There’s a new Winger’s Grill and Bar in town – it’s a franchise eatery marketed by the same folks, based in Salt Lake City, who operate T.G.I. Friday’s – located at 5221 Tacoma Mall Blvd.

The store opened Oct. 29, employs 80 and seats 220. The first-time Winger’s franchisee, Robby Fuller, is quoted in a press release out today as saying he’s thrilled and how there’s “a great buzz in the community surrounding our opening and we are confident the new restaurant will be a hit.”

We at Biz Buzz wish him well, and if any of you have been there (for some wings, burgers, fajitas, a steak or maybe a slice of “asphalt pie”) feel free to leave a comment.

After reading the release (Wingers wings are World Famous, the company operates in 11 states and Germany, the Tacoma location is the chain’s newest) I started wondering – about wings.

A lot of places serve wings – hot wings, sauced wings, wings slathered in ranch dressing. Six wings at the Tacoma location go for $6.99, and you can get 16 for $16.49. Say 100 people order an average of 12 wings each, every day, that’s 8,400 wings a week. Just in Tacoma. Multiply that times Oregon, Idaho, Frankfurt and the rest.

That’s a lot of wings. So my question is: What happens to the rest of all the the chickens? America (and now Germany) eats a lot of wings. But where are the franchises called ‘Drumsticks” or “Backs”?

I called the P.R. person who sent out the release (Kate Pappas with Love Communications in Salt Lake City), and she didn’t know. “That’s a good question,” she said, referring me to the marketing director at the brand owner, Slaymaker. I left a message there, and I’m waiting for a call back.

In the meantime, if you know what happens to all of the rest of the chicken (or any speculation on an answer) please leave a comment. Thanks. Bon appetite.

Forget those heady days of two years ago when it looked as if the Port of Tacoma's traffic would continue to climb steeply into the future.

A new forecast presented to the Port of Tacoma commission today shows that critical measure of the port's traffic, container numbers, will drop again for the second year in a row this year and further fall in 2009.

That forecast from the port's director of commercial strategies, Tong Zhu, shows a barely perceptible growth in 2010 followed by a shallow upward trend through 2013.

The predicted container volume in five years, 1,854,000 container units, will still fall short of the record 2.06 million the port handled in 2006.

The port's container volume grew 56.6 percent from 2001 through 2006. From 2006 through 2011, port projections show, container volume will drop 13.8 percent.

Blame two factors, one familiar and the other new, for the decline.

The general world economic decline is reducing trading and business activity worldwide.

And a shift in market share from the West Coast to the East Coast and to Canadian ports for Asian imports is affecting import volumes coastwide, said the port's executive director, Tim Farrell.

Tacoma has been less affected by those factors than other West Coast ports this year, port figures show. Container numbers through September are down 2.3 percent in Tacoma compared with an 11.2 percent decline in Seattle, a 10.5 percent drop in Long Beach, a 4.8 percent fall in Los Angeles and a 4 percent drop in Oakland. Container numbers in Vancouver are up 3 percent.

In 2002, 82.8 percent of the nation's Asian imports were handled through the West Coast. In the first half of 2008, that share was 72.4 percent, government figures show.

Farrell said the port is working with the railroads, which handle much of the imported containers and haul them to more distant markets, to improve the cost equation for Asian shipping lines.

Other cargoes handled through Tacoma also show little or no growth in the cargo forecast.

Breakbulk cargo rises slightly to 130,000 short tons in 2013 from 120,000 now, while autos decline slightly to 167,000 from 170,000 now over the next five years. Grain shipments hold steady at 6,000 tons.

Avue Technologies Corp.'s Web site that can help people get jobs with the Obama administration was features in a story today in the Wall Street Journal.

We wrote about the Web site last week.

Today's WSJ story talks about finding a job with the federal government. About halfway through, you come to this section:

"... figure out what kind of government work you’d like to do, advises Charlie Cragin, who served in several politically appointed positions between 1990 and 2001, including chairman of the Board of Veterans’ Appeals of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. While specifying what type of job you want isn’t required, it greatly boosts your odds of success. Mr. Cragin says many applicants err by offering to do any job, falsely assuming that government recruiters will be able to identify fitting opportunities on their behalf.
To home in on an ideal job now, Mr. Cragin recommends searching the 2008 online edition of the Plum Book, which as of Monday also can be viewed for free at transitionjobs.us, a Web site published by Avue Technologies Corp., a software company based in Tacoma, Wash. Both that site and gpoaccess.gov list titles for all politically appointed positions; the agencies and departments they’re located within; some salary information; the incumbents who are currently in those positions, and other details.

At the end of the story we hear from the company:

Don’t expect to negotiate salary, says Linda Rix, co-chief executive officer of Avue Technologies. Politically appointed positions pay fixed yearly incomes. The government typically does not offer sign-on bonuses, though a performance-based bonus system is used, she says.
Finally, bear in mind that some knock-out factors can automatically derail your candidacy, she adds. These include a poor credit rating, failure to pay income taxes in a timely manner and child-support delinquency.

Airfares and hotel rooms are going for a premium for the Jan. 20 inauguration of the nation's first black president, Barack Obama, so prepare to suffer considerable damage to your credit limit if you want to attend.

Rick Seaney, travel guru at Farecompare.com , says his air fare research shows a huge "inauguration surcharge" for those headed to the nation's capital that week.

Non-stop airfares to Washington from Sea-Tac, for instance, are going for $2,491 roundtrip if you take the red-eye flight to the nation's capital the Sunday before the inauguration. And that's for a coach seat.

That compares with a $659 roundtrip available for a trip a week earlier. The worst day surcharge, according to Seaney is 278 percent from Seattle.

The chart below shows the difference between inauguration week and the week before from major airports across the country.

My own research shows you can still find relatively bargain fares, if you're willing to accept inconvenience.

You could fly, for instance to Harrisburg, PA, 122 miles from Washington, D.C. instead of the nearer airports in the capital or Baltimore. That trip is available for $276.

Or you could fly overnight and stop at one of several hubs and secure an airfare about 75 percent less than the cheapest non-stop.

SeaTac's Alaska Airlines will add two daily flights from Portland to Long Beach, Calif., beginning Feb. 8, the airline announced today.

The flights will complement other Portland connections to Southern California.

In addition, the airline will add a second Anchorage-Chicago flight next summer operating June 7 through Aug. 22.

That flight is designed to provide summertime vacation service to Alaska's largest city from the nation's second busiest airport, Chicago's O'Hare.

A new $13 billion Amtrak authorization bill signed by President Bush could jumpstart plans to restore two Amtrak routes from the Puget Sound area that were abandoned years ago.

The bill requires Amtrak to study reestablishment of the Pioneer between Seattle and Salt Lake City and the North Coast Hiawatha between Seattle and Chicago through southern Montana.

The Pioneer ran until 1997 when it was discontinued because of funding issues. The train served towns along the south bank of the Columbia River in Oregon, Baker and Pendleton, Ore., and Boise and Nampa in Idaho.

The North Coast Hiawatha was discontinued in 1979. It followed a combination of routes once used by the Milwaukee Road, Northern Pacific and Great Northern. A new North Coast Hiawatha could restore train service to Yakima via Stampede Pass and to Missoula, Butte and Billings in Montana.

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General Growth Properties Inc., the Chicago-based owner of more than 200 malls in the United States including Westlake Center in downtown Seattle and Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, may seek bankruptcy protection.

Burdened with debt that it is having difficulty refinancing, General Growth said this week it may seek to reorganize.

That reorganization may include sale all or some of its mall properties. In addition to Alderwood and Westlake, General Growth owns several other malls in the Northwest including Bellis Fair in Bellingham, Northtown Mall in Spokane, Pioneer Place in downtown Portland, South Shore Mall in Aberdeen, Clackamas Town Center in Clackamas, Ore., and Three Rivers Mall in Kelso.

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