Some of you actually read all the way to the end of today's business column about the impact a 19-month street construction project is having on businesses around East D Street and Puyallup Avenue in Tacoma.

At the end of the column, I suggested that I would see you for lunch at Afred's Cafe, which sits at Ground Zero of the construction zone and has struggled to draw a crowd.

Owner Richard Bartolatz has laid off half his staff and is thinking about closing shop for the summer. He hasn't decided what to do just yet.
But if he drew lunch crowds like he did today on a consistent basis, he probably could stay open.

You packed the place. Thank you.

But I have a little mea culpa – I neglected to warn Bartolatz that I would make a plea for you to drop in for lunch. Consequently, the overwhelmed servers had a tough time keeping up with the unexpected business. If you had to wait awhile, my apologies.

Once again, thanks for eating at Alfred's – and thanks for reading!

The Associated Press reports that a lengthy outage in the BlackBerry e-mail service this week may have been caused by a minor software upgrade had crashed the system.

The reason cited by Research in Motion Ltd. Thursday night was highly technical:

The outage from Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning was triggered by “the introduction of a new, non-critical system routine” designed to optimize the cache, or temporary memory, on the computer servers that run the BlackBerry network.

RIM said “the pre-testing of the system routine proved to be insufficient.”

Carpenters from around the Northwest are scheduled to rally Sunday at the Tacoma Dome.

The Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters is scheduled to negotiate a new contract with the Association of General Contractors later this spring.

The carpenters will be rallying Sunday for higher wages and affordable healthcare. The event will feature food, entertainment and leaders from the local and national carpenters union.

A carpenters rally last weekend in Oregon attracted 5,200 people. Organizers expect at least that many to attend the Tacoma Dome event.

The event starts at 12:00PM.

For more information on the union and its upcoming contract go to www.contract2007.org.

The broad market Russell 3000 Index hit a record for the fourth time in one week.

Today, at close of the market, the Russell 3000 broke its intraday high and also set a new record high close of 864.57. The index is up 4.72% year-to-date and 3.02% over the past seven years.

The Russell 3000 Index represents approximately 98% of the US Market, providing a comprehensive, unbiased and stable barometer of the market. The top performing sectors are “Health Care,” and “Auto & Transportation.”

You may have seen the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a new record today closing up 153.35, or 1.20 percent, at 12,961.98.

Forza Coffee Company has opened four new locations in Washington. Forza purchased retail spots in two locations on Puyallup’s South Hill, one in Tacoma and one in Lakewood, totaling 15 coffee houses to date, with more Pierce County locations soon to come.

The new sites include Top Foods on South Hill at 201 37th Ave SE, as well as at South Hill’s Meridian Street at 129th. Forza has assumed the store at 11401 Steele Street in Tacoma, and completed the build out for the new Lakewood store at 8813 Edgewater Drive.

Gig Harbor-based Forza works with Phil Beattie, Roast Master of Dillanos Coffee Co. in Sumner to custom roast blends. Roast Magazine has named Beattie as one of three best specialty coffee roasters in North America.

Forza has another 16 shops in construction, including one opening in Denver, Colorado early this summer. Brad and Cindy Carpenter opened their first Forza Coffee Company coffee house in April 2005.

"Wary of rising disability retirement costs, the Department of Defense under then-secretary Caspar Weinberger quietly sought and received an internal legal opinion that, to this day, tamps down the number of wounded or ill service members awarded military disability retirement..."

That decision affects injured and disabled service personnel who are returning from the latest wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Read a full report in Tom Philpott's "Military Update" column in Saturday's News Tribune Business Section.

As you may have read in this morning's News Tribune business section, the Sheraton Tacoma Hotel is changing its name and setting out on a $20 million remodel-and-rebrand centered around an art glass theme.
Here's more on the story:
What: New owners Provenance Hotels are remodeling and rebranding the Sheraton Tacoma Hotel
Opens: Name officially changes in November; renovations complete by early next year
Rates: Will likely start at $159 per night, with variations
Restaurants: A new fourth-floor restaurant is at the theme-and-cocept stage. The fine-dining facility on the top floor will be converted into a VIP lounge.
Other Provenance properties: Hotel Lucia and Hotel deLuxe in Portland; Hotel Max in Seattle; Hotel Preston in Nashville, Tenn.
Artists whose work will be on display at Hotel Murano include Mirian di Fiore, Martin Blank, Tobias Mohl, Steve Klein, Janusz Walentynowicz, Jessica Townsemd, Hiroshi Yamano, Peter Bremers, Cobi Cockburn, Dante Marioni, Susan Taylor Glasgow, Bruno Romanelli, Toots Zynsky, Bertil Vallien, Richard Whiteley, Preston Singletary, Masayo Odahashi, Peter Powning, Flo Perkins, William Morris, Davide Salvadore, Orfeo Quagliata, Anna Carlgren, Vibeke Skov, Lucio Bubacco, Brent Kee Young, Massimo Micheluzzi, Narcissus Quagliata, April Surgent, Rick Beco and Dale Chihuly.

Jessica Gaya, an owner and chief baker, of Corina Bakery.

Goods news for cake lovers. The owners of Corina Bakery are contemplating an expansion.

Jessica Gaya, who owns the bakery with her husband and a partner, said today that they are looking to double the bakery's current space in the Merlino Art Center.

They need more room for customers to sit and more space to bake.

The bakery owners were contemplating a new space altogether, but Gaya said the owners of the Merlino Art Center wanted them to stay. So now the bakery and building owners are awaiting contractor's estimates of how much such an expansion would cost.

In the meantime Gaya said the caramel macchiato cheesecake is a hit with customers. It's a coffee and vanilla cheesecake topped with caramel and coffee whip cream. Yum.