This is probably not news to you, but since we send these newsletters every week, I basically move through life asking myself how to make this thing I [saw / heard / experienced] into content that at least mildly connects to retail real estate. When I find something that provides multiple angles, I’m thrilled. So thank you, Disney and Taylor Swift, for making the six-part docuseries The End of An Era about the record-breaking The Eras Tour. Also, thanks to my sister who told me I should watch it and that I’d probably cry. She was right about both.
To refresh your memory, the tour included 149 shows in 51 cities on 5 continents over the course of 21 months. At each performance, Taylor an...
My favorite part of the Dream Space Accelerator comes at the very end. Without fail, right when we’re finally done with the Powerhouse Business Plan, I get to hear some version of this:
🤯 I am so grateful that I did this, because there was so much I hadn’t thought about. I had no idea how much I had to consider, and I was sure I’d covered everything before we started.
And then I respond with some version of this:
🎭 How could you have known? Unless you’ve opened a retail business before, you’d have zero reason to know 75% of this stuff. Retail is theater!
And it truly is. What we experience as consumers – picking up a latte, going to a yoga class, ordering a beer – is the sta...
We all know that Ben Franklin was right about death and taxes, but there’s another certainty of life that he left out. If I could Bill and Ted my way back to the 1790’s (no thanks), I think he’d agree that when you want something is rarely when you can have it...if you can have it at all.
Obviously I’m not talking about anything money can buy, since you can buy anything on the internet and have it within 2-3 business days. But for the big stuff that really matters -- security, health, relationships -- as hard as we will something into existence, we have limited control.
All we can do is dig deep and have hope and patience. Well, that’s exactly what Cara and Travis Loving did.
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We talked the other week about the critical role that project managers play in the buildout process protecting your budget, timeline, and sanity. You absolutely must have an experienced, professional buildout team if you want any hope of making it through in one piece. But even with the best teams in place, there are a host of unwelcome surprises along the way that can only be solved with history’s oldest salve: money.
Modifying any physical space – turning it from one look and use into another – is not a matter of imagination. It’s a very real process that’s ruled by physics and building code.
So even in the best cases where the pre-lease construction due diligence has been duly done, te...
If at any point you’ve been in a romantic relationship that lasted, let’s say, a year or more, you are surely familiar with the idea that the head-spinning early days of infatuation don’t last forever. In fact, legit scientific studies have shown that this period of “omg he’s so cuuuute chewing with his mouth open” lasts about six months.
Thanks to very real things like brains and human evolution, none of us can outsmart the chemical reactions that happen inside of us when we’re staring down the promise of new, exciting, this-is-definitely-the-thing-
😑 But we all know how this story goes. After that first period of flooding dopamine, the drugs wear off, life beg...
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...
What rolls along the ground, smells like a locker room, and has no WiFi?
Can you guess it??
It’s the Amtrak train, where I’m currently 2.5 hours into a 7.5 hour journey from Philly to Norfolk. Four cars—mine included—have broken air conditioning and it’s 95 degrees outside.
Why don’t I just move to a car with AC? Because I paid for business class tickets, since I’m traveling with my daughter, and unassigned seating gives me anxiety. Plus the seats have footrests which are crucial when you’re five feet tall or under. Oh, and there's a free drink.
So anyway, I’m sitting here in this swamp thinking about how few things are worse than having your HVAC b...
When Netflix dropped Nonnas, a "feel-good" Vince Vaughn flick about the restaurant business, we just knew we needed to write about it.
Here’s the synopsis: After losing his beloved mother, a man risks everything to honor her by opening an Italian restaurant with actual nonnas — grandmothers — as the chefs.
Cute premise and who doesn't love Italian food, but what made our blood pressure rise to dangerous Florida PTA book banning levels was the Hollywood treatment of opening a restaurant. Yes, it’s “based on a true story,” but just like Vince Vaughn’s forehead, the story is pumped full of neurotoxins to make opening a restaurant look smooth and carefree.
This is what infuriate...
