I first want to apologize to anybody who had expectations that I would have more content up until now. Second, I want to tell a story that catches you up to date.
I was supposed to close on a building in December 2016 intended to be Inventors Brewpub. All the architectural plans were done and contractors were lined up, finances were lined up, just needed a few more environmental paperwork snags to close to satisfy the SBA lenders. In late November when it looked like the closing date was going to push back until middle of January, I got bold and suggested to the owner that I could lease the space for two months in order to help him out financially and I could submit my brewer’s paperwork as well as clean up the building in preparation for the contractors to begin the work. Plus, just having a business address that wasn’t my home address felt like a solid “win”.
Then less than a week before closing on the building in January and weeks of no sleep because my gut was telling me something was wrong, we were at a crux. I told my heart to stop beating so loudly and listened to my gut for once….I then reworked all my financials and discovered that the project was too expensive for the projected earnings to afford. In other words, we had enough money to open the doors, but then each and every month we were going to be unable to pay the bills. I was devastated. My wife and I made the emotionally and financially difficult decision to walk away from this building in about 72 hours before the closing date. Toughest decision of my life.
Now most of my start-up capital was lost due to backing out of fees, architectural fees, loans, contractors, rent, earnest money, fees, (did I mention fees?)etc. However, I slept very good that night knowing I made a good business decision for the financial future of my family. In the next few days I became bitter and was disheartened at the thought of starting over with so much less startup money. I didn’t work on the business for a month. I considered giving up the dream and going back into my degree-profession of engineering. But there was this little flame that wasn’t quite extinguished. So then I started exploring other opportunities and even peeked at Grafton, Saukville and Belgium figuring just looking couldn’t hurt. Ultimately we kept coming back to Port Washington, which is our home and it is where we want to grow deep roots into the community.
After seriously considering the options in Port Washington, we are almost ready to announce that we have a new location selected. We can’t say it yet, but we will soon.
Stay tuned. Prost!