“The local artwork reflects the locally sourced approach we take to fresh ingredients that has helped us build a loyal clientele over the past 20 years,” Co-Owner Steve Horowitz said.

Margaux’s uses multiple local vendors for vegetables, meats, and cheeses for the creative, changing menu items in Chef de Cuisine Andrew Pettifer’s fusion of French, Southern and Asian cuisines.

Regularly one of the most popular annual culinary celebrations in North Raleigh, Margaux’s Lobster Fest requires advance reservations to secure one or more of the guests of honor, flown in special for the event. Interesting takes on lobster that will be on the menu June 7 include prosciutto-wrapped lobster nuggets, white lobster pizza, and filet mignon with lobster tail, in addition to the traditional whole steamed lobster.

Reservations for Lobster Fest can be made by calling (919) 846-9846.

The event is a premier “thank you” to Margaux’s ever-growing cadre of loyal customers from Raleigh and Durham for their contributions to the restaurant’s fun, welcoming atmosphere of artistic flair and gourmet fare.

“We’ve been seeing familiar faces come through the doors these past 20 years, and their patronage has helped us keep the same staff in place for all that time, which maintains high quality food and service,” Horowitz explained. Unique to the restaurant business, which regularly sees staff turnover and failed businesses, Margaux’s has not only been able to keep its doors open, but has kept multiple staffers who have worked 10, 15, even all 20 years in the kitchen and on the floor.

“Not a lot of independent restaurants that feature fresh, local ingredients can make it in this day and age,” Horowitz said, adding, “There’s no doubt the familiarity our customers have with our staff has created a real family feel to the place which has contributed to our success and allowed us to expand our facilities and menu.”

Some of the newer offerings at Margaux’s include an Early Byrd Three-Course Prix Fixe Menu for just $19.95 as well as other three-course specials like Tantalizing Tuesdays which feature meals such as jumbo lump crab remoulade salad with fried green tomatoes and bitter greens; grilled iberico boneless pork chop with curried parsnip chutney and sweet potato mash; and strawberry pie with vanilla ice cream, all garnished with a glass of Entrada Cabernet. Details on these and other menu items can be found online at www.MargauxsRestaurant.com.

During the Lobster Fest, a wide variety of other martinis will be available from Margaux’s full bar which also boasts popular draught selections, domestic and imported bottle beer, and an impressive wine list with well over 100 different quality selections.

Additional information on the June 7 Lobster Fest, including a full menu, can be found online at www.MargauxsRestaurant.com. Website visitors can sign-up for Margaux’s Pampered Palate Club, an email subscription list that provides regular updates on upcoming cooking demonstrations, wine tastings and gatherings, and even provides some of Chef Andrew’s homemade recipes.

Margaux’s regular dinner hours, 5:30 – 9:00 Monday through Thursday. Lunch is served Thursdays and Fridays from 11:30 – 1:30, with dinner available from 5:30 – 10:00 Friday and Saturday. Reservations and pre-orders are required for the June 7 Lobster Fest by calling (919) 846-9846.

ABOUT MARGAUX’S
A North Raleigh icon for 20 years, Margaux’s Restaurant continues to offer a unique blend of culinary delight and artistic flair. An adventurous menu designed by internationally trained Chef de Cuisine Andrew Pettifer changes daily, engaging the palate in a never-ending exploration of amazing flavor combinations. A welcoming, visually stimulating dining environment is professionally managed by Margaux’s family of seasoned waitstaff, turning guests into regulars who keep coming back for lunch and dinner again and again. An upscale, relaxed bar area, impressive wine list, plentiful parking, full banquet facilities and alfresco dining in a beautifully landscaped outdoor patio make Margaux’s a dining destination for grown-ups of all ages. Margaux’s is conveniently located in the easy-to-find Brennan Station shopping center on Creedmor Road just off 540; visit www.MargauxsRestaurant.com for daily menu updates and more details.

“There are a lot of cleantech businesses out there who could benefit greatly from going after a greater market share through strategic PR, media relations and marketing,” David Menzies, company president said, adding, “Pro-bono services can help grow an industry that I personally feel strongly about.”

Global Media Strategies will be selecting one prospective cleantech company to work on tactical branding to heighten awareness of core product and service offerings and enhance credibility with prospective customers, funding sources and partners. The pro-bono work provided by GMS will track closely with the firm’s successful model of disseminating strategic client messaging to target audiences within 2-3 weeks of engagement.

The pro-bono client will be selected by May 14, 2012. Interested cleantech businesses should email David Menzies at david@gmsinnovate.com for more information.

Global Media Strategies specializes in connecting regional, national, and international editors and reporters with meaningful informational resources they can use to craft insightful stories for their readers, who are prospective customers of GMS client companies. A former print newspaper editor and current online publisher, Menzies brings a unique news-centric perspective to crafting and delivering client messaging.

For more information visit www.gmsinnovate.com.

About Global Media Strategies
Global Media Strategies is an innovative PR and media relations firm specializing in getting businesses and organizations in front of target audiences via proven effective communication tools and methodologies. The strategic communication plans Global Media Strategies builds for clients helps support positioning in new and emerging markets, maximizing publicity to increase brand awareness and drive sales. Global Media Strategies operates out of the technology-rich Research Triangle Park region of North Carolina, a hotbed of innovation and economic growth, and home to some of the leading life sciences and technology firms in the world. For more information, visit www.gmsinnovate.com.

“Montie Design has a history of sharing best practices and innovations in product design among active professionals as well as young adults beginning their careers in the field,” Roland explained, adding, “Anything we can do to shorten the learning curve for new product designers will help move our industry forward all that much faster and benefit all of us.”

Montie Design has offered to mentor contest winners as company interns through the process of commercializing their designs.

The PDMA Carolinas invited students at colleges in North and South Carolina to submit a design for a new product or service of their own creation. Submissions will be judged based on originality, feasibility, and market potential of the product or service concept developed by individuals or teams during Fall 2011 or Spring 2012.

Montie Design is a Platinum Sponsor and exhibitor at the upcoming Innovate Carolinas event, which offers continuing education and networking within the innovation and product development space in the Carolinas. Attendees will be learning about practices and tools they can use to improve outcomes and share with their manager and peers.

Speakers of note at Innovate Carolinas include Garrett Putman, Global Marketing Manager at Burt’s Bees; Matt Gymer, Corporate Director of Innovation at Novant Health; Iain Gray, Vice President, Global Services at Red Hat; and Greg Hopper, Senior Product Manager, Office of the CTO, Net App.

This is not the first time Montie Design has been involved in judging student designs, as the firm hosts its own annual Student Design Contest for aspiring product designers. In addition to the PDMA, the firm is active in numerous other design and engineering groups and organizations throughout North Carolina as well as the North Carolina Defense Business Association, and continues to service clients with its core competencies in mechanical engineering, industrial design, prototyping and product commercialization.

For more information on Montie Design, visit www.montie.com.

About PDMA Carolinas
The goal of the PDMA Carolinas chapter is to help businesses increase and realize their innovation potential. The chapter brings its community value by providing opportunities to learn new ideas, approaches, and best practices from world-class organizations as well as to network with peers through events and meetings throughout the year where the users (new product development practitioners), not just keynote speakers and gurus, take center stage.  For more information on the chapter, visit www.pdma.org/carolinas.

About Montie Design
Montie Design is an innovative concept-to-marketplace product design and development firm with core competencies in mechanical engineering and industrial design. Implementing a collaborative approach to partnering with clients, Montie Design balances vision with usability in realizing products that are economical to manufacture, elegant and robust. The firm operates out of the Southeast’s innovation hub, the Research Triangle region of North Carolina, with its wealth of industry-leading technology, resources and customers. For more information, visit www.montie.com.

Google, which considers Google+ its “social spine,” has already integrated it into Gmail. Facebook merging social network connections with email also makes sense. Google CEO Larry Page described Google+ as the “social spine” and the “social destination.” Already, Google has Facebook-like user numbers through entities like YouTube with its 800 million monthly active users. A Google vs. Facebook showdown with both social media AND email looks to be coming very soon.
Email is still the more popular element of social connection. Facebook may have started in social, but Google’s been doing email for much longer – many Facebook users connect via their Gmail addresses, as a matter of face.  to log into Facebook on a daily basis. Google+ may be the “social spine” of Google, but email is still part of the Internet’s backbone.

The audits will be performed by company President David D. Menzies, an award-winning professional communicator with 20+ years of experience. Menzies will review each audit subject’s past and present communication outreach and provide a detailed report on the quality of strategic messaging, PR planning, targeted media and audience. After consulting with the subjects, Menzies will provide a summary plan for making improvements moving forward, serving as a roadmap to realizing a positive return on marketing and PR efforts.

“The goal of the audits is to help identify successes and failures in reaching prospects and finding a way to turn them into customers,” Menzies said.

Global Media Strategies specializes in connecting regional, national, and international editors and reporters with meaningful informational resources they can use to craft insightful stories for their readers, who are prospective customers of GMS client companies. A former print newspaper editor and current online publisher, Menzies brings a unique news-centric perspective to his firm’s public relations work, showcasing the value proposition of clients to their customers via coverage in trusted media outlets.

Experiencing a strong start to 2012, GMS is adding clients in the cleantech and pharmaceutical market sectors to its growing portfolio of new and established companies looking to strengthen their brands and reach consumers. The firm’s signature Proposal => Engagement => Success model of a phased, collaborative approach to helping clients strengthen their brand and secure a stronger market share continues to achieve positive results for established companies as well as startups in a myriad of technology-related industries. Using this model, GMS can begin disseminating client information to prospects and media within 2-3 weeks of engagement.

The consultancy offers standard hourly and project-based billing options, as well as long-term monthly retainer contracts.

To request consideration of a free communication audit, email david@gmsinnovate.com or visit www.gmsinnovate.com.

About Global Media Strategies
Global Media Strategies is an innovative PR and media relations firm specializing in getting businesses and organizations in front of target audiences via proven effective communication tools and methodologies. The strategic communication plans Global Media Strategies builds for clients helps support positioning in new and emerging markets, maximizing publicity to increase brand awareness and drive sales. Global Media Strategies operates out of the technology-rich Research Triangle Park region of North Carolina, a hotbed of innovation and economic growth, and home to some of the leading life sciences and technology firms in the world. For more information, visit www.gmsinnovate.com.

The Plugless Power trial, the first of its kind in the world, will help to establish the U.S. as the EV market leader. The trial will follow Hertz, and leaders from other industries, as it trials the Plugless Power system. Hertz is the first car-rental company to deploy EVs and PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric) on three continents — in the U.S. (available in New York, Washington, D.C., LA and San Francisco), the U.K. (available in London), and China (available in Shenzhen). Hertz is introducing multiple groups of consumers – urban drivers, university students, travelers and corporations – to all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Hertz plans to increase its global EV presence by deploying vehicles in other regions in the coming months.

Plugless Power™, developed by Evatran™, is the first electric vehicle (EV) charging system on the market to offer customers a simple way to charge their EVs with the ease of hands-free technology. Utilizing inductive power transfer, Plugless Power streamlines the charging of electric vehicles by eliminating the cord and the plug. More information can be found at: www.pluglesspower.com

About Hertz
Hertz operates from more than 8,500 locations in 146 countries worldwide and is the number one airport car rental brand in the U.S. and at 83 major airports in Europe, operating both corporate and licensee locations in cities and airports in North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

“When the economy went south, a lot of marketing departments got squeezed, leaving many marketing directors on their own, with budgets, plans to implement, but with no manpower to get things done,” Marketing Machine President Paul Spinak said.

“Getting the email program out on a monthly basis, ensuring their strategies gain traction, juggling multiple projects at the same time, these are all things marketing directors continue to need. For the cost of hiring one person to try and get things done, smart marketing directors are spending the same amount or less to outsource their marketing to a whole team of experts like us on a project-by-project basis,” he added.

According to Spinak, when the firm began in 1998, they served strictly local mom-and-pop, brick-and-mortar customers, many of whom the firm has kept to this day. As market sectors have changed, so have Marketing Machine clients, expanding into software, analytics, health care, restaurants, personal services and even national and international companies.

As its client diversification has taken place, so has the firm’s services. “We’ve upgraded our infrastructure and staff to be able to adapt to changing tools and methodologies we see having an impact in the marketplace,” said Spinak.

Conveniently located just down the road from RDU and RTP in Morrisville’s Perimeter Park, The Marketing Machine is an active Morrisville Chamber member dedicated to sharing best practices to help businesses grow. Spinak recently participated in a Business Tool Box workshop for small-business owners at the Chamber, and has published an educational podcast on best practices for advertising, marketing, branding and public relations.

To learn more about The Marketing Machine’s services, visit www.theMmachine.com.

About The Marketing Machine
The Marketing Machine is the Triangle’s leader in effective and innovative corporate branding and customer communication, providing full-service marketing, advertising and public relations to businesses of all shapes and sizes. The Marketing Machine is conveniently located minutes from RDU and RTP, and is a proud member of the Morrisville Chamber of Commerce. For more information, visit www.theMmachine.com.

“The cupcake with its candle signifies the individual birthday, and through fundraising, more research can be accomplished and procedures fine tuned, creating the tagline line for the race, ‘Racing toward a world with more birthdays,’” Shane Miles, race director, said.

Race organizers are reaching out to competitive runners, casual athletes, cancer survivors, caregivers of cancer patients, and individuals wanting to run in honor of a loved one or close friend to help raise awareness of the fight against cancer. The race begins at 8:30 and snakes through the streets adjacent to the Wright Brothers Memorial in the beautiful Outer Banks.

The race was born out of discussions between Miles and the 2011 Relay for Life Chair Linda Sabadic, who were trying to figure-out a way to get Relay participants to stick around on Sunday after the 24-hour Relay event. Many of the participants in the early legs of the Relay on Saturday were leaving that night, with only a small percent returning on Sunday.

“What could we do that would bring people back to the event Sunday morning? Why not a race? After some time doing some research I formed a small committee and had our first initial meeting. It was that night The Cupcake 5k was born!” Miles explained.

According to Miles, the inaugural Cupcake 5K race complimented the Relay for Life as it introduced a whole new spectrum of individuals to the Relay event and organization.

“While we are all connected in some way to cancer, not everyone gets involved in the efforts to do something about it. This race brought people out the day before to the Relay for Life event to pick up their Cupcake 5K race packets and exposed them to the event for the first time.

The 2011 race attracted runners from North Carolina, with a handful from neighboring states and as far north as Pennsylvania.

One of the participants last year was a gentleman named Bobby Todd, who Miles said showed up Sunday morning just before the race and asked if he could walk the course instead of run it, as just six months before he had a stroke and was told he might not walk again.

Using a walker, Todd set out on the 5K race course.

“When all the runners and walkers had finished the race, we received a phone call that Bobby Todd was about to reach the last leg of the run which was the entrance on to the track for the last three quarter lap,” Miles recalled.

“Our MC made the announcement to the crowd and suggested we all get behind Bobby for this last leg and walk with him until he reaches the finish line. Everyone obliged and the sight was nothing short of spectacular,” he said, adding, “I was honored to place the survivor medal around his neck.”

At this year’s Cupcake 5K, all cancer survivor and caregiver finishers will receive a Survivor medal, and there will be a delicious treat waiting at the finish line for all participants. The field is limited to 200 runners and walkers. Sponsorship opportunities are still available; for more information, contact Shane Miles at info@shanemiles.com.

About the OBX Relay for Life
The Relay for Life is an overnight relay-style event with teams of people camping out around a track. Members of each team take turns walking around the track for the duration of the event, with food, games and activities provide entertainment and fundraising opportunities. For more information visit www.obxrelayforlife.org.

The winning numbers Tuesday night were: Nine, 19, 34, 44 and 51, with a Mega Ball of 24.

The amount of last night’s jackpot was $363 million. In 2007, the jackpot in the Mega Millions game was a record $390 million, which was won by two people in New Jersey and Georgia who split the prize.

Mega Millions is played in more than 40 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.