Independence Mayor Eileen Weir gets the calls – several times a week.

When is Google coming? Why isn’t Google coming? Why won’t the city let Google come?

The answer – the same one The Examiner has gotten from the company going back more than a year now – is simple and unchanged: Google will come to Eastern Jackson County if and when it gets around to it.

“I’m frustrated because the community is frustrated,” Weir said.

“I spoke directly to Google, and they’re aware of our interest,” she said. The company told her “ ... Independence just is not in our expansion plan right now.”

Google has famously chosen Kansas City as one of a handful of metro areas in which to first roll out Google Fiber, which promises a massively faster Internet than most of us are used to. The possibilities, as they say, are endless.

Still, the company is building a new utility, and it’s taking a while. It’s focused on Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas, but that’s about it so far. (Raytown is getting service, too, though that city is almost entirely surrounded by Kansas City, so it’s just easier to do that city at the same time.)

Meanwhile, Independence and Blue Springs – and Overland Park, Liberty and lots of others – don’t have Google Fiber. Independence and Overland Park, two of the largest suburbs in the metro area, haven’t even gotten service agreements from the company.

When I’ve contacted Google about Independence and Blue Springs, it’s the same thing: Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

“It’s not personal,” Weir points out, “and that’s what people need to know.”

New things

AT&T says your calls – or whatever it is you do on your mobile devices – should go more smoothly at Independence Center. It has put up a “distributed antenna system” at the mall. Such systems address issues where building construction, terrain or crowd density can cause hiccups. ... Boot Barn, which calls itself the country’s largest western and work wear retailer, has opened a store in Blue Springs. It’s at 1010 N.E. Coronado Drive. ... Shop Foos, an electronic cigarette retailer at 1344 N. Missouri 7, holds its grand opening this Friday. The ribbon cutting is at 3 p.m.

Back Yard is back

The metro area once had a dozen Back Yard Burger locations, among 180 nationwide. No more. Turmoil and bankruptcy have cut that to fewer than 70 – and the only three in the Kansas City area are in Eastern Jackson County.

That’s probably not a coincidence. Gene Scassellati owns the Independence, Blue Springs and Lee’s Summit locations. He’s been in the game for many years, had better-than-average sales, and introduced new products – soup for winter, strawberry-walnut salad for summer – to keep things moving ahead even while the company floundered. He also stresses the catering side of the business.

It’s a matter of building the business, connecting with customers – an absolute necessity when times get tough.

“We had good restaurants,” he said. “It wasn’t exactly easy.”

Go back to 1987, in Cleveland, Mississippi, when Lattimore M. Michael started the first Back Yard Burger. The vision was simple: great food “just like you would make it in your own back yard,” said David McDougall, who’s been CEO for about 18 months.

We’ve all heard this story so many times: Founding owner has a clear vision, and things take off. The company grows and prospers. A couple of decades later, the founder decides to sell and retire. New owners, with aggressive plans, step in. The economy goes sideways. Plans fall apart. Debt rises, followed by bankruptcy, closings, retrenchment and, finally, renewal.

Michael sold in 2007, just as the economy was starting to seriously teeter. Hard to imagine worse timing from the new owners’ standpoint. McDougall says the company, which emerged from bankruptcy reorganization in January 2013, is on the upswing.

“It clearly has gone through some very trying times,” he said. He conceded that the company hasn’t always worked well with franchisees and said that’s currently a major point of emphasis, along with “unit-level economics” and the general notion of “really going back to our roots.”

Scassellati said he sees the difference.

“Yeah, we’ve got good people that care,” he said.

The company sells flame-broiled, Angus burgers, and McDougall said surveys show that people put it somewhere between the quick-service folks (McDonald’s, Burger King) and the top-end folks (Five Guys, Smashburger).

“I really think that’s where we need to be,” he said. “It’s our niche.”

New products are here – including a half-pound prime rib burger on a brioche bun – first-quarter sales were up 11 percent companywide, and growth could be the next step, though Scassellati said he’s not looking at that yet.

“There’s certainly opportunity to add more restaurants in that (KC) market,” McDougall said.

Jeff Fox is The Examiner’s business reporter and editor. Reach him at 816-350-6313 or jeff.fox@examiner.net. Follow him on Twitter @FoxEJC or @Jeff_Fox.