We’re going to try something different. Most weeks, we write about retailing, real estate concepts, processes, clients and cardinal rules…and I don’t think we’ve ever really made Pedal the center of the story. 

Today and for the next few weeks, we’re taking center stage. Which, you may not be surprised to hear, is a perfectly happy place for us seeing as Abby honed her stage skills over many summers at theater camp, and Sheila won the top prize for her persuasive senior speech in 1999. Netflix! Call us!

Anyhow, here’s why we’re going to talk about us.

Pedal is the only commercial real estate brokerage that focuses on independent and start-up retailers. Seriously, Google it, ...

Last week I met a boutique owner, and when I told her I worked with retail real estate her face fell. She told me about her terrible landlord who is kicking her business out with basically no notice, and she’s stressed and time-crunched to find a new space.

Abby and I have conversations like this one all the time – it’s part of why we started Pedal in the first place. But when we hear that someone had “basically no notice” that their lease was ending, our antennae go up…because that’s not supposed to happen in a lease. 

When I looked at this boutique owner’s lease, as I had suspected, it wasn’t a lease at all.

It was actually the lease’s second cousin, the license agreement. Oh, ...

When things aren’t coming together on a deal, we revisit the “BLTS” with Pedal Retailers to figure out where we can flex. As a reminder, the “BLTS” are the four fundamental pillars of your real estate criteria - budget, location, timing and space criteria. Most of the time, we flex on location and start to look at a different or broader mix of neighborhoods. Sometimes, we flex on the budget or space criteria, but it’s rare that we flex on timing. 

When it comes to flexing on timing, Emily, owner of District DabbleLab, could teach a master class.

First, here’s the background on District DabbleLab…

Bethesda native Emily started District DabbleLab in 2019 out of her basement as...

Last weekend I went to Charlottesville for a 30th birthday party. This party, for which I gladly drove two and half hours each way, wasn’t for a dear friend or family member — it was for a business. Not just any business…one of my most favorite retail businesses, Scarpa, a truly one-of-a-kind women’s boutique.

I worked at Scarpa during my last years in college and for a couple years after. I’ve told you many times before that I grew up in a retailing family, so if I was born with the kindling, it was my time at Scarpa that struck the match that lit my bonfire of love for retail.

Scarpa came into being in 1994 when a burgeoning architect in her early twenties, Amy Gardner, recognize...

When’s the last time you went to a tailor? 

I went two weeks ago. I go to IBO’s Tailor Shop in downtown Norfolk, because this guy is an absolute magician. For those of us who are “non-standard” height (in my head I’m 5’ 9”, but my doctor and the DMV say I’m 5’ 0”), having one’s clothes tailored is the key to looking like an actual respectable adult. That is, if you care about things like that, which I do. 

Most recently I had Ibo fix a pair of white jeans, which I had previously (foolishly) taken for “alterations” at my local (also beloved) dry cleaner. Turns out that someone who is capable of hemming is not necessarily capable of a more complex “taking in” of a waist. Before this, I...

I’m endlessly amused by the list of symptoms at the end of prescription drug commercials. Watching gracefully aging actors skipping blithely through a meadow with a 🦋 butterfly net, or 🎨 oil painting in a sun-streaked garage studio juxtaposed with the voiceover listing (as quickly as physics and the law allow) the list of dire and bizarre side effects always makes me chuckle. I’m not alone - Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader memorably spoofed these commercials on SNL in 2014… which was four lifetimes ago, yet the joke still works.

I’ve wondered why these commercials exist at all when, most of the time, the side effects get more airtime than the benefits of the drug. You’d think that ⚠️ warning...

If you're interested in the top ten most critically acclaimed films of all time, then surely you’ve seen Troop Beverly Hills. Okay, so maybe it’s only in my top ten, but it’s a masterpiece, and I’m standing by that claim.

This 1989 cinematic gem provides content for multiple newsletters (yes, Abby and I can relate everything to retail real estate), but we’ll start with a simple one today.

ICYMI: Troop Beverly Hills is about a very fabulous and kind shopaholic, Phyllis Neffler, who becomes the leader of her preteen daughter’s troop of “Wilderness Girls,” which is basically knock-off Girl Scouts. They are all underestimated. They earn patches. They persevere. They learn to believe in t...

Mindset is everything, right? And without a doubt, your mindset when it comes to finding and negotiating your brick-and-mortar lease is key.

Over the last few years, we’ve observed two different approaches that remind us of two deeply unpleasant bureaucratic experiences. What are these experiences? They’re going to the DMV, and going to court.

We know it sounds a little ridiculous, but go with us here, because you know we love a leasing metaphor, and we think this one works even if you’ve only been to court on TV.

So as we were saying…

In some ways, visits to court and the DMV are very similar:

They both have vending machines
The both require a lot of boring paperwork
The...