Business First Bank moving to Jefferson Highway

Business First Bank has started renovating the old Regions Bank branch at Jefferson Highway and Essen Lane. The bank plans to move its local offices into the new location by September, says Paula Laird, executive vice president and chief accounting officer for Business First. "We're sitting on top of each other," Laird says. "The bank has grown very fast in three years, and we're looking to the future." The new location is 23,000 square feet, more than twice the size of the current offices in the Esplanade Mall on Corporate Boulevard. Business First, which was founded by former Gov. Buddy Roemer, has about 45 local employees.—Timothy Boone

VooDoo BBQ moving into Houma

VooDoo BBQ & Grill has sold the rights to open a restaurant in Houma. The Houma location of the Baton Rouge-based barbecue chain should open by the end of the year. This will be the 11th VooDoo BBQ in the state. The company plans to open a VooDoo BBQ Express in the Mall of Louisiana food court by August and a Denham Springs franchise will open later this year. Officials are looking at opening restaurants in Lafayette, Shreveport and Lake Charles.

La. initial jobless claims jump nearly 11%

Initial claims for unemployment benefits took a 10.9% jump last week statewide. The Louisiana Workforce Commission says there were 4,944 first-time claims for the week ending May 23. The previous week recorded a total of 4,458. For the comparable week ending May 24, 2008, there were 3,223 initial claims. Continued recipients with benefits increased slightly to 50,874 last week from the previous week's total of 50,008. Earlier this week, the state reported that Louisiana lost 8,000 non-farm jobs on a non-seasonally adjusted basis in April.

Public lodges budget requests with senators

The public was taking its turn today to ask Louisiana's senators for money in next year's budget. By mid-morning, nearly all the requests lodged with the Senate Finance Committee were for reversal of planned cuts to health care services and health spending. People in wheelchairs, business executives and more packed the committee room, spilling into the hall as they awaited their turn to make a pitch. Lawmakers say they are sympathetic to the requests, but giving money to one cause means cutting another—or finding a new source of funding that has yet to be tapped. And Gov. Bobby Jindal opposes many of the ideas for new funding. The 2009-10 budget has deep cuts to cope with an expected $1.3 billion drop in state general fund money.

Document firm gets new owner, name

Ivize, a legal document services firm, has a new owner and a new name. Chris McMahan bought out the local operations and has changed the name to Electronic Discovery of Baton Rouge. McMahan, a native of Baton Rouge, says the name change reflects what his company does: help law firms handle electronic evidence such as e-mails and text messages. "Right off the bat, people know what we do," he says. The company opened its operations downtown in October and has seven employees. McMahan says he doesn't plan to make any additional changes to the company.—Timothy Boone

AIDSLaw clinic open in Baton Rouge

AIDSLaw of Louisiana has opened a permanent Baton Rouge office, after 14 years of helping Capital Region clients. Gail Anderson, a funding coordinator for AIDSLaw in New Orleans, says before opening the office, the organization was making weekly visits to Baton Rouge. "We would visit clients at other AIDS service organizations, so we had to schedule all of the clients for one day," she says. AIDSLaw provides legal services to people with HIV/AIDS, such as discrimination protection, access to medical care and benefits and estate planning. The new office is on North Boulevard and is staffed by an attorney and an intake specialist; Anderson says the plan is to add another local lawyer.

All states approve CenturyTel acquisition

Telecommunications provider CenturyTel says its pending acquisition of Embarq has won regulatory approval from all 33 states in which the two companies operate. Monroe-based CenturyTel says the only action needed to complete the acquisition is approval from the Federal Communications Commission. CenturyTel says it will try to get FCC approval as quickly as possible. The last two states to approve the deal were Pennsylvania and Washington. Shareholders of both companies approved the acquisition Jan. 27. The deal calls for shareholders of Overland Park, Kan.-based Embarq to receive 1.37 CenturyTel shares for each share of Embarq stock.

Lights, camera, action: Check out 225’s summer movie preview

Giant fighting robots, bloody war scenes, dramatic teens. Despite the expected sequels and remakes, this summer looks like a fun one at the theater. Starting today, Pixar returns with perhaps its most whimsical adventure yet, the helium and 3-D enhanced Up, and director Sam Raimi’s return to horror, Drag Me to Hell, will give audiences chills. And for Woody Allen fans, the best part about the summer will be Whatever Works, starring Larry David of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Read 225 magazine's complete Summer Movie Preview here.

News roundup: Banks increasing checking fees ... Restaurant industry outlook improving

Gotta make money somewhere: After Congress took steps to reduce credit card fees, banks are now raising fees associated with checking accounts, reports USA Today. Banks such Wachovia, Bank of America and Citigroup are raising penalties for overdrawn accounts and making it more expensive for customers to transfer money to cover overdrafts. One researcher called the fees "a double whammy" coming on top of the federal bank bailout. Read the story here.

Looking up for dining out: An index that tracks the health of the U.S. restaurant industry hit its highest level in 11 months in April. That was the fourth consecutive monthly gain for the National Restaurant Association's Restaurant Performance Index. Restaurant officials say the index improvement has been driven by an increase in expansion plans, a sign that the dining downturn may be in sight. Fifty-nine percent of restaurant operators say sales dropped from April 2008 to last month, an improvement over the 63% who reported negative sales in March compared with the year before.