Thursday, January 7, 2010

Whirlwind Week.

Yowza, have we been kept on our toes this week.

This week alone we've managed to get so much happening ; lawyer is booking inspections for the restaurant, searching company for liens, trying to get all required info from sellers lawyer. We finally got our company credit card in the mail, and immediately purchased our domain - www.cafenovo.ca is now ours!
My wonderful and amazingly talented friend (Hi Marc!) is helping with the website, hosting and developing, helping with the logo design - seriously can you ask for more? I love this guy, and appreciate so much his help.
Stay tuned for the website once we're up and running I'll be sure to let everyone know!

Where were we... oh yes, we also learned we can indeed work around the liquor licence issues, and the seller agreed to pay for half the transfer cost, since it's not in our interest anyways and is not cheap ($1000 just to file the application to transfer the flippin' thing!). We'll keep alcohol on site, just not advertise it for sale. We'll have min. 5 baked goods / pastries on hand at any given time, and we're good.

Then we learned this afternoon that contrary to what we've been told up until this point, the seller did not exercise the option to renew the lease for the next five year term with the landlord - said lease expires March 2010. That's right folks, one month after we'd move in.
I raged when I read that. I mean honestly, we've asked these people at least 10 times to confirm the lease was extended, and were told it most definitely was.

So we met with the landlord tonight, basically to get his approval for our plans. He has to give the green light to transfer the terms of the lease, into a new lease with us.
One problem? Where before we weren't going to have rent deposits (already paid by seller), now all of a sudden we do. To the tune of $13,151.
Ouch.
That's more than a months operating cost. More than our gorgeous darling Elektra Barlume.

A few other issues came up during the meeting, which made this kittens tail twitch. Something is rotten in Denmark, and I can't quite tell what. Landlord is fantastic, nice guy, very honest and helpful. I didn't get warm fuzzies about the seller at all however, and he's not the first person to make me feel that way about her.

So we've asked the sellers agent to provide more information - and assistance with the deposits. We'll see what happens next.

Until then - stay warm and caffeinated!

xo

2 comments:

  1. Sounds like things are really moving along, that's great! If you're still looking for artwork to adorn the walls, please keep me in mind.

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  2. Hello,
    My name is Fernanda, someone linked me here from an etsy forum, they mentioned that you might be looking for emerging artists to show their work at your cafe?
    I'm a photographer, my website is www.fernandafigueroa.com, check it out to see if there's anything there you like and do contact me if you would be interested in displaying prints.

    Thanks,
    Fernanda

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