Every dream has a beginning, and my dream is no different.  For twenty years I planned the grand opening of Pennyard Bistro & Winery.  Ok -the name was not twenty years in the making but certainly the idea was.   So fast forward to January 2007, I decided after twelve years with Bank of America, I had enough of the corporate life with its twenty four hour meetings, brain storming, buzz words and acronyms that preoccupy my mind even today.  I wanted freedom, and more that anything I wanted my twenty year dream to come true, the sooner the better.

Getting started was hard, I was still working at the bank, and luckily I was working from home and could do some of the paper work and look up and gather information. I choose Cambridge Commons for a number reasons, being in the  neighborhood for over ten years, I thought it to be the ideal area and possibly the perfect place for a bistro.  We have a multi-cultural area filled with diversity.

I remembered thinking how after work I loved going to one of the restaurants uptown, to relax and have a glass of wine and more than often, an appetizer before heading home and fighting the traffic, and starting dinner for my family at home.  So I thought what a great idea –locate my bistro in the neighborhood, no traffic, no paying for parking up town, and if you have more than one glass of wine, you don’t live to far away.  Perfect! That part of my idea was complete!

Now the perfect location, I had two locations in mind,  I remember the location in Cambridge Commons used to be a Blockbuster, I used to go there and get movies, when I went to the cleaners, there was also a Food Lion, pizzeria, Chinese restaurant and nail saloon, what could be better. Traffic is one of the things you want to see when picking your location. Since I worked from home, I had some flexibility and would sit in the parking lot, while on our Monday morning conference calls and count cars in and out of the parking.  Food Lion was number one, averaging a about one hundred fifty people per day, the cleaners averaging twenty to twenty five customers per day, the nail saloon averaged five to ten and on the weekends fifteen to twenty, the Chinese restaurant and pizzeria activities were mostly in the evening averaging about thirty to forty customers per evening ordering dinner during the week and almost double on the weekend. I also did a count census count of the sub-divisions in the 10 mile radius; the number of people living in the 10 mile radius, the median income, etc this seemed like the perfect location.

My second location was Birkdale in the Harris Teeter shopping center, where the current blockbuster is located.  As I did with the Cambridge Commons location, the same was done with this location, the results where a lot more favorable and lucky for me a business had just closed there, a small coffee shop with a following. Since this area was virtually around the corner all the information I had already gathered were applicable. 

My decision came down to the two locations, Cambridge Commons and Birkdale, it should have been easy to make the decision, and in retrospection it should have been Birkdale, however the management company was so difficult to deal with, that it was a complete turn off.  The Birkdale management company would not let me see the space before they had a complete business and financial plan.  The business plan was complete; however I could not determine what my finances would be until I saw the space. That was a bummer, because as I look back, that space probably would have suited my needs better, but my motto is “never look back always look forward’ so I choose Cambridge commons.  

Now this was the hard part, it almost made me turn away and give up. When I finally saw the space in Cambridge Commons, I thought “what in hell did I get myself into” this place was a complete and utter mess. The walls were absolutely horrible, big holes covered the walls where the televisions were ripped out of the walls, the sheet rock was falling apart because the building had leaked water when it rained. The floors were terrible; the carpet was so raggedy, we were almost afraid to walk on it and it smelled dirty and musty. The bathrooms were horrifying, it made the bathrooms in Grand Central station look clean and believe me, those bathrooms are nasty.  It was disgusting OMG!   But really the building had not been occupied in four years; I’m amazed there were no rodents or bugs.  

Nevertheless, as I walked through the space I could see my vision coming to life, the walls would hold beautiful artwork, the floors would be gorgeous wood, stunning counter tops, a custom wine rack would cover the walls, comfortable European inspired furniture, my head was spinning thinking about how my dream bistro would come to life. Now my plan had legs and I was about to take a very long walk- literally!