The Buzz

Jason Sheer is a hands-on businessman in the truest sense.
“I’ve got the hammer in my hand and we are going at it,” the co-owner of the Tin Roof said Tuesday in a telephone interview.
Sheer was working at South Limestone and Maxwell streets where the live-music restaurant chain is about to open its newest location, probably [...]

“Norman” might have been Lexington’s earliest winter casualty.
During the city’s first significant snowstorm a couple of weeks ago, a car jumped the curb in front of 203 South Limestone Street “and just hit him and killed him stone dead,” said Liza Hendley Betz. “Everybody was just heart-broken.”
You see, Norman is the 3-foot tall wooden leprechaun [...]

Pittsburgh Steelers fans should get to know Royce Pulliam. He’s about to get connected with the best seats in Heinz Field, where the Steelers play their home games.
Here’s how it works.
Pulliam is the founder and chief executive of the Lexington-based Urban Active Fitness chain.
Urban Active is partially owned by Laurel Crown Partners LLC, a Los [...]

The problem is in the name.
They are “Christmas tree farms” so naturally we think they are in rural areas.
Actually, three of the 22 Christmas tree farms in Kentucky are in Lexington and one is in Louisville, according to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture.
These farms are a mile or two from the suburbs or maybe on [...]

“We are hearing a lot of horror stories” because of the recession, says Gene Williams, a partner in Natasha’s Bistro & Bar on The Esplanade downtown. “This is actually good news.”
Natasha’s is finishing a remodeling of its physical space and a restructuring of its business to create what Williams calls a “hybrid restaurant” that is in [...]

WARNING: The following item contains references to poop, manure, fecal matter, crap, turds and neckties. Those with weak dispositions should skip to the next item.
Pat Kelly was scooping along in a customer’s back yard in his role as Lexington’s Pet Butler franchisee.
He was thinking about the upcoming Pet Butler annual convention and what new product [...]

Kentucky usually lands only one or two companies on the Inc. 500 list of the nation’s fastest growing small businesses.
This year, the total was one: No. 47, Integrity Asset Management of Louisville.
But there’s another company on the list that, as the older generation might say, bears watching. It’s No. 12, Hollingsworth Capital Partners in Clinton, [...]

Like the old song says, “All the boys will sing and the girls will shout and the ladies they will all turn out” when the No. 66 Hunt Brothers Chevrolet rolls into Paris on Aug. 26 and Frankfort on Aug. 27.
Some will turn out to see a new addition to NASCAR racing while others will [...]

Americans have freedom of speech — and William “Chip” Wood believes in using it.
Wood owns about 50 TireDiscounters stores in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky.
About twice a week, he sends faxes to his managers to tell them what messages to put on the double-sided signs in front of his stores, including two in Lexington.
New messages went [...]

Pearse Lyons is an Irishman.
“The Irish are the laziest men in the world,” he told the Kentucky Chamber’s Economic Summit and Annual Meeting on Tuesday.
(You could almost hear someone say, “How lazy are they?”)
“We always marry pregnant women,” he said, without missing a beat.
There was a twitter of laughter that quickly became a roar as [...]