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Talk of the bay

By TIMES WIRES
Published December 23, 2006

RESTAURANT ROSTER EXPANDS IN BAY AREA

BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse, a Southern California chain of 55 sports bars that generated revenue of $222-million in 2006, will open its first stores in the Tampa Bay area in the spring. Westfield Town Center, Citrus Park mall and the Shoppes at Park Place in Pinellas Park signed deals for the large restaurants that tout a 100-item menu and serve a variety of handcrafted beers. Founded 28 years ago as a small, deep-dish pizza shop in Brea, Calif., BJ's today is described as a moderately priced version of the Cheesecake Factory. The menu includes bar food, pastas, entrees and a signature dessert called Pizzooti, which is a cookie dough pizza topped with ice cream.

Defense industry budget bodes well

If the direction of the war in Iraq seems unclear, the coming 2007 boom in defense industry contracts is perfectly clear. U.S. military contractors can expect to see a robust year in defense work, with the Pentagon's supplemental budget expected to balloon by 50 percent to roughly $99.7-billion next year, defense industry analysts say. Defense companies like General Dynamics Co., Lockheed Martin Corp., Raytheon Co., Alliant TechSystems Inc. and L-3 Communications Holdings - many of which have operations in or near the Tampa Bay area - should see a significant boost in procurement work by the federal government next year.

Journal skewers ads for Outback

The Wall Street Journal on Friday showed little mercy in choosing an ad campaign for the Outback Steakhouse restaurant chain in a list of five of "the worst" ads of the year. The ad, which no longer appears on TV, featured an Australian-sounding man praising Outback Steakhouse and some of its dishes while, in one ad, comparing himself to a boomerang. Tampa's OSI Restaurant Partners, which owns Outback, is now running ads that simply showcase shots of food - "a typical maneuver," said the Journal, "for a restaurant chain in the midst of an advertising holding pattern."

. THE TICKER

. tampabay.com

All about money

Times personal finance editor Helen Huntley talks about money topics and answers your finance questions at blogs.tampabay.com/money.

[Last modified December 22, 2006, 23:33:34]