Valastro now uses the ELAN® g! system at his home, the Carlo’s Bakery Lackawanna Cake Factory and at Carlo’s Bakery Ridgewood.

PETALUMA, CALIFORNIA- February 13, 2013 — The world’s favorite celebrity baker, Buddy Valastro, is expanding his baking empire with the recent grand opening of the second Carlo’s Bakery location in Ridgewood, NJ, and he’s using the ELAN® g! system to provide simple and efficient A/V control.  Working with custom integrator 360 Media Innovations, Valastro now has three ELAN g! Entertainment and Control systems — one at his New Jersey home, one at the Carlo’s Bakery Lackawanna Cake Factory in Jersey City, NJ and one at the brand new Carlo’s Bakery location in Ridgewood, NJ.

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by Robert Archer

The restaurant business is extremely competitive and challenging. Failure rates are high. But integrators can give their restaurant and bar clients a competitive edge through ambiance.

Many restaurants are paying more attention to the audio content they distribute in their dining rooms. Custom audio playlists were once the domain of high-end restaurants but they’re trickling down to casual dining businesses, according to the Associated Press.

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JERSEY CITY, NJ—When you’re America’s favorite baker, you can’t be seen working in just any run-of-the-mill production center. That’s why celebrity baker Buddy Valastro reached out to the team at 360 Media Innovations, who worked with the Cake Boss star to create a customdesigned 35,000-square-foot bakery production center in Jersey City, NJ.

According to Chima Gale, president of 360 Media Innovations, the ELAN g! control system was the best choice for Carlo’s Bakery Lackawanna. “Because the ELAN g! graphical user interface is so easy to use, it’s perfect for this type of commercial installation, where a lot of people will be using the touch screens to adjust system settings. It will be simple to integrate additional subsystems in the future, and the already installed paging and safety features add so much value to the audio system that it would have been a waste to use any other product,” he said.

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PETALUMA, CALIFORNIA - August 1, 2012—After the owners of the New Jersey-based restaurant group Delicious Heights learned how much easier it was to manage their restaurant’s audio and video with the ELAN® g! Entertainment and Control System in one restaurant, they decided to upgrade their Berkeley Heights, N.J. flagship location from their original AMX system to ELAN g!  What’s more, and because everyday counts in the restaurant business, it was of the utmost importance that the g! system be online right away without disrupting a single hour of business operations.

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by D. Craig MacCormack

The area that seems to have the most potential is the two classrooms where Valastro, his decorators and other guest bakers will offer paid baking classes to the public. There’s talk of taking the classes to the Web too, says Gale, charging attendees a small fee to watch the live feed or recordings. “I see it as a cash cow,” Gale says.

There will also be a couple of digital signage players installed in the new Carlo’s, which will show clips of Valastro’s TV and public speaking appearances and give tour attendees more information about the history and future of the operation. The new space will also allow Carlo’s to start shipping its goodies across the country, or around the world.

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By Lisa Montgomery

It’s common when starting a business to have visions of grandeur. All too often, eager entrepreneurs dive into their new endeavors expecting a rush of clientele to stampede their storefronts.

In the custom electronics installation industry, these visions of greatness typically include working in huge, custom-built houses; installing elaborate, bells-and-whistles systems; and catering to customers who willingly give them carte blanche on the project.

In reality, it usually takes years to achieve this sort of business nirvana. To expect it to happen overnight is a big, fat pipe dream. Even CE pros who have been fortunate enough to reach the big leagues have recently had to scale down their grand business plans to weather the finicky economy.

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