Quote:
Originally Posted by PolarBear
...He is basically saying thank you for making me a lot of money and if he really cared about people he wouldn't sell it unless it was financially ruining him. Not to mention the employees that are not going to have a job when Wawa buys it and closes it down. Why not sell it to someone else who wants to keep it open, if he cares so much about the support from the residents....
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Don't gloss over his choice of wording "keeping his business afloat" - that does not sound like "making me a lot of money'
The problem that guy and the circus people run into is that the property is worth way more than the business. Both are essentially seasonal businesses, although CB to a lesser degree but I bet its pretty dead Nov-March. The margins in the restaurant business are pretty low, so you don't really get rich off such single businesses, and that's before only having 6 months of income. Its a labor of love and if you make it long enough you probably improve margins a bit from the inevitable slowing of investment back into it - the old assets/liability/equities math.
If you try to sell it for what it is worth, it is simply impossible to make the business profitable, so you get what happens here. You aren't walking into a commercial lender and getting an $800,000 loan with a projected negative ROI. Sure, you can be all big hearted and sell it for less just to keep it open, but the next guy won't so he makes the big cash off your years of hard work. Nope, you can't do that to yourself or your family. If he will I'd like to be that next guy.
And if you wait too long that opportunity might disappear, at least in your useful lifetime. The current deal might be the best one he ever sees. Go ask the Tree King guy on quakerbridge about missing his opportunity. Holding out (albeit for money not altruism) cost him rewards he will never recoup. He said so himself in a newspaper article a few years ago.
Every time I am in there 95% of the employees seem to be high school & college aged. They'll be fine. He's not putting a team of physicists out of work. Wawa might actually employ more folks over the course of a year, certainly more total hours.
If there is a true demand then something new will pop up. If not, well, he made the right call. That's how capitalism works.
It sucks for us, we love that place. But life moves on. Maybe we should buy his milkshake machine.