Business as unusual

Oh, brother. Had a whole long post written on my Treo and lost it.... Grrr. You'll know how frustrated I've been with getting all my programs to work together if you read Blogforbusiness.

Anyway, was talking about the beauty of having fireplaces and wine available at a place you come to do business. I wrote about the Vinea Wine and Coffee Bar/cum/business center in an earlier post.

Today I decided (after finding that Phoenix Coffee House's A/C was broken) that I would go find this place. I'm glad I did. Will write more after I finish my lunch and get onto a regular computer--so I won't have to deal with losing my post several times (for various reasons).

So here we go--hitting send. Hope it all works out as intended (as the software programmers say).

Okay, now that I'm back at the office and see this went through okay, I can tell you that Mindy, the lady at the Information Desk, showed me around--the owners of Vinea have taken the old building and done nice things with it. Warm, rich paint colors enhance the high-ceilinged atmosphere. Wireless connections throughout the facility, cubicles for rent ($3.50 an hour) if you need a quiet place to work (you bring your own computer), or a couple of offices for rent with computers (nice ones, too, with cool flat screen monitors) already set up. Or you can just sit in the lounge area to work (no charge).

Several video conferencing rooms available. They had two meetings going on when I was there. Lunch, breakfast, wine, coffee, stools at the bar, high tables, or leather couches by the fireplace (they brought me over a folding snack table to work on while I ate and worked from one of the deep cushioned brown leather easy chairs).

Parking's a bit of a hassle. I got a meter half a block away. Two bucks for two hours, but you could go to the Halle parking next door (which by the way, has a 24-hour, by-appointment auto detailing service--cool). But next time you're downtown without an office and want to meet with someone, or just get some work done in a nice atmosphere, check it out at 1220 Huron Road. Congratulations again, Jayne and friends, on this pleasant, eminently useful oasis for NEO entrepreneurs.