The Thrill of Finding a Brick & Mortar

Kate & I talked & talked about the $2 Thrill, the pros the cons, our visions of what it would look like & fulfilling our dream of having our very own brick & mortar store on Newport.  

Robert showed us two other places on Newport Avenue that may soon be vacant & we went & had a look but they were both too big for our operation.  

We met up with him at the Subway on Cable Street (one of only two chain restaurants in OB) to take a look.  They had gas & all of the plumbing intact, but without a grease trap, it wouldn't be a quick switch around to move in.  That & it was across the street from the one of the dirtiest bus stops in San Diego- the Cable & Newport stop.

Next door to Subway was another of Eli's properties that could be converted into Mad Munch's flagship store.  It had gas, got a good amount of foot traffic (not just from the dirtiest bus stop in town) but was about the same size & configuration as the $2 Thrill.  It was currently a message parlor but was on it's way out according to Robert.

Like Subway, it had alley access for trash & loading/unloading supplies, but with that you also could end up with some unwelcome visitors.  By that I mean, vermin & vagrants.

"Let us think about it," Kate told Robert.  

I checked out a book from the public library on "Lease Agreements."  NOLO has a line of legal books that I highly recommend on subjects such as these.  I didn't know the first thing about any of it but they put it in layman's terms.  I took some notes:

My cousin & his wife & two boys came into town that weekend coming down off a Disneyland high & we showed them around OB.  The standard stops for any out-of-towners: the Beach, the Burritos & the Breweries.  If you have more time & are in town at the right time of year, Baseball is the bonus "B."  

After burritos, we took them to Belching Beaver.  Even after all the "kitchen sit downs" we had with them, Kate & I weren't bitter about them not choosing us.  If anything it lit a fire under our butts to find a place of our own.  

"How's the grilled cheese business going?" my cousin, Jonathan asked.

"Good.  We just transitioned back into farmers markets.  We were doing breweries but now we can't anymore.  They changed the rules on us," I explained.

"Yeah, but see that place over there," Kate pointed to the FOR LEASE sign across the street.  "We might be moving in there real soon."  She said it with a proud confidence.

"Oh wow!  You guys are gonna have your own storefront...that is amazing," his wife, Janessa said. 

After we ordered up a round of Peanut Butter Stouts & root beers at Beaver, I walked back to use the restroom & couldn't help but notice that the back room was still empty.

"Looks like there's still nothing in that back room," I told Kate.  

Installing a kitchen inside of box is a lot harder than it looks.