Flurry of activity

Now we've got St Kilda happening, bit of a flurry of activity trying to get stuff moving on a number of fronts, so in summary:

- Emailed the architect's report off to Hampton landlord, want to show them what might need to be done. K's indentified potential issues with the roof etc
- Corresponded with T the designer to firm up pricing, she responded, so gave her the go ahead
- Faxed the vendor's signed health inspection form for St Kilda off to City of Port Phillip - so we can get a pre-purchase health inspection
- Spoke to the St Kilda vendor's solicitor to get the lease change moving
- Hampton landlord emailed back to say they'll be in touch when back from Sydney
- Round of emails and phone calls with architects and designer to tee up a meeting on Monday at the St Kilda cafe

Docklands Inspection

Off to Docklands this afternoon (with a side detour to agent for St Kilda to initial something minor in the sale contract) to meet with the agent we talked to the other day for the Docklands site. Architect K met us down there as well. Agent says it's an expression of interest campaign - and they're looking for offers for purchase and lease. Even if we lease, we should expect a sale to happen anyway.

Now got full documentation, and we were able to spend a good amount of time looking through and discussing issues with K, including airconditioning etc. They did a good job designing the building, there's a bin wash, deliveries point, garbage room, plus a grease trap already installed.

The EOI needs to include some background on us, business plan and so on - landlord wants to ensure they have the right mix of right people down there.

Big News - We Own a Cafe!

Big news. Agent for St Kilda called. Our offer has been accepted, vendor has signed the contract that we signed on Sunday. We're in business. Settlement is 6 June.

Handling Hampton

Long meet onsite last night with landlord and our architect K at the Hampton shop. No renovation work happening yet - we're told it's soon. So still a messy dump. We're also worried the landlord's builder's taking advantage slightly, seems to have quoted them a big number for a comparatively minor wall removal. But significant possibilities. Want to try and find a path forward in a way that really helps make life easier for the landlord while still delivering us the right premises at the right economic equation. We've emailed some thoughts to the landlord, see how it goes.

It's a Weird World

Fiona and I decided to research alternative premises down and around Docklands today, having finished grieving over losing the place we really wanted. We printed off a bunch from realcommercial.com.au and drove over this morning. Nothing really grabbing us, poor locations, wrong size - some are advertised but not even built yet. Which can make finding them difficult, a problem compounded by real estate agents' complete inability to spell. There were at least two places that I tried to find on Google Map without success. Then later discovered the agent had spelt the street name wrong.

One place we thought might be a possibility is just up the road from the shop we originally wanted. Rang the agent on the sign, explained our predicament about losing the one we wanted. She then floored me by sounding surprised and saying that in fact her company was handling that shop - and has been for a couple of months, so all a bit weird that the other agent was still organising onsite inspections as late as last week. So might be some life signs after all.

We've emailed off to her copies of the Heads of Agreement we'd dicussed with the other agent, she's come back to say that she can take an expression of interest to the owner. I think the priority right now is to get our architects through so we can try and get a better grip on costs, before we commit to a formal lease offer.

Local Councils Who Help

Opened the mail today to find the New Business in Bayside kit courtesy of Bayside City Council. Fantastic and practical information package. It’s this sort of assistance that makes life so much easier. And sometimes the simplest things are the biggest help. For example the kit includes a one page checklist outlining the process to follow to open a new food outlet. This is the one pager – the rest of the kit is just as plain and simple to understand.

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Signing a Contact for St Kilda

Up nice and early to cart kids off to various sporting and social engagements, then hike over to the St Kilda café agent’s office (turns out the ballroom dancing business broker), signed the contract and handed over a deposit cheque. Now just see if the café owners are prepared to do business. Made sure we gave the broker a copy of the City of Port Phillip inspection authority form for the vendors to sign. This authorises the Council to come and do an inspection for the Food Permit and identify any issues.

We’re organising something similar with City of Bayside for the Hampton shop. It does cost – I think Port Phillip is $150, but if you are buying a food business, or planning to establish a new one, they’ll come out onsite and provide advice and guidance. If there’s already a Food Permit they effectively are doing a formal inspection, and provide written assessments.

I reckon it’s no different to having the RACV inspect a second hand car before you buy. Foolish not to get the vehicle checked before purchase.

All hail our business banker

All hail our business banker. Working on a Saturday doing emails, promises to resolve the problem with the loan in the wrong name. Could kiss her.

Another Offer

Emailed off latest offer for Hampton Street – it’s pretty much half way between our opening offer, and their published price. See what happens.

What a Day...

Wow, what a day. Started off with a meeting with T, who we are hoping will handle the graphic/visual design for Parlour. A huge bonus is that she and her partner have a long background in the hospitality industry, so can bring a broad experience to bear. I worked up a simple little outline brief just to clarify the key points.

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After T we headed off to the other side of town to see a small café (well, more a sushi/burger bar) up for sale on Brunswick Street in Fitzroy. It’s dirt cheap with a listed sale price of $18,000. It’s not on the busiest part of Brunswick Street – which is already heavily over-populated with food outlets. Not for us, but interesting to see what’s out there.

Got home to find the loan documents from the bank have arrived. But big problem, the borrower’s name is wrong. It needs to be in our personal name, part of the structuring necessary to help with a CGT liability from previous business venture. They’ve got the name of the company. Talked through on the phone with our accountant who confirmed it was a problem so fired an email off to the business banker asking if it can be changed.

Then F gets an email from the agent for the Docklands premises that we really want. It’s been sold!!! “The client has informed me that the property has sold and does not know as yet if the new owner wishes to occupy or lease the shop.”

F bats a message back to say that we’re still interested if the new owner wants to lease. This is a big blow. And we’ve lost out because of the incredibly long time it’s taken to get progress, particularly the bank. I’m pretty sore about all this. We first approached the bank in February, and at the time were told it would be a 48 hour turnaround. It’s now THREE months later – and we’ve now lost the ‘jewel in the crown’ premises.

On top of all this the phone started to ring.

First up the St Kilda cafe agent rings to say our new offer (which was basically the same as February’s) is too low. Will be go another $5,000 or so? Answer = no. Another phone call. Will we split the difference? Answer = no. Another call. Agent suggests we sign a contract, write a deposit cheque, that’s a clear sign to the vendor we’re serious, and not just tyre kicking. And by going to chattels contract route we save the vendor having to cough $600+ to prepare the necessary documents. After a discussion with F call the agent back to say ok, we agree to meet on Sunday (?) to do the necessary paperwork. We’ll do it in between running around from children at cheerleading and soccer.

Next sequence of phone calls is with the owner of the premises in Hampton – the old laundry. Our opening offer not so well received. Which I guess we anticipated although we backed it up with a copy of our rental rate survey for the area. Bit of tooing and froing, but by the end of the day there’s a number floating around that might work for both parties.

All of these negotiations made all the more fun by the fact F is up at hospital with our youngest for an ophthalmology appointment, so I’m having to text and phone her every 5 minutes with the latest progress on both the Hampton and St Kilda premises, and plot the next moves.

Needed a couple of glasses of nice red wine this evening.

Useful Info

Excellent folder of information arrived today from Restaurant and Catering Victoria – our industry association. Plenty of excellent industrial and staffing information which is particularly useful, I’ve tucked it away in the file along with the pay rate information the Association emailed me yesterday.

Getting Busier - But first the Architects

Once we heard from the bank about the finance, one of our first calls was to our architects, S and K to book a meeting and they came over this morning for a couple of hours to chat through the whole Parlour concept. It’s instructive talking through the vision with someone else, it highlights how important it is to find the write ways to succinctly describe the concept, and how we envisage it being manifested through the fitout and décor – and all within a pretty small budget. We don’t have millions of dollars to spend, indeed, we don’t have hundreds of thousands, so the décor won’t include $20,000 couches or gold leaf finishes. But that’s part of the fun – finding cost effective, simple ways to reflect our vision for Parlour – a comfortable local meeting place.

S and K are going to send us the standard RAIA Client and Architect Agreement. It’s a nice simple document clearly setting out what the architects will do – with checkboxes to indicate the specific services that will be included.

We talked through issues such as planning permits, dealing with council, finding a builder (indeed, whether we actually need a builder), tradies and the like.

Faxed off offer for Barkly Street – same price as we offered back in January. It just isn’t worth us spending more, we don’t want the business per se, but the location and lease, and maybe some of the equipment. Agent’s already faxed me a sale contract with blanks for the price.

Emailed off an offer letter to the owner of the old laundry in Hampton. It’s less than they are asking, but we offering a longer lease, no free months etc. I did a survey of rental rates on commercial properties in the area, and feel our offer is justified.

Restaurant and Catering Victoria emailed me some great staff and payrate information following up on my email enquiry yesterday. One of the most useful items is a simple spreadsheet outlining hourly payrates for staff at the various award levels, broken into weekdays, weekends, evenings etc. Just what we needed to help figure out staffing budgets.

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Time for ABN

Talking about staff with F, realised we had better get an ABN and Workcover insurance rolling so asked accountant to set up.

Fantastic call with R at the bank, re merchant services, online banking and the like. He’s ex-café industry, loads of insight. What a pleasure to deal with banking staff who have a direct connection to your industry. We could even talk the pros and cons of the various coffee suppliers. He reminded me that there are special credit card merchant rates for members of the hospitality industry associations. I’ve already got an application into Restaurant and Catering Victoria.

We're Approved - Yay

Outstanding, the bank has emailed an approval for the loan, so we’re rocking and rolling. It’s difficult talking to landlords and business brokers when at the end of the day we’re unable to take any real action. We could be spending our own money in anticipation of the bank coming through, but if there’s any problem with the loan we’d be left hanging in the breeze without enough capital to finish the job, but all our money tied up, and probably lost or significantly devalued.

Off to the inspection of the St Kilda café this afternoon. We arrived a little early (we’d come straight from a consulting job out of town) so stopped at Mr Wolf, around the corner on Inkerman Street for lunch pizza. Mr Wolf good and busy with funky people doing business and catching up. Inker7 next door also busy. The crowd is clearly there, providing you have an offering they like.

Trooped off to inspect the café in question. Pretty much as I remember from February, although F’s first time through. Equipment is ok – there’s a sandwich bar/under bench fridge we could use, and some smaller equipment. But we’d need to essentially pull everything out while we redecorate, which leads to some interesting logistics issues. It’s not a big space, but the size should be ok.

Desperately need to do something about the façade and the way the café presents to the street. It’s almost anonymous, and just not a good funnel drawing people in – indeed, it’s almost the reverse – it’s a narrow entrance and a big room. Few down at heel characters munching their all day breakfast highlight how in its current state it doesn’t have a hope to capture the affluent market downing gourmet pizza up the road at Mr Wolf.

The agent suggests we go for a chattels contract – so instead of buying the business and goodwill, we buy the assets – which includes permits etc. Have to pay GST (albeit we just get that back as a credit on the first BAS), and it saves the vendor coughing accountant/solicitor fees.

After a couple of phone calls, received fax from owner of the laundry building in Hampton that we like the look of, with barebones run down of potential lease arrangements. Rent’s a bit on the high side – I’ll do a survey of rentals in the area to try and peg a reasonable per square metre rate.

Blast from the Past

Interesting. Had a call from the broker for a St Kilda café we looked at back in January/February. We made an offer, it was rejected as being way too low. Current owners paid twice the price a few months prior. Broker says are we interested in revisiting, and after a chat with F I said ‘sure’. Have agreed to go and inspect again tomorrow afternoon.