Pelagic’s run club gets 50-100 people every Monday night on the other side of the neighborhood - their route passes ex-Otomi. If they took over Wednesday night they’d probably get the exact same crowd.
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I’m not sure casting a larger net via Nextdoor is the right move.
I think strategically engaging people on the idea is smarter. Everyone here is by nature invested in the downtown Raleigh community. They spend a lot of time comment on and researching things that make Raleigh a better place. No one is getting paid to be here and to engage. I feel like this is the right group that could collectively make it happen. (I’ve also floated the idea to some neighbors who I know have the right motivation)
If you cast a larger net, you will have opportunists and people who are not actively seeking out ways to better the community, even though they may live in the community.
I’d be a lot less interested in forming a co-op with passive-opportunists than I would with people who are currently invested (time-wise or financially) into the idea of bettering the community.
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Maybe the 8,000 dogs and toddlers running around and tripping over my f**king feet can go to the North Hills one now, instead.
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I’ll go to whichever one has 8,000 dogs. You can keep the toddlers though.
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Good point. There are often different ideas about what is good for the neighborhood.
I would be interested in helping market and maybe even run the place but I don’t have the money to finance an enterprise like this. I do have the time. I’m retired with a part-time job that is very flexible, so I can invest a lot of energy in making it a success.
I really don’t even have a grasp of how much money it would take to keep the place going for a couple years until it pays for itself. The listing on the website says the restaurant is for sale for $195,000. I have contacted the broker and he says he will send me more details. Anybody on here willing to share some advice?
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Watch the knee-slapping 80’s comedy The Money Pit starring Tom Hanks and Shelley Long. It’s something like that, only you get to deal with people all day long as an added bonus.
Best advice I can give: if you have little or no restaurant experience, put the idea out of your head. It’s not worth it.
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Anyone know the guy that owns MyWay Tavern? They run a great business, have good food and are going to lose their location in the not too distant future I’ve heard.
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The business is for sale, but it doesn’t include the property. I probably wouldn’t put any money down for a business that appears to be failing without ownership of the space.
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Yea, I think you get the business and the lease.
That property won’t ever go up for sale. So you’d want to just buy out their lease without the business (if you were going to do something like this).
I was saying I’d be interested in getting involved with a co-op only if people who have run restaurants/bars were heavily involved. Otherwise, it would just be another failed business at that location.
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Otomi and Brookside Bodega were run by the people behind Irregardless Cafe. If you’re looking for reasons the last two places closed, ownership experience isn’t near the top of the list.
I’m not saying that was the reason it closed. I made a post in response to @helentart saying that she was hoping the location opened up with a concept that served the surrounding area better. I explained that I would personally be interested in investing in a co-op model restaurant/bar there (if experienced people were involved, bc I’m not experienced in the service industry). I pointed to the group from Mordecai that purchased the stripmall on person st.
I know that the guys running those restaurants knew how to operate a restaurant/bar. I think they keep getting the concept wrong because I believe they were targeting the wrong demo at the wrong price point. Just my opinion (that seems shared by most people in the neighborhood I talk to about it.)
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Are they for sure closing the original location or is that just implied by the Raleigh Magazine post?
I would assume close the original location considering these two would be less than half a mile from each other and they probably do 60% takeout orders.
Fair assumption, maybe I’m just overly skeptical of Raleigh Mag’s reporting given some of their prior misses
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Their current spot got sold last year. At one point it was going to be a Cook-Out, but not sure if that is still the plan.
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Ok well TBJ just reported that they’re vacating and that the property was sold to an adjacent car dealer so there’s that.
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Awesome, I didn’t think enough of that area was dedicated to gigantic parking lots for car dealerships
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Cookout apparently has a real estate arm. They had said they didnt intend to develop a cookout restaurant at this location when they bought it.
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to be fair, that entire area of Wake Forest Rd, from the current Mami Nora’s location all the way up to 440, is basically Death Valley.
It’s just an awful place congested with a hodge podge of shitty car dealers, random retail, Costco, the Wegman’s which people here lose their mind over, like it’s the Nordstrom of grocery stores, and some motels.
That whole area along Wake Forest Rd could be demolished and start over again for all I care.