Category: Business

By Matt Wiley

During this busy season of holiday shopping, when so many gifts are being purchased online, it can be tough to decide which shipping method actually will get your purchases where they need to go in the time period left before the big gift-giving holiday. Sometimes, things get lost in the mail or delayed, forcing them to arrive later than expected.

However, this is not the case with New Tampa-based D & E Couriers, a local delivery service that truly ensures same-day delivery to locations all across the Tampa Bay area. D & E specializes in delivering packages, sensitive documents or anything else that individuals and businesses need delivered in a timely manner, without having to go through a major delivery service at the risk of that delivery showing up late.

Whether it’s document deliveries, pharmaceutical transfers, court deliveries, inter-office deliveries, bank deposits or payroll deliveries, D & E Couriers is your safe, dependable and efficient solution.

“We are always on time,” says D & E owner David Gross. “We are very conscious about (our delivery time).”

David and his wife Ellen (together, the “D & E” in the company’s name) have lived in New Tampa’s Heritage Isles community off Cross Creek Blvd. since they relocated to Florida twelve years ago from West Orange, NJ, where David ran a limousine service. Although he says he doesn’t like to drop names, he admits that transporting top-billed actors and directors around the Big Apple (New York City) was a pretty common task.

David sold that business before the couple moved to New Tampa, where he worked in retail sales and even got his real estate license. He also worked as an independent courier, delivering documents for law firms, prescriptions for doctors and pharmacies, as well as other deliveries for local companies before deciding to start his own delivery service.

“I knew I wanted to start a courier service, but I didn’t want to do limousine service anymore,” David explains.

Now, David has a fleet of independent couriers that work for him at D & E. Ellen handles the calls from businesses looking for a courier and dispatches drivers to handle the different deliveries.

“(Ellen’s) job is pretty tough,” David explains. “In addition to knowing the area well, she also has to know which driver is located within that surrounding area so that packages will get delivered in the most prompt manner.”

Despite owning the company, David still also does deliveries on a regular basis himself. On any given day, drivers may travel back and forth between Tampa and St. Petersburg multiple times before heading as far north as Brooksville and then taking something back to South Tampa, David says.

“We have access to as many drivers as a company may need,” David explains. “All of which are insured and have been personally interviewed by me.”

Drivers have their own vehicles and look to D & E for assignments. Although D & E is mostly a local service, the couriers can make deliveries all over the state.

“We pride ourselves on same-day deliveries, locally,” David says. “However, we can make deliveries across the state. If you need something taken to Miami, or even Jacksonville, we’ll get it there, quickly. It just won’t be in an hour.”

D & E offers four levels of service: Express, Standard, Economy and Priority Out-of-Town. Customers are charged for each service based upon the mileage required for each delivery and the time in which the package (whatever it may be) needs to be delivered. Whatever the per-mile rate is determined to be for Economy Service, the price for Standard and Express service will be slightly higher.

Express Service promises pick-up and delivery with 90 minutes of the package being ready. Standard Service promises pick-up and delivery within three hours of being ready. Economy Service ensures that all deliveries that are ready for pick-up by 11 a.m. will be delivered by the end of the business day at 5 p.m.

“What a lot of people don’t realize is that courier services are usually cheaper and, in many cases, more reliable than the big-name overnight delivery services,” David explains. “A lot of people don’t even realize that they can use courier services for their deliveries.”

West Meadows resident and local attorney Dennis Kapustin knows the benefits of using D & E well.

“We use D & E for all of our courier services,” Kapustin says. “D & E has always been good to me. I can’t give them a better rating. No matter what it is, (D & E) always is prompt and efficient.”

Kapustin explains that he uses D & E to send legal documents around town to clients and other attorneys, including wills, trusts and real estate deeds.

“I highly recommend D & E,” Kapustin says.

Need something delivered around town the same day? Give D & E Couriers a try. For more info, please visit DECouriersInc.com or call 994-5909.

 

By Matt Wiley

During this busy season of holiday shopping, when so many gifts are being purchased online, it can be tough to decide which shipping method actually will get your purchases where they need to go in the time period left before the big gift-giving holiday. Sometimes, things get lost in the mail or delayed, forcing them to arrive later than expected.

However, this is not the case with New Tampa-based D & E Couriers, a local delivery service that truly ensures same-day delivery to locations all across the Tampa Bay area. D & E specializes in delivering packages, sensitive documents or anything else that individuals and businesses need delivered in a timely manner, without having to go through a major delivery service at the risk of that delivery showing up late.

Whether it’s document deliveries, pharmaceutical transfers, court deliveries, inter-office deliveries, bank deposits or payroll deliveries, D & E Couriers is your safe, dependable and efficient solution.

“We are always on time,” says D & E owner David Gross. “We are very conscious about (our delivery time).”

David and his wife Ellen (together, the “D & E” in the company’s name) have lived in New Tampa’s Heritage Isles community off Cross Creek Blvd. since they relocated to Florida twelve years ago from West Orange, NJ, where David ran a limousine service. Although he says he doesn’t like to drop names, he admits that transporting top-billed actors and directors around the Big Apple (New York City) was a pretty common task.

David sold that business before the couple moved to New Tampa, where he worked in retail sales and even got his real estate license. He also worked as an independent courier, delivering documents for law firms, prescriptions for doctors and pharmacies, as well as other deliveries for local companies before deciding to start his own delivery service.

“I knew I wanted to start a courier service, but I didn’t want to do limousine service anymore,” David explains.

Now, David has a fleet of independent couriers that work for him at D & E. Ellen handles the calls from businesses looking for a courier and dispatches drivers to handle the different deliveries.

“(Ellen’s) job is pretty tough,” David explains. “In addition to knowing the area well, she also has to know which driver is located within that surrounding area so that packages will get delivered in the most prompt manner.”

Despite owning the company, David still also does deliveries on a regular basis himself. On any given day, drivers may travel back and forth between Tampa and St. Petersburg multiple times before heading as far north as Brooksville and then taking something back to South Tampa, David says.

“We have access to as many drivers as a company may need,” David explains. “All of which are insured and have been personally interviewed by me.”

Drivers have their own vehicles and look to D & E for assignments. Although D & E is mostly a local service, the couriers can make deliveries all over the state.

“We pride ourselves on same-day deliveries, locally,” David says. “However, we can make deliveries across the state. If you need something taken to Miami, or even Jacksonville, we’ll get it there, quickly. It just won’t be in an hour.”

D & E offers four levels of service: Express, Standard, Economy and Priority Out-of-Town. Customers are charged for each service based upon the mileage required for each delivery and the time in which the package (whatever it may be) needs to be delivered. Whatever the per-mile rate is determined to be for Economy Service, the price for Standard and Express service will be slightly higher.

Express Service promises pick-up and delivery with 90 minutes of the package being ready. Standard Service promises pick-up and delivery within three hours of being ready. Economy Service ensures that all deliveries that are ready for pick-up by 11 a.m. will be delivered by the end of the business day at 5 p.m.

“What a lot of people don’t realize is that courier services are usually cheaper and, in many cases, more reliable than the big-name overnight delivery services,” David explains. “A lot of people don’t even realize that they can use courier services for their deliveries.”

West Meadows resident and local attorney Dennis Kapustin knows the benefits of using D & E well.

“We use D & E for all of our courier services,” Kapustin says. “D & E has always been good to me. I can’t give them a better rating. No matter what it is, (D & E) always is prompt and efficient.”

Kapustin explains that he uses D & E to send legal documents around town to clients and other attorneys, including wills, trusts and real estate deeds.

“I highly recommend D & E,” Kapustin says.

Need something delivered around town the same day? Give D & E Couriers a try. For more info, please visit decouriersinc.com or call 994-5909.

 

By Bonnie Mason

Body hair is increasingly looked upon as a nuisance by both men and women. And, although waxing and electrolysis still have their place and are recommended for certain body areas and skin types, laser hair removal has exponentially gained popularity. Continue reading

Where there is smoke, there may be fire. And, where there are smoking needs, there is Best Smoke Shop & Hookah, with everything smokers need and more, plus a hookah lounge coming soon.

If Best Smoke Shop & Hookah — located just east of I-75 on S.R. 54 in Wesley Chapel — doesn’t have it, owner Dean Refai says that he will get it for you. Since 2012, Refai’s shop has been the epicenter of smoking supplies, carrying everything from hookahs and waterpipes to cigars and E-cigarettes, plus everything in between.

“We know everything there is to know about smoke,” Refai says. “I think Wesley Chapel needed a store like this.”

Refai decided to open Best Smoke Shop after some friends recommended it as a good entrepreneurial venture. Before opening the shop, Refai was working for a car dealership in Tampa, but says he wasn’t happy, so he and his wife decided to open a smoke shop. The doors opened to the original location, on E. Fowler Ave. in Tampa, in 2007.

Seeing a need, and already living in the area, Refai decided to move Best Smoke Shop to its current Wesley Chapel location in 2012.

“We sell everything about smoking,” Refai says. “If customers don’t see what they’re looking for, I will special order it for them.”

However, it’s not often that Best Smoke Shop doesn’t have what its customers are looking for, Refai says, because of his constant travel around the country to attend industry conventions, where all of the latest smoking- related products are always on display.

“Our inventory is always rotating,” Refai says. “If I see something new at a show, I get it. I try to keep up with everything new that comes out.”

Refai says that products can even change as quickly as month-to-month, as new fads begin to trend. One of the more recent examples, he explains, is electronic smoking. To keep up with the popularity of E-cigarettes and even E-hookahs, Refai keeps his shop stocked up with all the latest flavors from 7’s E Cigarettes, some of which contain no nicotine.

“(E-cigs) are good for helping people to quit smoking cigarettes,” Refai says. “I carry liquids that contain less nicotine than most cigarettes and some flavors that have little to no nicotine. I’ve had about 60 customers tell me that E-cigs have helped them quit smoking cigarettes in the past few months.”

Instead of smoking actual tobacco leaves, E-cigarettes vaporize a liquid and produce no actual smoke. Customers simply purchase and plug a liquid-filled cartridge into the battery-powered E-cigarette.

“Because they have the habit of holding something in their hands, (E- cigarettes) still give them the feeling of smoking without actually smoking,” Refai explains.

Of course, if a customer isn’t interested in quitting smoking cigarettes, Refai says, they also have the option of purchasing the cartridges that contain the normal amount of nicotine as a traditional cigarette. He adds that, in addition to not getting the typical cigarette odor on your clothes from smoking cigarettes and the convenience of still being able to “smoke” them indoors, E-cigarettes give smokers the option to wean themselves off of their nicotine addiction at their own pace.

The store also carries everything necessary to roll your own cigars and cigarettes at home, including Raw-brand cigarette-rolling papers. Best Smoke Shop also carries a wide range of different tobacco brands.

Don’t feel like rolling your own? Best Smoke Shop also carries traditional cigarettes, as well as a variety of premium cigars from popular brands such as Cohiba, Garcia y Vega, Montecristo and Romeo y Julieta.

The store also carries a variety of vaporizers, pipes and water pipes, for tobacco use only. Refai says his top- selling water pipe brand is Roor.

If you enjoy hookah smoking, Best Smoke Shop carries several brands, the most popular being Khalil Maamoon, Refai says. Hookahs vary in size from a few inches tall with one hose, to decorative hookahs that are several feet tall with multiple hoses.

Refai is in the process of adding a hookah lounge to the shop, complete with couches and even a belly dancer, but he says that he still is working out the details with Pasco County.

Refai insists: everything in the shop is legal to sell.

“It’s a clean smoke shop,” he explains. “We believe in clean business. We don’t sell anything that is illegal.”

Besides the wide range of smoking products, Refai says his customers will come back for Best Smoke Shop’s surprisingly low prices, something he makes a point of checking at other shops when he visits other cities.

“I just went to Houston last month and saw prices that were 70 percent higher than mine,” he says. It was the same thing when I was in Miami. We have the lowest prices in the area. I go out and search shops and online and make a conscious effort to keep our prices low.”

But, don’t just take his word for it.

“I come here all the time and the prices are the best around,” says a Meadow Pointe resident named Scott. “Dean knows what he’s talking about and always has the newest products. Before I came here, I would always get stuff on- line, but Best Smoke Shop is cheaper than (shopping on) the web.”

Tracy, a Quail Hollow resident, adds, “(Best Smoke Shop) is a great place. It has lots of good products and is always clean. I try to support local merchants whenever possible and Dean always has such a great selection.”

And, as if the prices weren’t low already, check the Best Smoke Shop ad on page 18 for a coupon that’s good for an additional 20-percent off select items.

Best Smoke Shop & Hookah is located at 28411 Wesley Chapel Blvd. (S.R. 54) and is open Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m., and 11 a.m.-7 p.m. on Sunday. Do you want to know if Dean carries a specific product? Call the shop at 991-1188 or visit BestSmokeShopFlorida.com.

And, don’t forget to “Like” the shop’s Facebook.com page, where new products are announced as they arrive.