It's good to be back.

As many of you know, I've been on vacation visiting my parents in Louisville, Ky. As a result, the Shop Talk column took last week off.

But who am I kidding? Even when I take a vacation, I can't resist observing local retail and restaurant trends. I guess that's what happens when you do this for a while.

While I have no desire to move back to my former hometown anytime soon (sorry, Mom and Dad!), I did come back from my visit with some fun observations.

People love national brands.

Recently, I wrote about how people develop a perception of their local community based on the types of national-brand restaurants and retailers in their area, even if it's not "local."

There was no better example of this than with my own family.

On my first night in Louisville, my family decided to celebrate my return with dinner at P.F. Chang's. Forget that I can find those throughout the Pacific Northwest. Or that my mother could probably out-cook the restaurant's chefs any night of the week. My family loves that place.

And apparently, so did everyone else in the Louisville area. We went there on a Monday night and the place was packed. If we didn't call ahead, we probably would've had a 45-minute wait ahead of us.

Going to a national chain restaurant seems to be a pretty frequent habit with my family. Louisville has plenty of local places that have remained vibrant, but somehow on these visits I end up at a national chain restaurant. During a previous visit, my parents took me to Outback Steakhouse.

And my mother told me that for Mother's Day, my sister-in-law got to eat at the restaurant of her choice: the Olive Garden.

Staying local

Heine Brothers Coffee is a Louisville coffee shop that was started by a resident who felt there was a lack of good coffee options in town. The business was established in early 1990s as an espresso cart. The first shop, which opened in 1994, was located next to a mom-and-pop bookstore.

Over the years, the mom-and-pop coffee shop has developed into a huge local brand. Over the past few years, it's gone from having one location to seven in the metro area. Such growth is noteworthy considering that Starbucks has sprinkled its stores all over the city the past few years.

On my last day in town, I walked into the Homemade Ice Cream and Pie Kitchen, a place I frequented in high school, to see that the cramped counters have been remodeled and it had a new deli.

Like Heine Brothers, it opened new locations -- it now has nine stores, including one across the river in Indiana. And many of those stores opened in just the last few years.

While I was at the airport waiting for my flight, I came across this book called "Retail Superstars: Inside the 25 Best Independent Stores in America."

In the 2009 book, George Whalin, a retail consultant and the book's author, featured two well-regarded retailers from the Northwest: Powell's Books in Portland and Archie McPhee's in Seattle.

While there's much chatter about how small and independent businesses can't make it in the world of Wal-Mart and other big-box brands, what I've seen and recently proves otherwise.

Elsewhere in the Shop Talk world:

* Sage, the restaurant and wine bar at Creekside West on 40th and Washington avenues, will open June 29, according to a blog on its Web site.

The owners wrote that they wanted to open a week earlier, but had to deal with a delay in getting phone service.

The blog, located at sageyakima.wordpress.com, also has entries on special events associated with the restaurant's opening.

* The Yakima Valley's been getting some love in the glossies.

Recently, actor and Yakima native Kyle MacLachlan praised the shoestring onion rings at Gasperetti's in Yakima during an interview with Bon Appetit for its July 2009 issue.

And the Yakima Valley is featured as one of three wine regions to tour and discover this summer in the July 2009 issue of Travel & Leisure. The article features Cote Bonneville Winery in Sunnyside as the winery to go to and Desert Wind Winery in Prosser as a good place to stay. Picazo 7Seventeen in Prosser was featured as the place to eat.

* Head over to the Shop Talk blog (www.yakimaherald.com/shoptalk) to watch a video I made about a hypothetical proposal for a Trader Joe's in Yakima made by a group from the Apple Valley Communicators, a Toastmasters group.

And while you wait for next week's column, why not stay on the blog to get a regular dose of what's new in the retail, restaurant and consumer world?

Until next week, happy shopping.

* Mai Hoang's Reporter's Notebook is published Mondays in the Your Money section. To reach her, call 509-577-7685 or e-mail mhoang@yakimaherald.com.