Local Businesses
by Around Dublin Team on February 19, 2010 | 
No Comments | Topics: Local Businesses
Marakana is a privately-held company based in San Francisco, CA. Since 2001, Marakana has been helping IT professionals get better at what they do by providing an extensive range of training services on open source software solutions and agile practices. The Around Dublin Blog is teaming up with our friends at Marakana to offer our readers a 10% discount on any course from their extensive training catalog. To qualify for this discount, simply type “Around-Dublin-Blog” when prompted for the coupon code during the course registration process.
The idea for Marakana started with a Craigslist ad. A local non-profit in San Francisco was looking for a technical instructor to help teach some Java classes. This non-profit’s mission was to bridge the Digital Divide by helping underprivileged youth, minorities and women get into high-tech jobs. The classes would be fully booked within hours of their announcements. Encouraged by the overwhelming demand and the success of the participants, the founders of Marakana started offering open source training to corporations and governments. Today, Marakana provides open source training all over the world with a focus on enterprise open source.
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by Around Dublin Team on February 6, 2010 | No Comments | Topics: Local Businesses
Share the Love Tin
Chocolate gifts for Valentine’s Day are a traditional sign of love and affection, and this year Bittersweet Origins, the Bay Area’s bean-to-bar chocolate maker, has a full array of its own chocolate collections and special gift packaging ready for your special Valentine sweetheart. The delicious, high quality chocolate gifts by Bittersweet Origins range from $4.95 to $34.95 and are available at Bittersweet Café’s three Bay Area locations in San Francisco, Oakland, and Danville, California.
The Share the Love Tin offers a quarter pound each of Mint Mix (Dark Chocolate Holland Mints, Dark Chocolate Peppermint Shortbreads) and Fruit and Nut Mix (Dark Chocolate Dried Strawberries, Dark Chocolate Cherries, and Dark Chocolate Pistachios), Solid Milk Hearts and Solid Dark Chocolate Hearts. The Mint Tin includes Dark Chocolate Holland Mints and dark chocolate Peppermint Shortbreads, while the Fruit and Nut Tin features Dark Chocolate Dried Strawberries, Dark Chocolate Cherries, and Dark Chocolate Pistachios.
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by John M. Zukoski on November 24, 2009 | 1 Comment | Topics: Local Businesses
Dublin’s successful Sales Tax Reimbursement Program has landed another big win for Dublin – the new Hyundai dealership on Scarlett Court (near Dougherty Road and the East Dublin BART station). Hyundai opened their sales operations on Scarlett Court about two months ago after months of discussion with rainmaking Economic Development Director Linda Maurer and other City Hall officials about participation in the Sales Tax Reimbursement Program.
Hyundai will be making $670K of improvements to convert their property at 6015 Scarlett Court (which was a smaller dealership a few years ago) into a full-fledged dealership with additional sales and operations/service space. The Sales Tax Reimbursement Program will return a 1/2% credit to Hyundai on all sales over the next 5 years. This means that the Hyundai dealership’s owners will recover the entire $670K in renovations if they can bring in at least $134M of sales over the next 5 years.
The new dealership is a big win for Dublin on many levels:
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by John M. Zukoski on November 22, 2009 | No Comments | Topics: Local Businesses
Lanna Thai Restaurant in Livermore has redefined the game. Many restaurants suffer from the “Tyranny of the Or” meaning that they think that they need to offer Great Prices or Exquisite Food, Convenience or Incredible Service, Elegant Interior Design or Comfortable Atmosphere.
Lanna Thai has achieved what many have said couldn’t be done by delivering all of the above: great prices, exquisitely prepared food, convenience, incredible service, elegant interior design, and comfortable atmosphere.
As a special offer for Around Dublin readers until November 30, 2009, Lanna Thai will include a free house appetizer and Thai Iced Tea with any meal when you ask for the “Around Dublin Blog Special”.
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by John M. Zukoski on November 19, 2009 | 3 Comments | Topics: Local Businesses
Dublin is home to yet another growing business – Go Long Beverage Company is headquartered at the cusp of Downtown Dublin on Village Parkway. Go Long was founded by two friends and business associates Nick Barnes and Don Cruz Datanagan.
The Around Dublin Team was fortunate enough to happen upon Go Long’s Resveratrol Water while visiting a friend at Sorrento a few weeks ago and we were pleasantly surprised by the all-natural ingredients, lightly stevia-sweetened flavor, and power-packed supply of Resveratrol. Resveratrol is found in the skin of red wine grapes and is a constituent of red wine. Preliminary studies suggest Resveratrol might be an excellent antioxidant. Resveratrol has also been called an anti-aging supplement.
Go Long Resveratrol Water is part of the booming functional food and beverages category. Consumers are more proactive about their health than ever before. The U.S. retail market for functional foods and beverages is up to a 6-percent gain with sales totaling almost $31 billion in 2008, according to the Functional Foods and Beverages in the U.S., 4th Edition Report.
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by John M. Zukoski on November 13, 2009 | 34 Comments | Topics: Local Businesses · Restaurants
Grafton Station is a gorgeous shopping center in east Dublin. Anchored by Lowe’s and home to an incredibly successful Buffalo Wild Wings franchise, Grafton Station has been working hard to sign up additional lessees. It looks like that hard work is starting to pay off for Grafton Station.
A San Francisco-based Asian Fusion restaurant is expected to open a new location right here in Dublin at Grafton Station. This restaurant will also have a nightclub and a dance floor for evening enjoyment (pending Planning Commission approval). More details should be coming later this year.
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by John M. Zukoski on October 19, 2009 | 1 Comment | Topics: Announcements · Local Businesses
Chocolate Clubs are forming now, are open to the public, will meet once per quarter, to teach the ‘art’ and nuance of chocolate tasting
Seneca Klassen, chocolatier for the Bay Area’s three renowned Bittersweet Cafes, will host once per quarter chocolate tastings through newly formed Chocolate Clubs. Each of the three Bay Area Bittersweet Cafes will have its own club.
The Rockridge Chocolate Club will kick off on October 22, the Danville store’s first meeting will be November 19 and the San Francisco’s Club will enjoy its initial meeting on December 17.
Forming now, the Chocolate Clubs at each store will be limited to 18 regular members plus seven open spaces reserved for on-the-spot sign-ups for each meeting. Annual memberships cost $20 which includes four chocolate tasting meetings (one per quarter) and a ten percent off discount card for Bittersweet purchases. Individual meetings will cost $5. The first Chocolate Club meeting at each store will cost $5 so people may attend and see what’s in store before making a full year’s commitment.
“Focused chocolate tasting is a great experience and offers a new way to really appreciate the amazing palate you find in chocolate,” explains Klassen. “Like any other fermented varietal food, chocolate is affected by factors ranging from genetics to soil, climate and microbiology. We look forward to exploring this territory with our in-store chocolate clubs.”
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by John M. Zukoski on October 13, 2009 | 10 Comments | Topics: Development · Local Businesses · Retail
The City of Dublin took a bold step earlier this year by approving a Sales Tax Reimbursement Program that gives businesses that bring in at least $100K/year of new sales tax revenue a credit to help pay for building improvements. Businesses can get half a percent of sales tax refunded to them over a five year period or as soon as they’ve been able to get paid back for their building improvements – whichever happens first. This program was primarily created to help refresh and renovate many of west Dublin’s historic commercial buildings.
Earlier this month, the Dublin City Council voted to expand the Sales Tax Reimbursement Program by extending the reimbursement period to 10 years (from 5 years) for big retailers that generate at least $50M/year in new revenue. This would not apply to existing retailers like Toys R’ Us or Target unless they expanded their stores and could bring in the extra sales.
The extended reimbursement period could be the catalyst that we need to transform Dublin’s Downtown District into a more traditional downtown area.
How can this be?
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by John M. Zukoski on October 12, 2009 | 1 Comment | Topics: Local Businesses
October is breast cancer awareness month. Businesses, organizations, and individuals all across the United States are helping to raise money for this important cause. Here in Dublin, a local stay-at-home mom and small-business woman, Lisa Dillon, is doing the same. Lisa is an Independent Stylist for Stella & Dot, a San Francisco bay area-based jewelry company.
Through the month of October Stella & Dot has set up a Pink Boutique on their website where you can shop breast cancer research items such as “hope” and pink ribbon charms and other lovely pieces of jewelry to help the fight against breast cancer. Stella & Dot is donating 20% of all net sales from the Pink Boutique to breast cancer research. On top of this, to help our local community, Lisa has pledged to donate an additional 25% of her commission on top of Stella & Dot’s donation for every purchase that is made from her online Pink Boutique through the month of October.
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