Setting Up Shop

Plinky asked, “If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell? Food? Cloth­ing? Books?”


Bookstore (IBC)

Books and needle­work items! My for­mer part­ner and I used to dream about open­ing a com­bi­na­tion book/stitching/gaming/coffee shop. 

Of course, inde­pen­dent book­stores are near­ly dead, and even Bor­ders is dead now thanks to Amazon.

Lit­tle needle­work shops have almost total­ly dis­ap­peared because they can’t com­pete with the prices Michael’s and Joann Crafts can offer, or pro­vide the same range of prod­ucts that inter­net shops can provide.

I’d need a part­ner to run the gam­ing side, and I doubt there’s a whole lot of prof­it for that. The one gam­ing shop I ever vis­it­ed reg­u­lar­ly was The War­Room in Nor­cross, and it is long gone. The peo­ple who ran that place cer­tain­ly seemed to know what they were doing.

Cof­fee shops have to com­pete with Star­bucks, but that part was less for itself than as an adjunct to the rest. They only seem to have any hope of suc­cess if they have some kind of spe­cial draw, like live music (which I love anyway)

We talked about com­bin­ing our pas­sions know­ing that any one of those things would­n’t stand alone, and think­ing that per­haps they could make it in combination. 

We knew it was a dream, though — just a dream, noth­ing more. It would take a lot of cap­i­tal to even start such a thing, much less keep it going. Then there was the lit­tle mat­ter of me being 1) dis­abled, and not up to work­ing even a part-time job, much less putting in the hours it takes to make a go of a small busi­ness; and 2) an intro­vert who does­n’t deal with a lot of peo­ple well. 

It’s good to have dreams, though.

Powered by Plinky

Cyn is Rick's wife, Katie's Mom, and Esther & Oliver's Mémé. She's also a professional geek, avid reader, fledgling coder, enthusiastic gamer (TTRPGs), occasional singer, and devoted stitcher.
Posts created 4259

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Posts

Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel.

Back To Top