Being Pulled In Different Directions

It seems that one of the biggest challenges in our adult lives is often the need to manage multiple tasks, often at the same time. You hear a lot about work-life balance, achieving a good one, following dreams, nurturing family, relationships, and friendships, and so on. It can be difficult to find solid footing in the sea of to-do lists we find ourselves surrounded with.

Things are no different over here. I often feel like we're not making a lot of progress on the bar because there's so much to do. Even though I put some work into it every day, sometimes hours of work (depending on my current family and life commitments), it still feels like we're going nowhere.

Logically, I know we are. I've got a really good rough-draft business plan... but it's VERY rough. More like a skeleton with a little bit of meat. Still lots of questions to be answered on there.

We have quite a few boxes packed for moving, and quite a few things put aside to sell.

I have some (hopefully strong) ideas for fundraising, and almost have the main platform we are going to try to use for it ready to launch.

I've been working on spreading the news about our business venture throughout the horror community as well as to all our family, friends, and acquaintances. Since our budget is so limited, a lot of our publicity at first will come through word of mouth... and we need all the help we can get there.

I've been doing all that stuff as well as taking care of my house, my family, our finances, our pets, our general life crap, our activities, our friendships, our grocery shopping, and anything else life feels fit to throw our way.

It's a lot of work. It's not easy work, but it's not hard work either. It just... is. Most of it I actually enjoy, which is funny to me. Granted, I'm not getting paid for any of the work yet, but I'm working on all of these things in the hope that we will have our own money-making business in the near future, so I consider it my job. I've never really had a JOB that I enjoyed before. I like the feeling.

Mostly, I get frustrated because parts of the process take so long. I'm impatient by nature and I want everything to just HAPPEN. Life doesn't work that way. And there is definitely value in the process. Working on the business plan, for instance, has really been helping us solidify our ideas and paint a solid picture of what we want and what will WORK. Packing things up now and sorting out things we don't need will both help us raise money AND make the actual moving process much easier. There is value in taking the time to do things right.

At the same time, the frustrated Veruca inside me is stamping her foot and screaming "But I want to be at the bar NOOOWWWWW!".

So many tasks to complete. They really are coming along, even if it doesn't always LOOK like it from the outside.

We will likely be back in Mount Carroll in two weeks. Who knows what will come of that visit, eh? We have some ideas and some hopes... but we'll see.

Writing An Effective Business Plan

It probably comes as no surprise, given my propensity for blogging, that writing comes very naturally to me. It is also likely that it is no surprise that IDEAS come naturally to me. I am constantly generating ideas for projects in many different spheres. Indeed, I have often wished that it was possible to find someone to pay me just to give them brilliant money making ideas... because I have some really great ones, but folks? I'm often lousy on the follow-through.

It seems to me that the reason I am often lousy on the follow-through is because the idea I have generated isn't the right fit for me. It's a good idea and I'm excited about it... but I am not the person meant to follow that path. Sometimes I try, and inevitably I fizzle out.


This idea, my Spookytown idea, is one that I've had for years... I keep coming back to it... but I've been lousy on the follow-through because, quite frankly, it seemed like a pipe dream. It is such a huge vision that it was nearly impossible for me to break it down into steps or even know what direction to turn in order to get it started.

Finding a location we love, and the idea of opening the bar, was one of those moments of serendipity where everything just gelled together in my mind, and it all seems to FIT.

We've done all the work we can up to having a completed business plan at this point, I believe. The business plan is the next logical step. We've been working on it (indeed, I have 16 pages of it rough-drafted), but it's a much bigger task than I expected it to be. It seems, from my research, that there is no one set business plan. Most of them have elements of similarity, but depending on your purpose and your business, each one is very unique. It's POSSIBLE to have a small, two or three page business plan, but for what we want to do, that doesn't feel right. The two primary purposes of our business plan are 1) to help us secure funding and 2) to make sure the vision we have in our heads is REALLY a good, worthwhile investment (inasmuch as research can support, anyway). That means lots of market research and financial documents.

I am certainly capable and confident about all of those things, but they are taking longer than I expected. Since I am an idea generator, naturally I keep generating more and more ideas for this project... and it is somewhat frustrating to have to write them down on a list and keep focusing on the business plan until it's complete. I'm not used to focusing on just one thing. It's a bit of a challenge for me.

For instance, the other day I generated what I believe is a great idea to raise funds for the project (actually I have generated TWO great funding ideas in the last week, heh), and I'm eager to get started, BUT the main one will take a lot of time and focus. So if I start working on it, the business plan will fall by the wayside, and suddenly we might find ourselves with a decent amount of funding but only a half-completed plan. That doesn't make logical sense.

So I have to reign in my impulses and complete the task at hand. It's a challenge for me, but that's OK. It's good to push ourselves out of our comfort zones once in a while. I'm just so excited about all of this that I want to tackle everything at ONCE! ... And there's not enough time or resources going around to manage it all effectively. So, one thing at a time.

In terms of writing the business plan, the two resources I have utilized most have been:

A) the free website Bplans.com, which has a TON of useful advice, sample outlines, and a large variety of free sample business plans.

B) The book The Complete Idiot's Guide To Business Plans PLUS, which has been chock full of information as well AND has a CD with a ton of information on it. I took it out from my local library for free, but I am thinking it will be well worth the purchase price and am considering buying it for our own personal reference as well.



When the business plan is complete, I'll be looking for a few sharp eyes to look it over. I'll need folks that are willing to proofread AND ask difficult questions. I'd like to make sure we didn't leave any holes and that the plan is as complete as possible before we use it to try and secure funding. If you are interested in being one of those people, please let me know.

Additionally, if any of you have any advice or resources regarding business plans that you'd like to share with us, please feel free! We appreciate all the help we can get.

Jonas and The Greatest Most Traveling Circus

One of the things I have noticed about many of my fellow horror fans is that, as a rule, we love to support independent artists. Many of us ARE independent artists in one way, shape, or form. We here at Spookytown are no exception - creativity runs in our veins, and it delights us to find new, non-processed, non-commercialized, genuine ART, in many forms. This is why, on Sundays, we will feature a new (or at the very least, new-to-us) artist on the blog.





Today we are featuring a good friend of mine: Jonas and The Greatest Most Traveling Circus.

I have known Jonas for over 15 years now; indeed, he was one of my very first 'horror friends'. We have spent many hours bonding over our love of trashy spooky flicks. We are also both aspiring writers and have spent even more hours talking about our dreams.

In addition to being a talented writer (sometimes, but not always, in the realm of horror), Jonas is also an accomplished painter. He has been painting for years, just for the sheer love of it. Recently he has shown some of his work at Nudge, a local gallery in Chicago. We are proud to own two of his paintings, which we display prominently in our home. Once Spirits Haunted Pub is open, we hope to procure some of his spookier pieces to display for sale in the bar.

This year, he has been sharing many of his short stories on a blog known as The Greatest Most Traveling Circus. He hopes to publish some of his stories in an anthology later this year.

You can see some pictures of his paintings on his facebook page here. If you like his work, please be sure to 'like' his facebook page for future updates.

Are you an independent artist who would like to be featured on our blog? Do you know someone who deserves to be featured here? Please drop us a line in the comments and let us know! There are many worthy artists out there and though we would like to, we will not be able to feature everyone. We wish everyone luck in your future endeavors, and thank you for sharing your art with us.

Saturday Support: The Black Marks Debut Album and Video

As an aspiring entrepreneur, I know all too well how much blood, sweat and tears go into these endeavors. The thing that we often need the most to get our projects off the ground though is MONEY. Sad, but true. It's also frequently one of the hardest things to get, if you don't already have it.

On Saturdays, we folks in Spookytown like to take a moment to focus on an up-and-coming project (often, but not always, in the horror realm) and let you know how you can help get someone's dream off the ground, if you are so inclined. Every dollar helps, so don't feel like there's nothing you can do. Please read on if you're interested!


This week's featured project is the debut album and video by the Black Marks!

The group: The Black Marks is a band based out of Maryland. In their own words, from their Facebook page:
"Formed in Spring 2009
Play in basement
Occasionally travel to shows
Go back to basement
Long for more shows while remaining in basement
Record, mostly in said basement
Long to climb the elusive staircase out of basement and into your heart, or at least, the living room of your soul"
The guitarist of the Black Marks is my cousin Mike, who has been musically inclined as long as I can remember. He's very talented, and the band's sound (what I've heard of it, not being in the area to go see them myself!) is great.

The project: The band would like to finish mixing and mastering their debut album, make CD's, and even produce a professional video. You can read more about their project, watch a video about it, and hear a couple of their songs on their Kickstarter page.

How to help:
1) The album and video project is being funded through Kickstarter. Kickstarter is the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world, and if a project doesn't reach its donation goal by the deadline, it doesn't get funded. All donations go through Amazon.com so it's very secure. You can go to the project's Kickstarter page and make a donation in any dollar amount you desire. Be sure to check the right hand side of the page, as every Kickstarter donation comes with perks - perks will vary based on the project. Some of the perks available on this project include free mp3's, a digital download of the CD, a copy of the CD, a signed DVD, and more! The band has been lucky enough to reach their Kickstarter goal already, but as we all know, there's always more you can do with MORE MONEY.
2) The band's Facebook page can be found here. If you're interested, check them out. If you're in the Maryland area and you like new music, head to one of their shows!
3) Of course, when the CD and DVD come out, buy a copy!

If you chose to support this project, THANK YOU. You're helping someone's dream come true. If you know of any projects that deserve to be featured in future Saturday Support posts, please comment here and we will be happy to consider it! There are many worthy projects and unfortunately we aren't able to share every one. Best of luck to everyone in their future endeavors.

Saturday Support: Popcorn DVD Re-Release

As an aspiring entrepreneur, I know all too well how much blood, sweat and tears go into these endeavors. The thing that we often need the most to get our projects off the ground though is MONEY. Sad, but true. It's also frequently one of the hardest things to get, if you don't already have it.

On Saturdays, we folks in Spookytown like to take a moment to focus on an up-and-coming project (often, but not always, in the horror realm) and let you know how you can help get someone's dream off the ground, if you are so inclined. Every dollar helps, so don't feel like there's nothing you can do. Please read on if you're interested!

This week's featured project is the Popcorn DVD Re-Release by Kristy Jett!

The person: I don't know Kristy Jett personally but she is a very dedicated horror fan that I have followed online for some time. She works at Fright Rags, a fantastic horror shirt company, and writes prolifically for a number of publications in the industry as well. 

The project: Popcorn is a great, yet often unappreciated, flick from 1991. Kristy and her crew are, in their own words, "making a retrospective documentary for the DVD re-release of Popcorn, along with a host of other fan-centric special features." You can learn more about their project by visiting their Kickstarter page here.

How to help: This project is being funded through Kickstarter. Kickstarter is the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world, and if a project doesn't reach its donation goal by the deadline, it doesn't get funded. All donations go through Amazon.com so it's very secure. You can go to the project's Kickstarter page and make a donation in any dollar amount you desire. Be sure to check the right hand side of the page, as every Kickstarter donation comes with perks - perks will vary based on the project. Some of the perks available on this project include thanks in the credits, posters, artwork, a copy of the DVD, and more!

If you chose to support this project, THANK YOU. You're helping someone's dream come true. If you know of any projects that deserve to be featured in future Saturday Support posts, please comment here and we will be happy to consider it! There are many worthy projects and unfortunately we aren't able to share every one. Best of luck to everyone in their future endeavors.

Looking At Properties, Part Seven

There's a lot of taxidermy in the bar. A LOT.

OK, I know I've dragged this out forever. Forgive me! This is the last "looking at properties" post (unless we find some reason to look at anything else in the future, that is). As a bonus: this is the one we love! You finally get to see it!

Have I talked about how this all came about? Probably, but here's a recap: we were visiting Raven's Grin Inn, one of our favorite places in the world, for our friend Sarah's birthday in February. Since there were quite a few of us going, we met at the bar next door before heading in. During this getting together, we learned that the bar was for sale. "WE SHOULD BUY IT AND START A SPOOKY BAR/RESTAURANT NEXT DOOR TO RAVEN'S GRIN!" ... and the rest is history.

So after we looked at the six properties with Amy from Isenhart Realty, we parted ways and went back to Charlie's (AKA the bar we love). Verdict? We still love it. Last time we didn't get a chance to look upstairs and we were worried it would be uninhabitable. This visit we got to see the upstairs and were pleasantly surprised to find that it is totally workable.

The bar is for sale by owner and they have NO idea what the size of it is. We're guesstimating it at 12,000 square feet. It's got a huge drive-in basement (there's a garage door at the back), unfinished, lots of storage space. (I didn't take any pictures of the basement.)

Side of the building / fire escape from upstairs. You can see a bit of Raven's Grin in the background.

Side of the building, looking towards the main street.

back of the building. The garage opens into the basement; there is a tiny wrought iron 'porch' off the restaurant. The two boarded-up windows are off the upstairs junk room.

The main floor, the bar / restaurant area, is divided into two sections by a large pocket door. The 'bar' side is by far the largest, but the 'restaurant' side isn't too small either.

Looking into the bar side from the front door, towards the left.

Looking into the bar side from the front door, towards the right.

A few booths at the front of the bar side. It's hard to tell in this lighting, but there are three giant bison heads hanging over the booths. As well as some antlers and a few dead squirrels. One of which is just a HEAD. No I'm not kidding.

The lights in the back are on the old, original bar... the newer, sit-at bar is in front. It curves down quite far.

Tin ceiling. LOVE IT.

This is the restaurant side. The kitchen is back to the left. The door I am pointing at goes into the smaller 'junk' room.

Large walk-in beer / wine cooler on the restaurant side. This opens to the bar on the right.

Looking into the bar from the restaurant side.

Looking into the bar from the restaurant side.

Then there's a small room at the back, currently filled with junk, that we could do a variety of things with.

Room of junk!

Plus, of course, the kitchen, which is of decent size as well.

fryers!

griddle!

pizza oven!

their current menu

The upstairs is equally huge. It already contains a fairly good-sized one bedroom apartment. (We would probably turn that into a two-bedroom apartment and rent it out.)

Kitchen in the apartment.

Bedroom in the apartment.

Living space in the apartment.

Bathroom in the apartment. Red carpet! Oy!

The rest of the upstairs consists of two rooms - one is a large, open space that they occasionally use for banquets / weddings. 

The other is a smaller room that they have NEVER used; it's another junk room. It's had some water damage (they recently replaced the roof) and would need to be gutted.

PILES of junk.

water damage.

They don't even really know what's in that back door.

We would probably combine these two spaces into one large three-bedroom apartment and use that as our living space.

It's just perfect in a lot of ways. It needs some sprucing up, sure, and of course we have lots of ideas for putting our own spooky touches on it, but overall we love it. The old worn wooden floors, the huge bar, the gorgeous old bar behind the 'newer' bar, the amount of space, the location (right next to Raven's Grin and still on the main downtown Mount Carroll street), it's all great.

The owner is asking $200,000 for it. She's pretty willing to include most of the stuff inside, it seems, minus some memorabilia they would like to keep, of course. The price is still a little high for the area but she seems willing to negotiate too.

So. This is it. We are trying to get the business plan finished and also get out there with an inspector / structural engineer to make sure everything is up to code. Then we are going to talk to her about making an offer and see where we can go from there. Our first step is to see if she would be willing to do some sort of owner financing deal with us (she owns it outright). If she won't, things are going to get a lot more complicated for us... we don't have much capital at all, and their business numbers have been pretty abysmal for the last few years (for a number of reasons, we believe; we're looking at it as a brand new business since we will run it totally differently). We are really concerned about our ability to get any kind of traditional loan.

We won't give up on our dream though!

First things first though. Business plan and inspection. We'll go from there.

Looking At Properties, Part Six

The sixth property was the last property we looked at with a realtor that day (we did go back to 'our' bar and look at it again, and YES I will share pictures of that in my next post!), and BOY was it a doozy. It was BY FAR the largest place we saw, and yet I didn't take nearly as many pictures of it as I did of other places because it was, quite honestly, completely overwhelming. We could easily have spent half a day looking at JUST this property. I'm going to switch things up a bit with this post and give you the property details at the end of the post, and am just going to do my best to lay out this property much as I experienced it.

This one was also in Savanna, close to the last two we looked at, and it was listed at around $180,000 (I BELIEVE; the price on the listing has changed considerably now (MUCH lower), but that is where it was when we looked at it). We almost didn't put it on our list because it didn't really fit what we were looking for... the property listing said something about four storefronts downstairs with apartments upstairs. I lobbied to put it on our viewing list though because it sounded interesting... it spanned several addresses, which meant it was several building together, and two of the storefronts were empty; the listing said something about knocking out a wall and making them into a restaurant so I thought 'eh, what the hell, let's check it out'. Boy oh boy. I'm still not sure how I feel about that decision! People say "it never hurts to look", but let me tell you my brain aches every time I think about this place, lol.

So we met the current owner of the building, who pulled out a GIANT keyring and proceeded to take us on a tour of the place. We started in one of the empty storefronts; it had previously been a restaurant. We spent a decent amount of time looking at it, not realizing how very MUCH we still had to look at. 

This and the next few pictures are the first storefront we saw.

I took quite a few pictures in here.

I had no idea my camera was going to be basically useless here, lol.

This was some outbuilding that housed a boiler or something they no longer use. She suggested it could be storage or could be removed to make more parking or something.

We're looking around and the lady is telling us about the previous owner and the other storefronts and we come to realize that there are actually SIX storefronts, not four... this building spans an entire city block. Wow. FOUR of the six are rented. Two of them are rented to restaurants, the other two are a cute thrift store and an antiques shop. We went into all the storefronts and were a tad overwhelmed already, but mostly I was seeing dollar signs... except for the fact that it wouldn't make sense to open a restaurant in our building that already houses two restaurants. Hmmm. But the possibilities...

The next few pictures were of one of the restaurants in the place.

Then we went upstairs. It was pretty dingy and dirty, but people were living there. It was pretty busy, actually. We saw several people coming in and out and I started thinking "exactly how many apartments are up here, anyway??" The lady is knocking on doors and asking people if we can see their ROOMS. The first few we looked at were just that, ROOMS. One or two small rooms together, with a bathroom. She's telling us about how she gives each of her tenants a mini fridge and microwave and I'm thinking "what the hell IS this place, like a boarding house? People LIVE like this? WHAT?" I was utterly confused. She also showed us an actual apartment. And THEN she took us UPSTAIRS.

LOTS of creeeeepy hallways.

Plastic over the fire escape. Apparently this is OK with the fire dept. As long as people can tear through it, you can cover that shit up. Whatever.

Yeah, there was a third floor to this madness. More of the same; mostly rooms with one or two apartments. Dingy and run down. The section we saw covered probably the space above, oh, two of the storefronts below.

And THEN, she took us through ANOTHER door into the section of the building that needs so much repair she simply shut it down and just flat out doesn't USE IT. Those two floors covered the top of the other four storefronts. Second and third stories of room after room after room after room. Most of them filled with junk, with falling ceilings and dirty dingy rugs. The layout reminded me of a closed-down version of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining... she just kept opening doors and sometimes there would be a room, sometimes an apartment, sometimes a giant closet, sometimes... a whole other hallway. It went on and on and ON. It went back way further than I thought too; this place was just HUGE.

Blogger decided not to let me organize my pictures very well in this post. The layout is a MESS. Much like this property!

At some point she mentioned that it had been a hotel and suddenly the rented 'rooms' made total sense to me. The listing said something about the place having hotel STATUS but by the time we looked at it I had forgotten that, so I was utterly confused for a while.

Words and pictures cannot really give you the magnitude of this place. It was... quite frankly, it was amazing. A very special place for a very special buyer. It needs a TON of work, but the work could be done in sections too; fix up one building's worth and rent them out while you work on the next section. There is so much raw potential in this place it just boggles my mind. Part of me is totally in love with it. Who doesn't want to buy a giant creepy old partially abandoned hotel and live the crazy life in it?? OK, maybe most people don't, but *I* do! This place could be Raven's Grin 2, it's that crazy. Or if I was ready to open my haunted bed and breakfast, this place would be PERFECT.

Unfortunately, it doesn't fit our current goal at all. As I mentioned, it doesn't really make sense to open a restaurant in a building that already has two restaurants as tenants. And we're nowhere near ready to aim for the haunted B&B. And we couldn't open a restaurant and run it AND try to renovate and run this place without major headaches. I like a good project, but this is a PROJECT. 

Still, I think the reason that it hurts my head every time I think about it is because it captured part of my heart and I wish SO MUCH that we had more money and could buy both this place AND the other bar and run both at the same time. We would need enough money to afford us the luxury of time and lots of staff though, because this place needs SO MUCH work. It's just... it was truly amazing. Opportunity galore. It's just not the right time for us to tackle something like this and it KILLS ME.

After we left, OJ said something about the pool. "WHAT pool?!" I exclaimed. 

"She said there was a pool! In the basement!" 

"SHUT UP. You're totally lying."

"No way! I swear she said there's a pool in there somewhere! They don't use it because they had problems with pipes freezing, but I swear to god there's a pool somewhere in that building."

The place was so huge we MISSED the POOL.

So. I noticed when I pulled up the listing for this place to drop the description into this post that the price for the place has dropped by about a hundred grand. It's now listed at $84,999. THAT KILLS ME EVEN MORE. It says it has 14,420 square feet but I'm pretty sure that's a lie. I think it's way bigger than that, heh.

The listing reads: "LOCATED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DOWNTOWN AREA, MISSISSIPPI RIVER, STATE PARK & BIKE PATH, HOTEL STATUS, 2 APARTMENTS--22 ROOMS SECOND & THIRD FLOORS ALL VACANT NEEDING MAJOR REPAIRS. 4 STORE FRONTS-3 WITH TERRAZZO FLOORS CURRENTLY RENTED-2 RESTAURANTS, ENDLESS POSSIBLITIES FOR THIS PROPERTY WITH PARTIAL VIEW OF MISSISSIPPI RIVER ON NORTH END OF 2ND & 3RD FLOORS-CO OP ARTISTS, BIRD WATCHERS, BOAT/CANOE ENTHUSIASTS, BICYCLISTS (GREAT RIVER BIKE PATH) & SO ON."

Anyone want to buy this place AND the other bar for us? We need a patient mega-investor! I can do great things with these places, I assure you. I just need enough money to get the properties and to have a little TIME to put some TLC into them. But I have such great plans...

(Yeah. I don't think we're getting this one. But good god do I want it. But if I could only pick ONE, it would be the bar.)