Real Suggestions please.
 

My Printing business is very slow and it only uses about 1/3 of my large building. My shop sits right on the main highway and 10 of thousands of cars drive by every day. I need suggestions to what I could put in the rest of the building to make money. Any Suggestions? :)

Well Aklim would suggest running a string of girls:D

How close is the nearest exit? Maybe run a chain restaurant out of a portion of the building?

Location might affect answers...

My shop sit about 3 blocks south of downtown, the building was an old gas station in the 40's. it has two large bays and the main part which I run my printing & sign business. :D

You could always fill it up with old mercedes and mercedes parts.

Naturally I can sell you plenty of both for a small price!;)

I have one of only three Benzes in the county, so I don't think that would work. :D

Talk to the C of C. See if anyone needs some extra space.

I guess you have exes or law enforcement looking for you... or you would tell us what state you are in....

Car detail shop? Used car dealership? I'm assuming that the garage doors for the bays are visible from the highway. The only caveat about having an automotive-based tenant is that they have an unattractive habit of pouring petro products down floor drains, leaving you as the property owner to hold the environmental bag down the road. You're already Phase I environmental report material based on current and past use of the property. This will become important when you sell the property some day, as banks lending to commercial property buyers are wising up and paying closer attention to the environmental condition of such properties.

Our Chamber is a joke. :)

No exes, I have been married for 29 years. I live about 40 miles south of Lexington Kentucky in a small town of about 15,000 people, does that help? :D

OK, vist some local bars with the same question.

Are they on their way in to work in the mornings? How bout setting up a place selling coffee/biscuits and then close it by 11 am where you can go do sign work. Breakfast biscuit places are a hit around here.

Open up a small Restaurant

A simple, fresh breakfast menu could work if there's lots of traffic going by. Is any of it foot traffic?

-J

The Nugness Coffee Shop and Biscuit Bin? Catchy...

Just south of the bluegrass parkway.

Jim has a good idea if you are on their way to work passing you... on the same side of the road....
Down here you would be surprised at how successful a good scrambled eggs and veggies wrapped in soft taco stand can be... fresh baked or boiled doughnuts too...

Full-menu restaurant? Labor-intensive, and with an unenviable record of going tits-up in a year or two. Most of the Mom and Pop restaurant owners that I deal with are treading water at best and listing 20 degrees to starboard at worst.

As a Christian, I won't open a bar. I stopped drinking a while back and feel like a million dollars. :D

Get a contract with the weirdos who have predicted that Armageddon is really happening on October 21. This time for real -- charge them 10x the price for short notice. Since they're all going to heaven, they can afford it now.

As a 'Christian' your job should be to take all the money you can away from 'non Christian drinkers' and apply it to good causes....
Local districts also benefit from the taxes on alcohol....
LOL

Correct my man. :D

The building is so old and dusty I don't think a diner would work. I only have 5 parking spaces in front. :D

I didn't suggest opening a bar or having a drink.
good luck to you

Fast food served by topless women.

I just want to do something with the space. Maybe I'll rent the space to someone. :D

You don't have to have a diner, just a place that produces and sales the biscuits. Heck, have somebody running em out to the cars. Ham, chicken, sausage or bacon/egg. Keep it down to about 4 or five different varieties, make a bunch of em up every morning and close down and clean up when you sell out.

Always intersting to see restaurant or food service advice from folks that probably never ran one, or lost their shirt running one. Start up cost, license and permits, equipment and insurance, pest control . . . yes, it's a dream come true.

Seriously, how about contacting a commercial RE broker and see if they have any users.

I had an antique store open in the space for a while and got tired of people telling me what their grandma use to have. :D

If everyone had that sort of defeatist 'tude, there wouldn't BE any good restaurants, or we'd be stuck with a bunch of vapid, corepirate-controlled chain places.

As opposed to the current situation?

How about an "Adult" store?

I would be ran out of town if I did that. :D

hang a sign out, " I aint a doctor, but I'll take a look"

Plenty of small restaurants and businesses still exist once you take a detour either into the cities or off the 4-lane strip.

What you call defeatist, others might consider reasoned and based on experiences of the industry. Good restaurants don't exist because the owner's just "wished it" . . . it takes incredible amounts of hard work, long hours and sufficient capital to just break even. If it was easy, everyone would be doin' it, right?

Resturant business is alot of work. What I'm referring to I would not call a resturant. Only sell food to go and only provide it for the morning commute and don't open on Sat/Sun. There are places in the country side of south Ga that do this and seem to do pretty well but keep in mind that there is nothing else where these places are thriving.

Print Shop + Asian Massage Parlor

IDK, there are plenty of such places in NYC and NJ where there are other options. Open on weekends, but often only till mid afternoon every day. Downside of this is that they need to be up and ready to go by 6 or 7 am.

You're making me want a massage right about now :D

-b.

+ Philly Cheese Steak shop for afterwards

"Happy endings" Massage Parlor

I would make a funny looking Asian at 6'2". :D

Talk to a commercial real estate broker, they could probably suggest something.

OTOH want to serve as a drop off point for some gray containers with Russian and Chinese writing on them?:D;)

I can assist in importing some Thai women.

Any type of food service has a lot of hoops you have to jump through before you can open. Depending on location, you may have to deal with county or state health departments.

Many jurisdictions require food handlers' permits, although the test is usually frighteningly easy.

There are usually a series of Health Department inspections that are required before even opening, then periodic inspections thereafter.

I know all you "Libertarian" types will complain about "intrusive Government", but having seen what food poisoning due to shortcut sanitation procedures looks like, I'll just laugh in your face. Botulism ain't funny in the least. It's REALLY fracking fatal.

Something I learned when I took a Culinary Arts degree: 50% restaurants fail in the first year. 50% of the remaining will fail in the second. 50% of those will fail in the third. If you survive 3 years, the failure rate drops to around 10%.

Although I know a place that serves AWESOME breakfast burritos that has been serving them out of a 8x8 room in a neighborhood grocery store for more than 30 years. But it's in Yuma, AZ. They go through 250 pounds of potatoes a week.

Hope this gives some info that may be useful to someone.

The place I have in mind is a little shack looking place near Oglethorpe, Ga on the main road right before you turn off to go to the paper mill. It is set up in the very back part of a gas station/truck stop. They line em up selling breakfast things every morning.

Now that someone mentioned it yea, I imagine they get up pretty early every day to get things going.

Enough of the food - how about something different?
 

A small town with 15,000 people eh?

How has the banking crisis hit that little town?

Several large banks have pulled out of smaller places here making things really difficult for the local population. They often have to drive to the next big town to do their banking.

So if you have space and you want to do the community "a favour" then how about renting ATM space / banking space to the big boys?

As you said it is an old filling station drive through access would be good.

Titty Bar
 

'Nuff said!