Clarion-Ledger from Jackson, Mississippi • A10

Business SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 2014 THE CLARION-LEDGER clarionledger.com PAGE 10A FAMILY FRANCHISE PORTFOLIO Groundbreaking set Maulik Patel's latest venture along with brothers Ricky and Jay is The Pita Pit at Outlets of Mississippi in Pearl, greg jenson THE CLARION-LEDGER Open for business Brothers add pita sandwich shop to family's portfolio TO MAKE A PIT STOP The Pita Pit is open seven days a week, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. for Biloxi stadium Biloxi officials will break ground next week on their new downtown baseball stadium. Mayor A.J. Holloway said Gov.

Phil Bryant is expected to be on hand for the ceremony on Thursday. A group led by Ken Young bought the Class AA Huntsville Stars and the team will move to Biloxi when the stadium opens in 2015. During a special meeting Tuesday, architects and engineers will provide the Biloxi City Council with details of the construction. IRS makes Free File available now To help people get a jump on their taxes before the Jan. 31 filing season opens, the Internal Revenue Service on Friday announced the immediate availability of Free File software for most taxpayers.

Fourteen commercial software companies that provide their Free File tax prep products at no cost began offering their products available only at IRS.govfreefile. If your income is $58,000 or less, you will find at least one, if not more, offers available to you. If you complete and e-file your tax return now, the Free File companies will hold it until Jan. 31 when the IRS begins accepting returns. Last year, almost 30,000 Mississippi taxpayers filed their federal tax returns for free.

Trade with Canada focus of webinar The Mississippi Development Authority and the U.S. Commercial Service are hosting a webinar Jan. 30 to help businesses in the state take advange of trade opportunities with Canada, the largest single export market for the United States. "Doing Business and the Opportunities in Western Canada" will be a.m. The webinar is free, but registration is required.

Crystal Roberts, senior commercial specialist with the U.S. Consulate General Calgary in Alberta, Canada, will highlight the opportunities in various industry sectors as well as upcoming and ongoing regional projects. The deadline to register is Jan. 29. For more information, contact Vickie Watters Martin at (601) 359-2070.

Agritourism topic of coastal workshop Alligator trapping, birding ventures and Louisiana's laws are just a few of the topics to be addressed at the Coastal EcoAgritourism Workshop in Lake Charles, on Feb. 11. Coastal residents interested in earning income from nature-based tourism may want to attend the one-day workshop at the Louisiana State University Ag-Center's Lake Charles Office from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Sponsored by Louisiana Sea Grant, LSU Ag-Center and Mississippi State University, the program also will help individuals manage wildlife resources on their properties.

Registration is $25 per person or $30 per couple and includes lunch, snacks and reference materials. For more information, contact Twyla Herring-ton at (504) 858-9826 or or Dora Ann Hatch at (318) 245-6791 or dhatchagcenter.lsu.edu. Staff, wire reports that comes with running a restaurant. On a visit to Oxford Patel is a University of Mississippi graduate he visited The Pita Pit there and was impressed with its health-conscious offerings. The Pita Pit started in Canada in 1995 and came to the U.S.

four years later. It has 300 stores throughout North America. Much of the chain's growth has come in the last three years, as more restaurant diners look for healthy food low in trans-fats, carbohydrates and calories, says Dirk Ferrell, the company's franchise developer. "The public is really starting to look at us," he said. Ferrell worked with the Patel brothers in launching the Pearl location and says they're the kind of franchisers the chain needs to bring it to a broader audience.

"They have vast experience. They're organized. They've been successful in the restaurant business. Everybody was impressed with the way they do business." To contact Jeff Ayres, call (601) 961-7050 or follow jeffayres71 on Twitter. By Jeff Ayres jeff.ayresjackson.gannett.com While still in high school, Maulik Patel got his first exposure to the working world by joining the family business.

But that business is, in fact, a number of businesses, often run simultaneously, from convenience stores to hotels and restaurants. The newest venture for Patel, now 27, is a local franchise of The Pita Pit, a pita sandwich chain that opened its second Mississippi location in November at The Outlets of Mississippi in Pearl. He runs it with his older brothers, 33-year-old Rakesh "Ricky" Patel and 30-year-old Jayesh "Jay" Patel. The other location, which they aren't involved with, is in Oxford. "We wanted to bring something unique and different" to the metro area in offering healthier food options than other fast-casual restaurants," Patel said.

"My whole family is vegetarian, and it's hard to find a lot of (restaurant) food we can eat." Business has been brisk so far, as the restaurant capital- ized on the buzz surrounding The Outlets' November opening, which coincided with the start of holiday shopping season. With the Christmas sales rush over until this November, Patel and his brothers hope to build on that momentum during the warmer months. The family hopes to open four more Pita Pit locations in the next five years, including one at Ridgeland's Township at Colony Park. For the last decade, Patel has maintained a workload many people 10 or 20 years his senior couldn't match. He joined his brothers' burgeoning enterprise, which currently includes eight convenience stores in the metro area, hotels in Hazlehurst and Waynesboro and The Pita Pit.

He says he and his brothers remember how hard their parents worked to provide a good life for them and wanted to develop the same work ethic for themselves. Patel says having his brothers as business partners was comforting from the start, as he already had a sense of their workplace personalities and how they conducted day-to-day business. But he says they told him from the outset that he'd get no special treatment from them just because he was their kid brother. "At home, they're fun, they joke around," he said. "At work, they want to see me learn, to grow as they did.

We can operate anything you put in front of us." Patel grew up fast. At 17, he was managing a family hotel. As he progressed through college, he got involved in the family's other businesses and was put in charge of a Mexican eatery they owned in Pearl. The year he spent running that restaurant, now under different management, taught him about not only providing quality food to customers but supervising employees, setting schedules, working with vendors and dealing with the everyday volatility All about the watch power Miss, wants suit against Entergy in state court NEW YORK How will we watch TV in five years? It's an apropos question fresh off the International CES trade show in Las Vegas, where lust-worthy Ultra High-Definition 4K televisions were ubiquitous. CES is also where I moderated a panel on that very topic, with top TV executives from Starz, Twitter and Verizon.

The question goes beyond the physical TV that will anchor your home theater. It touches on how you'll find what to watch, how you'll pay to watch it, and how and where it will be delivered. The broadband pipe will be faster. Your social networks will remain major influences. And you can expect the usual mix of pricey-to-produce glitz and popular series, cheaper homegrown-type videos and everything in between including, of course, live news and sports.

Take it as a given that by 2019, some of you, perhaps most, will own at least one big, beautiful 4K TV boasting four State claims utility charged too much By Jack Elliott Jr. Associated Press Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood is asking a federal judge to return the state's lawsuit against Entergy Mississippi to Hinds County Chancery Court. Hood filed suit against the power company December 2008, claiming it overcharged customers by buying electricity from affiliates at a higher rate than on the open market, then passing the inflated costs along to consumers. Entergy has denied the allegations. Company officials say regulatory agencies are the proper groups to decide the issue.

Entergy requested the move of the state's lawsuit from state court to federal court. "Our position is regardless of what court this case is heard in we are confident that our practices have been fair to customers and we're optimistic that will be the court's finding," Entergy spokeswoman Mara Hart-mann said Thursday. In 2012, U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate denied Hood's motion to have the case heard in state court, ruling that federal court was the proper forum for the lawsuit. Hood wants Wingate to send the case back to Hinds County.

The attorney general said the landscape has changed with a ruling this week by the U.S. Supreme Court that lawsuits brought by attorneys general to enforce their states' laws should be heard in state court. The ruling came in a different case filed by Hood. "This is a state issue and should be addressed in state court. We think it only fair, given this recent ruling clarifying See LAWSUIT, Page 11A EDWARD BAIG times the resolution of HDTV.

It may well be a curved TV similar to those shown at CES, assuming curved TVs aren't some passing fancy. Your TV of the future might even "bend" from flat to curved and back, similar to TVs that Samsung and LG had on display. Maybe that centerpiece television will also let you watch 3D TV without the glasses, assuming anyone still gives a hoot about 3D on a home TV. Let's also presume that five years hence, you won't have to pay an arm and a leg for a ster- See BAIG, Page 11A.