I looked over at Frances this afternoon and said, "Boy, I don't know if I can take the highs and lows of being a small business owner."
I mean, I can. I believe in this crazy dream. But it definitely has its moments where your hopes get a bit dashed and you have to recalibrate.
The target area for the coffee shop is Greenfield. The target commercial area in Greenfield is Murray Ave. The most interesting building on Murray Ave for our purposes – a coffee shop with space for classes – is a defunct bank building. Today we went to see the bank.
There were obviously going to need to be a few adjustments to take a 1960s bank branch and make it into a functioning cafe. But upon laying our eyes on it for the first time, it had some notable pluses, but also, some devastating (and possibly fatal, for our purposes) minuses.
It has a great layout: 1800 square feet. A back room that is glassed off and would be perfect for classes or a kids play area. And a teller area on the left that could be converted into a coffee bar. AND! In the basement was another whole space - large classroom/office, two storerooms, a bank vault, and mens and women's bathrooms.
And that hints at the big problem. The ground floor has no water hookups; no bathrooms; no drain/sewage hookups. I'm no contractor, but even I could see that the necessary renovations to make that space into a proper restaurant/bar/cafe space would be ... high. Not prohibitive or impossible, but high enough that only the building's owner would want to make those investments. And owning isn't in the plans until we have some proof of concept that a coffee shop/shtibl/Jewish learning space is a winner of an idea.
Sigh. Oh well. So we keep looking. It was, I guess, a clarifying opportunity and a 'learning moment.'
Many of us have probably been through our own version of this when we went house-hunting. That place with the white picket fence 3 houses down from the perfect school, and then you get inside and ... <deflation>. Something's wrong. So you just re-adjust, pick yourself up, and keep going.
I promise not to document every real estate investigation we do - just the consequential ones. And this one was consequential. But like, in a bad way.
I mean, I can. I believe in this crazy dream. But it definitely has its moments where your hopes get a bit dashed and you have to recalibrate.
The target area for the coffee shop is Greenfield. The target commercial area in Greenfield is Murray Ave. The most interesting building on Murray Ave for our purposes – a coffee shop with space for classes – is a defunct bank building. Today we went to see the bank.
There were obviously going to need to be a few adjustments to take a 1960s bank branch and make it into a functioning cafe. But upon laying our eyes on it for the first time, it had some notable pluses, but also, some devastating (and possibly fatal, for our purposes) minuses.
It has a great layout: 1800 square feet. A back room that is glassed off and would be perfect for classes or a kids play area. And a teller area on the left that could be converted into a coffee bar. AND! In the basement was another whole space - large classroom/office, two storerooms, a bank vault, and mens and women's bathrooms.
And that hints at the big problem. The ground floor has no water hookups; no bathrooms; no drain/sewage hookups. I'm no contractor, but even I could see that the necessary renovations to make that space into a proper restaurant/bar/cafe space would be ... high. Not prohibitive or impossible, but high enough that only the building's owner would want to make those investments. And owning isn't in the plans until we have some proof of concept that a coffee shop/shtibl/Jewish learning space is a winner of an idea.
Sigh. Oh well. So we keep looking. It was, I guess, a clarifying opportunity and a 'learning moment.'
Many of us have probably been through our own version of this when we went house-hunting. That place with the white picket fence 3 houses down from the perfect school, and then you get inside and ... <deflation>. Something's wrong. So you just re-adjust, pick yourself up, and keep going.
I promise not to document every real estate investigation we do - just the consequential ones. And this one was consequential. But like, in a bad way.
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