Business Plan

The president of J&J Snack Foods Corp., the Pennsauken maker of soft pretzels and other snacks, yesterday predicted a strong 1993 despite a 36 percent drop in earnings for the first quarter, ended Dec. 26. "We're looking for each successive quarter from this point on to be better than last year's," said Gerald B. Shreiber, speaking to several dozen shareholders at the annual stockholders' meeting in Cherry Hill. He said the drop in first-quarter earnings "was in accord with our business plan.

US Airways president David N. Siegel said yesterday that he had postponed plans to meet with employees this month about the airline's need to cut costs, saying that the opposition of union leaders to talking about the company's plight had made the meetings pointless. Siegel, speaking to the airline's 28,700 employees in a recorded message, said public statements by union leaders had prompted him to put on hold plans for a "road show" across the airline's system, where he had planned to outline a new business plan on reducing costs.

Catalyst Energy Corp., the parent company of the firm that runs the Center City steam loop, agreed yesterday to a $202.5 million buy-out offer from the son of T. Boone Pickens, the Texas oilman and corporate takeover specialist. Thomas B. Pickens 3d signed an agreement with Catalyst, of New York, to acquire the approximately 18 million outstanding shares of Catalyst for $11.25 a share. Pickens formed a new company, Merrimac, for acquiring Catalyst's stock and taking the company private.

Several years ago, when the Franklin Institute began visualizing an expansion, planners became captivated by the lovely symmetry they could achieve if they only had a brain. The science museum's room-size heart - and, later, its transplant successor - not only connected to contemporary quantum leaps in understanding of the human body, but had also become a beloved landmark (if the term can be applied to a severely enlarged organ). The Giant Heart is reliably instructive in matters of blood transport.

Keith J. Mastronardo, 24, of St. Petersburg, Fla., an Upper Merion native who was a partner in a skin-care start-up seen on reality TV, died Tuesday, March 19, in a motorcycle accident in Florida. According to the Florida Highway Patrol, Mr. Mastronardo was riding a motorcycle east on Belleair Road in Largo when he swerved to avoid hitting an animal and was thrown off the bike. Police said Mr. Mastronardo was hit by a car driven by Jerome E. Mullarkey, 77, of Clearwater. Mr. Mastronardo died from his injuries at Largo Medical Center; the driver and a passenger were unhurt.

Jennifer Zoga and Liz Bales tried to follow all the right steps when they started their new business in Chestnut Hill. They put together a business plan, found a location on a busy street, and lined up the necessary financing. But they didn't count on getting kneecapped by petty Philadelphia politics. Their story is a cautionary tale for anyone who wants to start a small business in this city. Zoga and Bales, two smart moms who live in Chestnut Hill, spent a couple of years planning Good Food Market, an upscale shop that sells prepared foods and caters to other busy neighborhood families.

Woodward & Lothrop, the Washington parent of Philadelphia's John Wanamaker stores, presented its creditors with a five-year business plan that projects modest sales increases and lower expenses. The business plan, detailed in New York on Tuesday, outlines how the company intends to operate after emerging from bankruptcy. Woodward & Lothrop filed for protection from its creditors in January and expects to complete its bankruptcy reorganization in the spring.. "Overall, the business plan was well-received," Robert Mang, chairman of Woodward & Lothrop, said yesterday.

The founder of I'm Shmacked, the firm that posted video of local teens drinking and partying online, says he wants to "hash it out" on live TV with Lower Merion School District officials who objected to the post. Arya Toufanian, 19, of Potomac, Md., defended his business today, saying he "was not at all upset about Lower Merion complaining. " Asked to comment on the situation, Lower Merion schools spokesman Doug Young declined to be drawn into a debate with Toufanian. "Our focus is on the safety and well-being of our students, and that's the bottom line," Young said.

Like any good son, Fred Allegrezza wanted to make life easier for his mother. Unlike most sons with magnanimous ambitions, Allegrezza's actually led to a business - one aimed at helping the AARP generation turn on and tune in. To the Internet, that is. Allegrezza's business plan has a financial and a social bottom line - build profit and make isolation a less pervasive part of growing old. At the center of his entrepreneurial endeavor...

The Tucson fringe ring clutch for sale at Fishtown's Adorn Boutique just might be a must-have. So, too, a slice of butterscotch bourbon from Magpie Artisan Pie Shop on South Street. In Point Breeze, the American Sardine Bar, successor to what was a neighborhood scourge, is now a cozy eatery. But it's possible that nobody would have known without going inside those commercial establishments - underscoring one undeniable small-business fact: Curb appeal is no less important in this world than it is in residential real estate.