Last night was pretty fun. Being that it was late in the week Robin & I were both dragging significantly but fresh off a macchiato high we left the home to go show our support at Elizabeth’s [Dilsey Coal](http://www.dilseycoal.com) Opening Celebration. We only stayed about an hour but she had a constant flux of people coming in. The place was filled with a lot of smiling faces and many purchases were made. Goooo Liz hehe. Elizabeth showed me a tree that she got as a gift from the folks. A tree? A tree. 😉
After we parted with Liz I con’d..er.. asked if Robin would run up to the Dillworth Playhouse Cafe. Thinking we were only going to be 15 minutes, and saying so, turned out to bite me when after talking with the owner a little while. Not in the bad way, in my opinion, we got to sit and chat for an hour on Cafe ownership and building. They have only been in business 5 weeks and fresh off the school of hard knocks. We discussed so many ranging topics from how the city likes to mess with you and how much a pain it is when you are trying to stay border-line small and they want to upscale you rediculous amounts to support it. The hassles with banks and the risk ratio they weight a coffee house as. Buildout choices they made and why. Just a real good session of question and answer that was invaluable to a person walking the same path.
I need to return with Jeff so that we can continue the thread and learn more. We realized last night that we are not connected to our area retail heart yet. We were once members of the Metrolina Real Estate Assosication and we need to find the same idea but under the retail sector. We need to find those who are battling the city on issues, people that are willing to share navigation tips dealing with commercial properties and hardnose inspectors. If the organization or group doesn’t exist like that then we need to make sure our deck is stacked with paid expertise, and the mighty doller always brings people out of the woodwork.
Lots to learn, lots to do.
-a