Popular dining out

One of the most popular restaurants in Venice is the Brek Ristorante.  Why?  Fresh, hot quality food, low prices, very fast service.  How do they do this?

It’s a self-service restaurant, which seemed to be quite common in Italy - and for good reason.  It’s better than say, a buffet, because the servers are cooking the pasta (hey, this is Italy) right in front of you.  Fresh and hot.  You pick and choose which pasta dishes you want made for you on the spot - the favorite

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Thriving local merchants

It’s around 8 pm and the temperature’s around 40 degrees F, yet the streets are full of potential buyers for Venice’s local merchants.  What’s the secret?

Traffic.  This bridge, the famous Rialto, is one of only three in Venice, and they’re already about a half mile walk apart.  Adding the fact that this is the central bridge, that’s a lot of foot traffic.  The genius is in lining the bridge with merchants to take advantage of it, both established storefronts and

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The Washington Post: Retailers Embrace the Great Outdoors

There’s no better way to make a case for this week’s blogs on investing in infill, than providing evidence of both the economic benefits and market demand:

- An International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) survey found that ‘outdoor malls’ (urban-oriented town centers) produce better sales than enclosed, typically suburban shopping malls.  Last year they reported median

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Learning from resort main streets

Look ma, no cars!  See yesterday’s blog to better understand why.

Look ma, no chains!  Well, mostly no chains.  Real estate journals publish that main streets should have at least 70% Mom & Pops.  Why?  Simply because Mom & Pops do better financially.  Why?  See yesterday’s blog.

...then there’s not learning from resort main streets.

OK, so there’s little diversity in these residential resort towns - everyone kind of looks the same and the cars you do see

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Investing in local retail

If you’ve been tracking the local vs. national retail economic impact numbers, you may want to know just how to bring in the best local retailers that outshine even the top-performing nationals.

You need to start with the best talent...and they can be found with the right talent agents.  Here are a few that these progressive CoolTown investors are looking to form a collaborative work team with:

National Main Street Center:  No organization is more involved in

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Would you believe that’s a city campaign slogan?  Excelsior, Minnesota.

“We’re just against the proliferation of sameness,“ said Linda Murrell, the city’s Chamber of Commerce director.  Not surprisingly, the first ads were geared to a younger audience.  Also, downtown Excelsior activity is reported to have increased noticeably as several entrepreneurs are now interested in locating there.

Sure, you say, but Excelsior is a town of only 3000 people. Read

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Buying in your local community

If you believe that what goes around comes around, you may think twice about shopping at a big box.  A CoolTown’s ‘coolness’ stems from being expressive of the people who live, work, play and employ there, not from a corporation on the other side of the country looking to mass produce its product.

A recent study tracked eight locally owned businesses and a major big box retailer in Maine.  The results:

Revenue spent within the state:
Local businesses: 53.3%

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Aloha Tower is Hawaii’s CoolTown spot

I remember visiting Honolulu (a few islands over from Hilo) years ago and meeting up with friends at the nightlife hot spots - The Point After and Masquerades.  For a city of a million people, that was it, and we had to drive between them.

Honolulu now has a CoolTown spot (elements of a CoolTown) at Aloha Tower and there’s no question where I’d have gone every night back then: dozens of places to drink, eat, dance, listen to music, shop, or just walk

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How to overcome the Walmart dilemma

In the small town of Hilo, Hawaii, the nightly hot spot (by far) is… Walmart.  While most everything is closed by 11 pm on a week night, the parking lot is full at the “Fortune 1” big box.  Walmart is the town’s effective community center.  Is this how it has to be?

As they say, if you can’t beat ‘em (and that’s tough with the largest company in the world), join ‘em.  The idea is that if Walmart is inevitable, then make it inevitable in the downtown.  A

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