Jackson Free Press

Char Restaurant will formally open its new private-dining and event space, which the restaurant created in the former Mozingo Clothiers building adjacent to the restaurant, on Aug. 1.

The newly renovated space contains five rooms of various sizes, each of which has an audio-visual screen and projector. The largest room, the Highlands Room, has two projector screens as well as a flat-screen TV behind the room's bar. Char's new space also features a dedicated bar available for large events.

Char's smallest private dining room, the Jacksonian Room, can seat up to 20 people. The Eastover Room seats up to 38 people, the Northside Room seats up to 60 people, the Lefleur's Bluff room seats up to 108 people, and the Highlands Room seats up to 150 people. Customers can also rent the Highlands Room for cocktail receptions, serving up to 200 people.

The restaurant will offer its full menu for parties of less than 20 guests and a limited menu for groups of 20 or more. The limited menu will include guests' choice of appetizer, salad, entree and dessert options, with optional hors d'oeuvres. Customized menus are also available for groups of any size.

Char will host an open house and ribbon cutting for the new space on Aug. 1 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Downtown Fitness Coming to Jackson

Downtown Fitness (100 E. Capitol St.), which is a fitness, health and wellness facility affiliated with Baptist Health Systems, will open on Aug. 1 inside the former location of the University Wellness Center. Chris Baker, who formerly managed the UWC, will serve as the executive director of Downtown Fitness.

The building is a 17,000-square-foot space that features executive-style locker rooms, total body-training strength machines, indoor cycling, a comprehensive free-weight training area and more. The facility will also feature a Baptist Medical Clinic for facility members and corporate health clients.

For more information, visit mbhs.org, call 601-941-1841 or find Downtown Fitness on Facebook.

CapWay Launching Mobile Financial App in Mississippi

Sheena Allen and Timothy Lampkin, who are Mississippi natives and co-founders of New York-based financial technology startup CapWay, plan to launch their company's new mobile app in their home state by the end of this year.

Allen and Lampkin opened CapWay in 2016. The company provides products and services for people without bank accounts as well as account holders who are not accessing all the financial services they could. The CapWay mobile app, which is currently in beta testing, will focus on financial education, management and terminology.

Lampkin says they chose to launch the app in Mississippi because the state has one of the highest populations of unbanked and financially underserved people in the U.S., according to reports from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

CapWay partnered with Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning to bring on four Mississippi college students as paid interns to test and develop the app, and learn about the Mississippi mobile market. The students are Britney Carter, a senior at Mississippi College; Ha Lam, a senior at Millsaps College; Alexis Hicks, a graduate student at Delta State University; and Alexis Shakespeare, a senior at Jackson State University.

"I think a lot of people are not particularly aware that this is such an issue in our home state," Lampkin told the Jackson Free Press. "We wanted to develop a solution to this by working with local people. The CapWay app will help people understand things like what (annual percentage rate, or APR) is, the differences between checking and saving, what it means to have a 401k plan and more.

"Users will also have access to a prepaid debit card linked to the app and a bank-issued debit card. We want to provide a system that's more convenient, accessible and transparent, and less expensive than similar financial education providers. Our goal is to help Mississippians keep more money in their pockets."

For more information, visit capway.co.