For the second time in two months, Jimmy's Bronx Cafe threw open its doors to businesses looking for action in the borough.
Gatherings of business people are typically very complicated, said Jimmy Rodriguez, proprietor of the restaurant and lead organizer of the Tuesday night's event.
"There's political agendas, or social agendas. This is a simple agenda -- let's see who's who."
About 540 representatives of businesses, most of them small and based in the borough, formed clusters in the restaurant's spacious banquet hall, at 281 W. Fordham Road. Guests snacked from trays of hor d'oeuvres and sipped beverages proffered by the Seagram's representative. Most importantly, they exchanged business cards.
"Jimmy! This is great! I ran out of cards a half hour ago!" said Louis Rios Jr., president of Classico Cleaning Contractors in Williamsbridge, embracing Rodriguez near the end of the evening.
Rodriguez, 32, and a few business associates decided to form an informal "network" earlier this year.
"They don't have to sit around and listen to speeches," the restaurateur said, comparing the event to those sponsored by the Bronx Chamber of Commerce and the South Bronx Board of Trade, organizations with a combines membership of 600.
"Deals can be cut here," Rodriguez said. "Someone can work a floor and meet three to four hundred people, all in one night."
Like the first meeting, which took place Feb. 28 and drew about 350 people, this one took about two weeks to organize. Rodriguez donated the space, food and labor. Ignacio Rosado, president of Rosado Design in Manhattan, printed the invitations. Recipients were asked to send a photocopy of it to five other businesses.
"The word's out that this is a very positive way of meeting people in business," said Rodriguez, who opened Jimmy's a little over a year ago after 10 years of selling fish -- first on the street at the intersection of the Cross Bronx Expressway and Webster Avenue, then out of a shop in the same area.
Norma Reyes has a camera shop in Hunts Point, on the site where her parents used to operate a pizzeria. She hoped that people she met at Jimmy's would start coming to her for photographic equipment.
"Lots of hispanics are successful in business, but they've never had a meeting ground," she said.
Astor Agosto, a representative of Banco Popular, which has four branches in the borough and seven in upper Manhattan, said the bank made several valuable contacts at the February gathering. This time, he met a borough-based printer from whom he expected to order business forms.
James Tremblay, who sells advertising for a cable television station, found the room crowded with potential clients.
"This is open season," he said. "It's a little awkward going up to people you've never met, but in sales, you get used to it."