Osteen joins restaurant group in Nashville

One-time Charleston celebrity chef Louis Osteen has landed in yet another kitchen, this time in Music City.

The Tennessean newspaper recently reported that Osteen is now in Nashville, where he is an executive chef for Hospitality Development Group and will work at three of the company's restaurants: Watermark Restaurant, Miro District Food & Drink and Blind Pig No. 55.

Osteen, who helped put Lowcountry cuisine on the map, opened his first restaurant in 1980 on Pawleys Island and gained national acclaim at what is now Charleston Grill in the lobby of Charleston Place.

Osteen left that gig to open Louis's Bar and Restaurant at 200 Meeting St., a costly venture that fizzled and closed in 2001. He then went back up the coast, to where he got his start to open Louis's at Pawleys and the adjacent Fish Camp Bar on U.S. Highway 17. Both went under in 2008. Also shuttered that same year was his Las Vegas eatery, Louis's Las Vegas.

Osteen landed next running the kitchen at South Seas Island Resort in Captiva, Fla., before moving over to Lake Rabun Hotel Restaurant in Lakemont, Ga., about a year ago.

Thinking cap

South Carolina residents can win $20,000 in cash prizes for the best business idea through the New Ideas SC Contest, which runs through Sept. 20. Now in its sixth year, the contest is based on the idea's viability, innovation, vision and financial potential.

Henry Hay, owner of the Muhler Company in Charleston, took home the grand prize in the last contest for his idea for the "Storm Stud." The product has since gone into production.

The grand prize winner will receive $5,000 of seed money for the best business idea, a scholarship to a FastTrac entrepreneurial training program, tickets to the Small Business Innovation Summit and Expo and a dream team of mentors to help the winner cultivate the idea.

Five first-place prizes of $2,500 will be awarded in the categories of bio-science, software/information technology, engineering, environmental sustainability and wild card. Each winner will receive a scholarship to FastTrac and tickets to the expo. Five $1,000 honorable mention prizes will be distributed as well as in each category.

Participants can enter their idea at www.newideassc.com. Winners will be announced at the expo in Charleston on Nov. 3.

Hot item

When it's hot, people turn anywhere to cool off, especially to cold drinks.

In June, when temperatures averaged more than 5 degrees above their normal summer hotness, Charleston residents and visitors chugged down iced coffee, iced lattes and frozen slushies to chill out, according to local Dunkin' Donuts franchise operator Coastal Franchising.

Local stores sold 10,000 more iced drinks in June than they did in May at the Massachusetts-based coffee and baked goods company.

Iced coffee sales jumped 12 percent and sales of the company's Coolatta frozen slushies spiked a remarkable 63 percent since the weather warmed up, according to George Ross, chief executive of Coastal Franchising, which owns nine Charleston-area Dunkin' Donuts stores.

Helping boost sales in June were two new slushy flavors: blue raspberry and a return of watermelon.

Coastal Franchising acquired four area Dunkin' Donuts franchises in 2007 and has since added five more.

Plans for others are in the works, according to a company press release.

Fashionable?

Forever 21, the trendy discount clothier replacing Saks Fifth Avenue at the corner of King and Market streets, recently caught heat over its new Love 21 Maternity line, since the store widely appeals to teenage girls.

Forever 21 executive vice president Larry Meyer released a statement to media saying the company did not create, design or distribute the maternity line to target pregnant teen customers. The statement added that any relationship between teen pregnancy rates and store locations carrying the line is unintentional.

Saks shut its doors in Charleston on July 17, and Forever 21 should occupy the prime corner lot in the downtown shopping district by year's end.

Inbox overload

If your spam folder is usually overflowing, it's with good reason.

South Carolina ranks third in the nation with a spam rate of 93.6 percent, meaning nine of every 10 e-mails sent to the state are worthless, according to Symantec Hosted Services in its annual MessageLabs Intelligence Special Report.

Idaho, for the second consecutive year, gets the most useless e-mail with a 95.2 percent rate, well over the national average of 89.3 percent. Alabama comes in second at more than 93 percent of e-mails as spam.

Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, topped the list of the least spammed states or territories for a second year in a row. Montana and Louisiana came in second and third, respectively.

The most spammed industries in the U.S. are engineering, automotive and construction while the least spammed are finance, administration/business support services and public sector.

Areas with greater populations of small-to-medium sized businesses are likely to receive the greatest proportion of spam, draining them of valuable resources such as bandwidth, processing power and employee productivity. Similarly, the least spammed areas are often home to some of the largest companies.