Running your own business ain’t easy. Nor is making a website JEEZ. I’m moving old main-page posts to a blog-thing page that will hopefully be linked at the top of the main page if I can figure it out. Mostly for myself, but also for anyone interested in the history of my little business. Below is the post as written then.
7/14/2021 UPDATE
It’s sad to say, but I will be closing the store at its current location as soon as I can sell the fish that still live here. In mid April, the Autonation dealership in the neighboring lot bought our shopping center for $9m and are kicking out all the small businesses they can. I could not negotiate a buy out of any sort, as they chose to simply wait out my lease and refuse to renew it. While my lease doesn’t end until June 2022, this is a very seasonal business and paying rent over the winter just to move out at the start of next season isn’t worth it. And so, I lose by default.
A huge THANK YOU to everyone who supported me over the past tumultuous year. Opening during the Covid pandemic was certainly not part of the plan while I built this store for most of 2019, and to have survived at all was a miracle. Spring 2021 has been remarkably successful, and this has really helped me motivate to continue the business elsewhere. That said, the original store took me nearly a year to build, and moving out after the summer was not part of the plan either, so while I’m not giving up forever, I don’t expect to be operating in a significant capacity by Spring 2022. My current projected course of action will be to build a smaller facility at my house and operate largely by appointment. TBD.
I will keep the business phone number active and be available for house calls, pond care tutorials, and sick fish diagnosis and treatment. I’ll also probably end up with a lot of leftover food if you’ve been enjoying the Kloubec Koi Pellets I use here at the shop and need to buy more.