Lots of questions, and I'll address them. Spent all day at the place with the help of some family doing some demolition and maintaining the 1.5 or so acres that haven't been tended to all year. I'm beat!
which brings me to my question someone asked earlier. Do you have an exit strategy? If so, can you share it with us. I'm not sure I even know what it is, but I know I'd don't want to work foranother ten years...
Do you plan on being there 7/24? How far away do you live from there?
Do you plan on in installing video surveillance camaras? Seems like employees can really put a damper on your profits if things aren't monitored closely.
As far as exit strategy, this is as much of a real estate play as it is a business. It's a good location for this area, and the price I was able to get it for was below market value. And besides a somewhat small mortgage, I'm not borrowing any other money to get the venture off the ground.
So, my exit strategy has a few options. Even if the business doesn't go gangbusters, if it at least made money and afforded me a modest salary, that's fine since I have a working spouse. So it isn't quite a do or die financial scenario. The second option would be to sell the place. With how much equity I put in with the down payment and the improvements I plan on making, even if the business doesn't flourish, I figure I could sell even for roughly what I paid for it and get most of that equity back. But before selling, my other exit option would be to lease it. The previous owners had two people begging to lease the building while it was under contract and they almost backed out of our deal since the bank was taking so long and wanted to lease it out. So there's probably some demand there. And I'm already a landlord with a rental house and love real estate, so I'd have no problem doing a commercial rental in addition to that.
As far as being there, one nice thing is I'm only about 7 miles away. Living out here in BFE, that's nothing, so that will be a bonus. And initially, we're only going to be open Thurs-Sun from 11-8 (or until it's gone). I plan on moving to a 6 or 7 day operation, but starting out I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. At 4 days, I'd have no problem putting in the 60-70 hours myself. But being open longer would certainly require finding management that that can be trusted, let alone employees. You mentioned surveillance, and I don't anticipate it at the start since I'll be there, but if it expands, then that would certainly be a consideration.
what is the address? do you have a website?
No real website yet other than having the domain and email setup, but we are on facebook for starters.
https://www.facebook.com/PrizedPigBBQ
Where are the walk ins? Not seeing them in the schematics. Did you decide to remove them?
I just omitted them from the floor plan since they are set in stone, unchangeable, and not part of anything that needs to be altered in upcoming construction.
Mind my asking what type of smoker you'll be using?
I've been going back and forth between a Southern Pride and Ole Hickory, but I think after talking to both places this week I'm sold on Ole Hickory. I was really turned off by the customer service at Southern Pride, even though I know they are top-notch units. It felt like they just wanted to get me off the phone. They even tried arguing with me about what my inspector said about the ventilation. Ole Hickory was more than willing to chat, learn more about the business, my needs, delivery schedule, and work with me on pricing. And even though I've heard some people say they use more fuel than a comparable SP, I'll be glad to pay for it as long as I know I can get somebody on the phone when I need to that actually cares.
So right now the plan is a model SSM, which they can have delivered by early July.
