I still believe in Brick & Mortar spaces
Are We On Air scored the Kiosk across the street from the Chateau Marmont. It was a combination of sorts. Luck, strategy, and drive.
Signing on a 10 year agreement, I’m sure people have their doubts about your project so let’s not get ahead of ourselves. If you sign for a short, long-term or temporary lease, you’re brand will grow.
I’ve been seeing a lot of vacant spaces I want to reach out to the landlord and see what we can work out. I’m not talking a hole in the wall. It has to be somewhat furnished and with lots of character.
I do hate when spaces are advertised as “Have your next pop up here.” Those are definitely a trap. Lock in for a rate that makes no sense.
“Don’t invest in restaurants" They said. Well where are you going to eat? We all know you can’t cook. So you gotta go out. I would totally invest in a restaurant at night, cafe in the morning. I used to work at an Italian called Res Ipsa. It was the perfect place. Fresh rolled pasta at night and made great coffee during the day. It had an excellent location, ambiance, people. The breakfast sandwich was omg. Covid didn’t take it, there was wild hot risqué stories that lit it up.
I’ve been thinking of brands renting out a space with their marketing budget and having activations there weekly or if not, every two weeks. Who knows what you’re selling, I know I’m not buying and maybe all of Gen Z unless it’s really something you like. I don’t think you should be very niche with what you’re selling but it has to be something for everyone.
Friend Editions got a pop space for a year downtown in the Lower East Side. The brand grew 300% after hosting so many amazing collaborations including a final hurrah with Cabbages.World.
Oliver Shaw sold vintage books and zines from the imprint that you’re obviously thinking how he can pay off this rent. It doesn’t, but it’s got something going on here for people to at least stop in and tell all their friends. Oliver is an amazing Creative Director. That is his day job. He is able to keep it a float for the duration of the time he’s renting the space for. Classic move.
When they moved out, Whim Golf moved in. I hate that brand. It sucks, the people who run it think they’re so cool but they’re not. I’m beginning to think all golf brands and golf aficionados think they’re so cool. Business people say “Get your clients on the golf course to seal the deal!” The only deal they’re sealing is the toxicology report of me dying of boredom on the golf course.
Whim Golf made a pop up small golf course in all the pop up spaces they did but did it ever get successful? Yeah unfortunately it did! They were having parties in there, Pioneer CDJ open decks for amateur DJs to come thru, and after all said and done, fans followed the brand. When I attended one of their events, I wanted to leave so badly because the ambience was so bleak. You can’t make golf look good. I did meet Martyn Bootyspoon and ran into my old studiomate, Hassan Rahim which made me happy.
In Greenpoint, there is a coffee shop called Odd Fox and the owner owns the building. It’s been there for a decade because the owner of Odd Fox, owns the building. How can anyone go there? The coffee house aesthetic is dead. A renovation is in the works because the charm is wearing off. You need to be a bit polished for these new years to come. Analog only works for items not spaces. The other Odd Fox in Bedstuy is cute but nobody talks of it. Why? Because they don’t care about community, they care about being there. If you’re a brand owner, you want to connect with your customer. I’m not saying network. At least get to know them a bit. You’re here to stay.
I talk about Villager Coffee in Prospect Heights a lot because it’s the last coffee shop where all the baristas actually care. Baristas are up to date on everything (previously known as hip), and do things right. They’re happy. The space is happy. The space is bright. The space makes sense. Branding could use a little work but it rules.
Spaces are everything. When you’re in there make the most of it. Sure it’s your job that you need to make money, but people can see through the bullshit when your countertop is Ikea, the glasses are Ikea, the bathroom soap is Ikea, and your Tissue Paper is Ikea. Wiping your tush with the blue bag.
Activations are key. Our ancestors have been doing activations for centuries. Pop up and pop out they said. They did.
The owner of the shop I took a gig at asked me if I would ever have a physical location for Matsar. I told him not for a 10 year lease. His 10 year for the storefront is coming up next year. I told him no because I don’t want to be tied down to a spot for all of 10 years. Signing a 6 month to 1 year lease sounds ideal and I would do it in a heartbeat for the right price. I would know exactly how I want it to go.
Anything can happen and things can fall apart. Vendors can pullout, you don’t sell enough items, there is a laundry list of things that can go wrong. You could possibly go into a hole. It’s the one thing I hope doesn’t happen. I know I’ll need upfront capital and need to be picking up more clients. For one year though, with no strings attached, it should be fine.
I’ve heard successful stories and horror stories of how anything can go wrong but one thing I know for sure is that physical shops is how word gets around and people will pull up if you have a sick product, if you want to support the community, and have events that fits with the space.
When I got my first stint of running a shop in Philly, I help open up a store called STRFRNT (storefront), yes when taking out the vowels in brandnames were cool but now they’re headache. It was a cool store that had DJ equipment to selectable streetwear brands. It was growing as a brand but the unfortunate part was that it had no organic grassroots of growing the brand. It was weak in having events, leadership was not there, but the concept made sense. Granted this was the early stages of social media. Still no excuse, you could grow on the internet. To the people who ran the shop, they could have been Bitcoin millionaires but that’s a story for another day.
If I was running the show, here’s how I would do it:
Start a brand first, grow the brand with little to no overhead, read 1,000 true fans, and make sure those true fans, grow to 10,000 true fans, and make sure I become close homies with at least 100 of them, then the rest is history.
I’d make sure to hire a manager, pay them extremely well to make sure they are always creating something and have an open mind of having a creative insight to grow the brand.
Again what do I know? I have opened so many clothing shops, coffee shops and restaurants that have grown or shuttered. The ones that grew to success were ran by people who were burner DJs that owned real estate and the ones that failed were pushers or came from Grandma’s fund.
Before you can do all this, you have to be in the shit and in order to do it on your own, you’ll need to figure you’re shit out first.