I figured the Amore's owners would join in since I heard you are posters on this message group. I hope you're feeling better.
We stopped by Amore's (based on recommendations on this board) when we came in from Valparaiso airport on our way to the east end of 30A with my sister and 2 children. We had the mozzarella bread appetizer and 2 pizzas. We thought it was all excellent and the waitress was great. I think you have a great location, especially for people who want to eat on the rooftop with the ocean view. We were there during a downpour so we ate inside.
I just read an excellent book called "Small Giants: Companies that choose to be great instead of big" by Bo Burlingham (editor at large of Inc Magazine) and I thought the book was very good. It highlights several businesses (including one deli that's in our hometown of Ann Arbor -- Zingerman's -- which is amazing -- you can read about the owners and their store -- they have a deli, restaurant and other businesses now, all related to the food and community they love) and talks about the characteristics that makes them great (as well as why owners would rather be great just the way they are rather than continue to grow and grow the business).
I love it that the author talks about the business's "mojo"! The author defines mojo: "These companies are searching for something indefinable and immeasurable, something that goes eyond the standard definitions of success in business, something that can easily be lost unless it's protected against the homogenizing influences brought to bear on every company. I call theat quality mojo." The book's introduction said these are the characteristics these extremely successful small businesses shared:
1. Unlike most entrepreneurs, their founders and leaders had recognized the full range of choices they had about the type of company they could create. They hadn't accepted the standard menu of options available. They had allowed themselves to question the usual definition of success in business and to imagine possibilities other than the ones all of us are familiar with.
2. Leaders had ovecome the enormous pressures on successful companies to take paths they had not chosen and did not necessarily want to follow.
3. Each company had an extraordinarily intimate relationship with the local town, city, or county in which it did business.
4. They cultivated exceptionally intimate relatinships with customers and suppliers, based on personal contact, one-on-one interaction, and mutual commitment to delivering on promises.
5. The companies had unusually initmate workplaces. They were, in effect, functionally little socieites that strove to address a broad range of their employees' needs as human beings -- creative, spiritual, emotional, and social needs as well as economic ones.
6. The companies developed their own innovative management structures.
7. The passion that the leaders brought to what the copany did. They loved the subject matter, whether it be music, safety, lighting, food, special effects... Though they were consummate businesspeople, they were anything but professional managers. Indeed they were the opposite of professional mnagers. They had deep emotional attachments to the business, to the people who worked in it, and to its customers and supplers.
Here are some links about the book:
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20060201/choice-sidebar.html
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/book/20060226TDY18002.htm
Some posters may know of Righteous Babe Records in Buffalo, the record company founded by singer-songwriter Ani DeFranco -- From reading the book (they focused on her company as well), I want to listen to some of her music.
Clearly, I LOVE small businesses and wish the businesses in SoWal great success!
