and later meet an exceptional student from Thurgood Marshall High School- Ashley Cooper. Ms. Cooper has a 4.1 gpa, is Read More

Dayton Business Journal likes my comments

In a kind of bogus way, the Dayton Business Journal has taken its “readers comments” and used them anonymously, even though Disqus has the full name. Last two weeks- they’ve featured my comments- without giving credit: Dayton faces $5M in cuts for 2011 budget (Nov. 15) • Hmm, you’re losing customers, cut services, raise prices Read More

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