Gyros: a food few Americans seem to pronounce right. But not a food one forgets once you’ve had. A combination of various meats, and served in strips, it is a staple of any American Greek restaurant.

And, as I am sure you can guess from my positive words, I am a fan of this food. And in Clearwater, there is only one Greek restaurant that has my patronage on any given day: The Hungry Greek.

For when I am a particular type of hungry, I go for the Greek. So, their name is apt. And their gyro meat is good. Everything I’ve had there is good. From the platters, to the soup, to the Greek salads I ritually consume, they create nice, varied meals. If you like Greek: they’ve got you covered.

And, if I may praise it more (because, after all, that is the point of this article) I’d commend the staff, who are always willing to deal with my specialty orders. And are prompt when making the food.

Now, when I say “prompt”, I am not claiming they will rush it out like a McDonald’s--because better food takes a little time. And you can watch them take that time, as they make it behind the large counter, as they assemble and cook with a spinning rotisserie of gyros, a stove, and sets of vegetables in trays--among other things.

As to the atmosphere—a large draw for any restaurant--it is...well: Greek. With music and décor giving the place a better feel than what you would receive at a random sub shop which only dabbles in the same themes.  

So, if you’re in the neighborhood of Clearwater Mall, and want something different than the standard roulette of Chipotle, Panera, and Five Guys, well, might I make a recommendation?

And if I may make one more: as you leave Hungry Greek, be sure to ring the bell on the wall. Because trust me, the results are fun.  

Opa!

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If you liked this article, you can read more of Brandon Scott’s work over at The Hive, or on his website: www.coolerbs.com  

Business is booming in our lovely beachside city of Clearwater, and it’s recently gained some national commendation to prove it.

In its latest September 2016 issue, Inc. magazine ranks Clearwater No. 1 in the nation for the number of private businesses rated in the magazine’s annual Inc. 500 list. Four made the cut this year, and an additional five businesses ranked in the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies.

Inc., founded in 1979 and based in New York City, is a monthly publication that focuses on growing companies. Each year it publishes an annual list of the fastest-growing private companies, titled “Inc. 500;” “Inc. 5000” is an expansion of that list and ranks the country’s top 5,000 fastest-growing companies according to percentage revenue growth over a three-year period. 

For Inc. 500, cities are tiered based on their populations in relation to their highest concentration of fast-growing companies, according to the September edition of the list; this year Clearwater out beat Irvine, CA; Alexandra, VA; Atlanta, GA; and Hollywood, FL  in those rankings, to name a few.

Here are the Clearwater studs that made the Inc. 500 list this year:

1.       Stratus (ranked No. 66)

2.       Telequote Insurance (113)

3.       KnowBe4 (139)

4.       Digital Medial Solutions (434)

And for the Inc. 5000 list:

1.       Progressive Dental (739)

2.       GovDirect (1,150)

3.       Pure Air Control Systems (1,638)

4.       CWU Inc. (1,939)

5.       Murphy Business & Financial Corporation LLC (3,061)

The city of Clearwater’s Economic Development and Housing Director Denise Sanderson was pleased with the news but not too surprised.

“Clearwater has and will continue to attract entrepreneurs, startups and established businesses poised for growth and expansion,” Sanderson says.

This is the fourth year in a row that Stratus, a company based in the language access industry that focuses on video, audio and in-person interpreting solutions, has made the Inc. 500 list, and is showing no signs of uprooting from its home base in Clearwater anytime soon.

“Clearwater has been an excellent home for us, and we plan to continue our growth in this innovative community,” says David Fetterolf, president of Stratus’ language access division. “It’s fantastic to share the same space as other companies that have made the Inc. list.”

Downtown Clearwater’s KnowBe4, an information technology and online security awareness training company, is also no stranger to Inc. magazine’s glory; from 2012 to 2015, Inc. ranked it the No. 1 security company for its percentage of growth in revenue in the nation.  Not bad for a six-year-old company with a 140+ staff.

Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Knowbe4 Stu Sjouwerman humbly credits the company’s success to Clearwater’s business climate and opportunity.

“Being in Clearwater has been great for KnowBe4,” Sjouwerman says. “It offers access to a trained workforce, low cost of living combined with a high quality of life, and a great financial climate that allows a startup to scale fast and generate new jobs.”

Apart from being an ideal spot for business, the nation also knows Clearwater as being an ideal place for pleasure purposes, too - remember how Trip Advisor bestowed it with the No. 1 title earlier this year for best beach in the country? (The second year in a row, let me remind you).

I’m naturally biased, born and raised in the city myself, but all this publicity makes it difficult to deny that Clearwater is just the hot place to be right now. (And that, still being mid summer, my double entendre is inarguably appropriate).

And now, to the final chapter of this article series where I promote the evolution of mankind through social technology.

This time around, I think I may get into the realms of science fiction. Or, at least, it seems that way sometimes. If the purpose of science fiction is to dream the future, then those dreams are popping up in the real world.

Because, with this spreading idea of interconnectivity on a cultural level, we are seeing its oddball adaptations along with its more expected ones.  

Where once was simply communication for the sake of learning and socializing, groups, like all good cells in a larger mass: specialized.

Uber and Lyft showed you can use the urge for people to help— along with a monetary incentive—and circumvent the old systems. Asking a question and getting an answer is the power of the collective search engine, and now more and more the same could be said of any request.

“Who wants to buy this?” “Can I get a ride?” “Who wants to party?” “Let’s go out on a date.” “Let’s hang out.” “Get drinks with me.” “Let’s play a game.”

All of these, if a person is willing, now have avenues to answer them. No need to search around town if you are without an option: ask the void and it echoes down the connected lines with usually at least someone willing to answer.

Amazon, the megastore of the new generation, plays on this idea. No more shall we struggle to find some product we need, now we only have to make the request with cash and it is brought—often cheaper than another way.

Some may call this lazy. I call it the future. As long as we can find bigger problems (and the world certainly has them), then we can use all the labor-saving we want--as long as it does not contribute to those same problems.

And, though it may seem like fanciful thoughts from the futurists and the dreamers, I believe we will see a country where we can all live connected and help each other by our connections.

One man or woman can walk the sandy beaches of Clearwater and broadcast the beautiful sunset, and then when it gets dark, begin a party that everyone knows about and all find impromptu new social interactions at. The ones unable to drive, driven by others. Food delivered in mass at a whim. And anyone who cannot attend still can be there in digital and treated like they are there in the flesh.

That doesn’t even sound like the far-flung future anymore.

It sounds like 2016.

And that, at the end of the day, is what I can promote. A culture of people. Not of class. Not of exclusivity. Not a monolith corporation. But people. Helping and creating and celebrating with other people.

I can promote it wholeheartedly.

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If you liked this article, you can read more of Brandon Scott’s work over at The Hive, or on his website: www.coolerbs.com  

With 430 restaurants in 28 countries, its original nestled in Clearwater since 1983, and many other bug-eyed-owl-decorated establishments sprinkled throughout the Tampa Bay area, Hooters is hailed and renowned for its’ three B’s: Beer, Bar food, Buxom waitresses  - and it’s just beckoned a fourth: bumpin’ Beats.

Recently Technomic, a research and consulting firm based in Chicago, Ill. that focuses on food and related products and services, ranked Hooters. No. 1 for having the best music at a casual-dining chain, according to RestaurantBusinessOnline.com. Technomic is a sister division to Restaurant Business, and the two collaborated on a special project that surveyed about 600 guests who visited a variety of chains nationwide.

This may seem like an insignificant honor, but it isn’t when you’re in the business of accommodating hungry Americans. Technomic’s research reveals that 52% of casual-dining guests say the music selection is “important” or “very important” to their experience, with it being marginally more important to millennials, women, nonwhites and folks who have an annual household income of $75K or more.

The ranking is based on the firm’s ongoing Consumer Brand Metrics program, which asks consumers to report on the importance of “music selection is appropriate” when visiting one its top 100-rated restaurants by system-wide sales.

Here’s the breakdown of Technomic’s rankings for top 10 casual-dining playlists:

1. Hooters

2. Maggiano's Little Italy

3. Yard House

4. Carrabba's Italian Grill

5. Joe's Crab Shack

6. Bonefish Grill

7. Cheesecake Factory

8. Cheddar's Scratch Kitchen

9. BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse

10. Logan's Roadhouse

Hooters stole the top spot with a solid 82.4% of customers classifying its music selection as being “very good” or “good.” About 73% and upwards of customers from the other nine restaurants gave the same rating on each’s respective music playlists.

According to RestaurantBusinessOnline.com, there seems to be no particular commonality to the above restaurants’ popular music choices; all seem to have fairly distinctive music playlists, ranging from classic rock, to mainstream pop, to R&B, to jazz, to even Frank Sinatra, to classics from most decades of the past 50 years, to a combination of most of these.

When I walked into the original Hooters, located at 2800 Gulf to Bay Blvd. in Clearwater, a couple weekends ago to place a to-go order of some mild chicken wings at my family’s request, the music was loud, mostly upbeat and all over the place, including a Franz Ferdinand single, to the most overplayed song of the late 2000’s: “Photograph” by Nickleback, to a country tune of which I couldn’t recall the name, to the good ‘ol 80’s classic“Take me Home Tonight” by Eddie Money.

Hooter’s plastic bag in hand, I arrived at my family’s destination humming Money’s classic that evening, opened up my heavenly smelling styrofoam box, and realized my waitress gave me regular mild wings instead of my requested “boneless” order. Maybe the music was so loud that it affected the young, blonde woman’s hearing? Maybe I spoke too fast. Maybe my bubbly waitress decided “bone-in” was the better choice and was too shy to tell me.  At least Hooters’ chefs prepare wings well enough to sell my family on eating the mistake.

So the next time you head to Hooters for some wings, like I recently did, for some beers or to watch some football with your buddies, pay attention to the tunes and judge them for yourself.

Since I’m talking about evolution and the ever-changing nature of the world’s interconnected technology, I can think of no better measuring stick or example of the abounding shifts as the social gaming idea and phenomenon.

Remember, that as near as the last human generation, a video game consisted of a single block and lines.

Now, we have, among other things:

• An exploration of radical capitalistic political ideology. (BioShock)
• A dark comedic take on the instant bending of physics to create blue and orange portals. (Portal)
• And a simulation where a nuclear war left our country in a strange, mostly destroyed, alternative history version of an idealized 1950’s. (Fallout 3)

And, let us not forget, how astonishing games you can play with each other even when you are not in the same place really are. Beyond correspondence chess, I don’t think such an idea was even in the forefront of anyone’s mind for centuries.

But now we have it, and it is a revelation of what can be accomplished. When you break down the world, it is already game-like, and now, for the sake of learning about each other, for the sake of competition, for the sake of entertainment, we can work with each other in wholly new ways.

Never before this could I, or you, at any given time, see how we might match intellectually against a world of other brains. Some people become so enamored with this concept, they do not feel the “real” world offers enough mental stimulation, and much prefer the digital space.

And, while I do not condone that, I will readily admit that at least until Pokémon Go became a thing, you could not go to places like Countryside Mall or Clearwater Mall or Pinellas Park and see magical monsters and capture them.

But while it may block some people off from the rest of the world, and limit them to their avatars in things like World of Warcraft, there are so many games that improve relationships, not destroy them.

And that I can promote. Multiplayer games, or one-on-one games like Words with Friends, Overwatch, Team Fortress 2, Clash of Clans, and the aforementioned Pokémon Go all do a great job of promoting friendships.

If playing a sport with a team builds trust in each other, then the same could be said of being on a digital team fighting off hordes of zombies or Nazis.

Or, in some cases, Zombie Nazis.

And that, is a good thing. It is social. When a person you never knew before can become a friend purely on an activity—no matter the geological location, or even being able to meet in person--that is a positive thing.

And sure, it can lead to problems. Some stranger-danger. But nothing is perfect and if we continue to promote all people are equal, then getting people interacting in an entertaining environment might just help cement the fact.

Because it is a fact.

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If you liked this article, you can read more of Brandon Scott’s work over at The Hive, or on his website: www.coolerbs.com