Birmingham Business Journal's AJ O'Leary on new developments in the area

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Alabama's Morning News.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm JT and joined us now from the Birmingham Business
Journal is Aj O'Leary, the finance and law reporter.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Good to see AJ. Welcome in.

Speaker 3 (00:08):
Good to see JT. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
So we've got a couple of cool things happening in
our area here.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
It's interesting.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
We're talking about I guess a fast growing franchise here
with a golf simulator. My son is a coach up
in West Virginia and one of the other coaches has
a golf simulator in his house instead of doing a
theater room, he wanted to put a golf simulator in
here because he loves golf.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
So apparently now a guy named Michael Weber.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Here in town, who's an entrepreneur, has decided he's going
to start this franchise for golf simulators.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
What's his background? Michael's background?

Speaker 3 (00:43):
First of all, Oh yeah, so Michael Weber owner of
Weber Mortgage. He did mortgages, okay, and he had a
golf simulator in the basement of one of his offices
just to like entertain clients, entertain people just a blast.
Oh yeah, yeah, they're great.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
So now I thought, wait minute.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
And then just started a side hustle, right and now
it's to the point he has two locations, just rints
it out for fifty dollars an hour. It's a whole
business that he wants to expand.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
So you could, you know, get it for a couple
of hours for a bunch of guys to get together
have a little party and can you Is it kind
of like top golf where you can get beverages and
food and stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Is he to that point with it.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Or well he rints it out, it's a it's a
byob thing.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Oh and byof you're on food.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yeah, exactly, okay, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Well that's kind of cool. So where's the location here
in town? Can we do this now? Or do you
know if they're just getting started with all of this
or yep?

Speaker 3 (01:37):
So right now he has locations in Vestavia, Hills, Trustville, Birmingham,
and Huntsville.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
Oh nice. So he's onto something.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Called the golfers if you want to look it up.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
The golfers instead of office golfers love it, love it?

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Well?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
How soon before Top Golf comes over and says we'll
buy your company.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
We're bigger than you. Or is this guy like, hey, no,
I've got my own little thing going.

Speaker 3 (01:59):
I mean, that's the question. My friend who.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Knows everything's for sale, is he still in the mortgage business?

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Uh? I believe so, yeah, yeah, there's still in Weber Mortgage.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Until this starts out pacing that it'll probably stay in
the mortgage business and still do this and have some fun.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Well that's kind of cool. High five Michael Weber. Absolute
great idea.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Oh yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Think I'll go do that pretty soon. Here and take
a look here all right.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Also happening new grocery store coming to town in Birmingham.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
What's going on?

Speaker 3 (02:25):
Oh? Yeah, So the Birmingham City Council just gave eight
hundred or approved rather eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars
in incentives to bring Carver Jones Market to town. They
are They previously tried to open a location in Fairfield

(02:47):
but that didn't work out, but they now they have
a new spot. It used to be a save a
lot on Dennison Avenue in Birmingham, and it's really they
just want to be kind of a very community focused
grocery store, right right, right, you know an area that
could probably use some more access to that, right right.

(03:08):
And the guy who's running it. He's been in the
grocery store business forever and uh he is trying to
I think he wants to start in Birmingham, but he
said he has multiple cities interested in the Carver Jones
market contest.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
So is there a timeline as to when it's going
to be opened up and are they still working on
getting all the ducks in a row financially, signing, paperwork,
real estate. I mean they've got the building obviously, but
you know, well how long before customers can enjoy.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
Sure, so they I believe they are targeting and opening
of next year. They had they do have to build
out the space. It was already it was going to
be a grocery store that fell through, So they have
a little bit of work to do on the space,
but they're targeting and opening sometime next year.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Awesome, Awesome, a couple of good news stories. There no
doubt about it. AJ thanks for coming in.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
J T.