We spent three and half years looking for the right location. We bought it in February 07. It's a triple lot that must be re-numbered which requires approval from the city. It has two existing structures on it. They just changed the city codes in July after we had been advertising to give the house away free if the 'buyer' would move it.
Now the city won't approve moving a house of that size within city limits.

We have had a specialty coffee consultant on board since March. We hired the architect in May along with the civil engineer. We have a preliminary layout for interior and we have our logo finished from the Coffee Prophets (our consultant). The parking layout is due today but was promised several weeks back as was an elevation drawing.

We have special needs, this I understand. We want a structure that looks like a Tudor revival but we only need a single story and it will be longer and more narrow than a residential Tudor structure. We want it to look like it has always been a part of this old town. We have had to form two companies... one for the land & building and one for the coffeehouse. That way if we do run out of resources than we can always sell the property with the building.

It isn't enough to have a plan A and a Plan B... you have to look at this from every angle. I have had my father be my "devil's-advicate" he asks me all the questions and makes all the comments that I need to hear but I'm not willing to think of because I'm trying to stay positive. That's his 'job' in our partnership and I understand that he does it because he wants to see me succeed not because he is being mean.
We were told we could be open Spring of 08... if the city approves everything (which they rarely do).
I'll keep you posted.
Stay positive but grounded! Good Luck!

My sympathy.....yes, you may eventually open. Or you may shift directions, but it does eat up resources of time, energy, & money that will still be impacting after the fact. I would say triple or quadruple your carefully researched and realistic projections on all the resource draw....Yet stay "up" as the waves crash over you and toss you around. There is joy in the serving once you open....it is the times when the traffic is SOOOO slow coming in that wears me the worst. Katheryn

See - sometimes it isn't even related to your own permitting process. A moratorium comes down and wham - your entire investment and business plans are put on hold. Even when you have everything worked on your end. Sure hope it wasn't your only source of income. This is why I say its so risky to go with a greenfield site. Take any estimate and double the time and the money.

We are supposed to take our keys for our new store in 1st calendar quarter of 2008. Right now I am looking at a big dirt hole. The state has stopped our overdeveloped, underplanned county from issuing any more sewer permits. So the entire center is on hold until they can increase sewage processing capicity. In the mean time, I have the plans, the logo, the equipment, the layout etc. all sitting ready to go. Even have a great contractor lined up, if I can get things rolling.

Same story; we were supposed to open in July at a new student housing complex being constructed but it was the first of December before we were able to open due to delays by the contractor. One suggestion I have is to stay very close to the construction going on with your site. If I hadn't made almost daily visits I'd have encured quite a few additional expenses. I caught the plumber only one day before the floor was going to be poured and that would have caused us to have to have the plumbing installed after the fact and increased my costs quite a bit. There are many other examples of things I had to have corrected that would have been almost impossible later.

We were finally able to become good friends with the contractor who ultimately helped us quite a bit. He saw how involved we were and how much we really cared about our cafe being done right. There were other tenants who were not involved at all and their final buildout showed.

Good luck!

I have opened three different shops. One coffeehouse and two drive through stands. I went the from scratch route only once because life is too short and it is very risky! It makes you have an appreciation for land developers. I used to think it wasn't right that they spend $100k on a lot and sell the turn key for $1m or worse yet take you to the cleaners on build out requirements, but the whole process can pull your hair out and worse yet have a serious impact on your expected cash flow. I think a good rule of thumb is - it will take twice as long and cost twice as much as the original greenfield estimate. If it still makes sense with those new figures, then consider moving forward, knowing that you will have to oversee the progress every step of the way, cause you are the onlyone in the process that is in a hurry.