It’s me, Abby, and I’m back with the third and final installment of my manifesto newsletter series Things Landlords Get Wrong About Indie Retailers, and this time I’m done complaining. As the old adage goes, if you don’t have anything nice to say, better to say nothing at all. But also, if you see something, say something…know what I mean? So maybe that maxim needs an update - if you see something messed up, say something...and then propose a solution!

We hope that our newsletter is a salve for the clickbaity headlines pronouncing the death of indie brick-and-mortar retailers. Amazing mom-and-pops are doing their thing all day every day, just as they always have and always will. And...

Hi, it's Abby, and I'm back with part deux of my list of bones to pick with landlords. (Missed part 1? You can check it out here.) This particular grievance arises from several virtually identical conversations I’ve had over the last few months. After I’d given the exact same rebuttal three times in a row, I knew it was time to put it in a newsletter.

As a mother of a toddler and a baby, I’m learning to access stores of patience I didn’t know existed. I’ve learned to endure everything from slingshots of mashed potatoes to full-blown meltdowns about the injustices of putting on shoes to leave the house. But despite getting better and better at channeling my inner mom-zen, there’s ...

Abby here with the first of a three part series covering my grievances with the owners of retail properties. Juicy, right?

First though, I want to be clear that being a great retail landlord is a ridiculously challenging endeavor I’d not soon attempt. The core job is to increase the value of a property, which is more than just collecting rent; it's selecting the right retailers whose businesses make sense for a given space and contribute to (or at least don't detract from) the rest of the neighborhood. The best retail landlords need keen understandings of what makes these inherently cyclical and sensitive businesses successful. It also takes a whole lot of luck. 

There are definite...

Abby here! It takes a village to care for a newborn, a two-year-old, and somehow still show up to work dressed and on time! So I've enlisted some help in the form Dio's and my parents. As grateful as we are for the help, the trade-off is we now receive approximately 147 urgent texts a day about Henry. "Is it normal if he wakes up 10 minutes early from his nap?" "He only finished half his bottle. Should I call the doctor?" "I can't find his swaddle anywhere — how will he ever sleep again!?"

As it turns out, none of these matters are urgent. So, I've been leaving my family on read, and I suggest you do the same! (No one tell my mother I said that.) 

There are lots of reasons people ...

👋 Hi, it's Faith! I'm exciting to share my first official Pedal blog today. I'll be popping up alongside Sheila and Abby now and again, so if something sounds new or foreign to these pages (like competitive running or vegetarian cooking), don't panic...it's just me. Enjoy!

If you’re like me and 90% of my friends, your new years resolutions involve some version of: “getting to the gym more,” “eating healthier,” or “running a marathon" -- fun crowd we are, I know. But we’re also committed, and training for and running a marathon will keep us motivated all year long.

What do we do first? We develop personalized training plans. Getting “marathon ready” is anything but standard, so how lo...

When I moved into my house, it was brand new construction. It looked amazing — clean floors, sparkling fixtures, still had that fresh drywall smell. But you know how this story goes: in the first few months, the cracks started to show.

🚰 The water dispenser on the fancy fridge didn’t work.

🌧️ Our neighbor Aaron complained that the pop-drain in our lawn flooded his property every time it rained.

🚪 And then — the real kicker — the vendor repairing said pop drain left our garage door open when we weren’t home. And wouldn’t you know it, the fancy new e-bike I’d bought my husband just a month prior was GONE.

We were livid.

The bike was expensive – it had bee...

Dear Pedal,

There is a space in my neighborhood that has been vacant for, no joke, probably four years at this point. Definitely since before the pandemic. Season after season I watch the “For Lease” signs in the window fade and age, and it doesn’t look like there’s anything happening.

So, my question is this – why wouldn’t the landlord lower the rent to make the space attractive rather than just let it continue to sit vacant? It is seriously killing me… this space could be the home to some awesome local business instead of the nothing/ eyesore it currently is.

Yours truly,

Thoughtful Neighbor

Well, hi, Neighbor, and thanks for your excellent question. Here at Pedal, we get differ...

Let’s talk about landlords.

Often when we start considering retail spaces, Pedal Retailers express some version of this concern about large, corporate landlords: won’t they try to take advantage of us as a small business?

The image in their minds is that corporate landlords are like this:

While individual or mom-and-pop landlords are like this:

But having worked on more deals than any human should, we know that in many cases, the big corporate landlords can actually be like this:

And that mom-and-pop landlords can also be like this:

It makes total sense for small retailers (especially those navigating brick-and-mortar for the first time) to assume that corporate landlo...