Good one! he, he
The whole story would be too long, but the worst part was the one about the last location. The first interesting shop I didn't get because the landlord chose someone who didn't rebuilt the water pipes on the other side of the store.
The last one was in front of a university, next to another one, a famous theatre, near the city hall, a metro and a tram station and many offices. Sounds good, doesn't it?
Well, the rent of 5000 € was high for just 1270 sqft and a useless upper level of 979 sqft (no allowance for gastronomy).
When the neighbour, a chinese guy with asian cuisine saw that I want to rent the place, he tried to extort me with the outdoor space in front of the store. - In summer almost every gastronomy shop in Vienna makes a lot of money with the seats outside. -
The chinese man was so foolish to pay the furniture store (who was in the place before me) 40 000 € (!!!!) for the permission to use the outdoor space in front of his store.
3 weeks later the furniture store closed it's doors and kept the money which was illegaly given, of course.
Now the upper level contains of 2 parts that have to be devided because of the 2 different ventilation systems on the ceiling. The chinese guy took an extra groundlevel area to which the second part of the upper level belongs - but the real estate agent forgot to put that in the contract.
So the guy tried to black mail me, saying if I don't give him the outside space in front of my door, he won't take the second part of the upper level - which makes me take it and that would make the whole place 5500 €.
The landlord let the chinese guy and me discuss the situation, hoping that one of us will take it.
I tried to argue that if I am his neighbour, he could use the outdoor seats in the evening, because I will close at 7 or 8 pm anyway. He is having his best sales in the evening. Another shop wouldn't let him use the space in any case.
He said no, and I decided to pay 5500 € for the whole spot, using the upper level as seminar rooms and get some money for the higher rent extra.
But on the way to the agents office the chinese guy called him and said he takes all, including my shop, too.
At the same moment someone broke the window of our car and stole bothe notebooks. One of them had my whole work for the coffee shop on it. Last backup - 7th of december.
The agent then said, the landlord would rather give the store to us, because he doesn't want to give the chinese guy too much space at once.
My hopes where up. Next day he wanted to have 6000 €.
That was it for me. The place wasn't worth that much. But that whole game lasted about 1,5 months, and in the meantime I stopped searching for other locations because I was so sure about that one. Well, lesson learned.
I was so tense that I got a terrible backache with which I could nearly breathe one weekend. But my osteopath straightened my bones again.
In 3 weeks I have my 2 tests for the gastronomy lisence which will be quite hard. And because our advertising company is still working besides, I have almost no time to learn.
And the goverment decided in february, that everyone who makes the gastronomy lisence this year, has to make an extra test or 40 hour classes of "how to train an apprentice".
I did that the last 3 weekends. I'm so pis*ed, because everytime I find a solution to a problem, another two are waiting to be solved.
Will that ever stop?
I have everything else I need. The bank, the carpenter, the furniture, tall the syrups, cocoas, cups....I could start any minute - I just need that perfect location. Either they are too expensive or in a bad place.
Now I'm stepping back, concentrating on my tests, searching for a location besides and going on vacation for one week now. No phone, no work, just a neutral background of a white sand beach - nothing distracting in the way....>sigh<
Now you might think "this was the short version?"
Yep, this was just the latest news. And I'll keep you updated when something positive happens!
(might take a while)
Bye
Joey
Ah, now I woke you up, he?