NELSON GROSS DISAPPEARED on Sept. He spent the morning in his office at the restaurant and was last seen getting into his 1990 BMW 750 with two younger men and driving to a nearby Bank of New York branch, where he. The Restaurant Brokers. 1086 Livingston Avenue - Suite 1B North Brunswick, NJ 08902 Phone: (908) 672-3126 Fax: (848) 260-0066 Ron Vannelli President Licensed Real Estate Broker For more information on the following listings. Liquor License For Sale In Red Bank Nj MapThe 3 Lessons I Learned After Accidentally Buying a Liquor Store. I bought a liquor store last year. I wasn’t really shopping for a liquor store. I wasn’t even shopping for a bottle of wine. I liked the building, especially the location in the heart of Pueblo’s Mesa Junction neighborhood. As I walked around with the owner, it became clear that the liquor business was being sold with the building. Hmm. My college buddies would be so jealous. So, deciding to roll the dice, I made an offer. I fully expected a counter- offer that wasn’t sufficiently attractive, allowing me to walk away and go back to business as usual. Instead, the owner accepted my offer. I remember thinking, before I ever contemplated the notion of liquor store ownership, retail liquor stores enjoy a tidy little monopoly. It’s not quite as easy as it sounds. Food and Beverage Businesses for Sale BizQuest has the best inventory of Food and Beverage Businesses for Sale! Some of the more popular and financially successful businesses nowadays include coffee houses, bakeries, frozen. Get the latest news video clips from NBC 10 Philadelphia. Check out breaking video news and clips, including the most popular sports, entertainment, and weather videos. Fun and games (and beer) Here’s at least one type of liquor law reform you might not have to wait around for. Chris Christie signed a bill late last year that would allow businesses to hold both a liquor license and a. New Jersey Businesses For Sale 1500+ New Jersey Businesses For Sale Found. I thought about opening a liquor store and got a lot of info from the business license office. They said I would have to hire someone to survey where I wanted to open a store to make sure I wasn't close to any schools. Jersey City Retail Space For Sale on LoopNet.com Jersey City, NJ Retail Space For Sale on LoopNet.com. Find the latest business news on Wall Street, jobs and the economy, the housing market, personal finance and money investments and much more on ABC News. Yahoo!-ABC News Network . Since taking ownership of the store I’ve learned a few things about the liquor business that might surprise you. Lesson 1. The liquor business is highly complex. Retail liquor, at least in Colorado, is a fascinating business. The quantities of categories, brands, flavors, price points and size variations are mind- numbing. Liquor distribution is heavily regulated in Colorado with a 3- tier system composed of manufacturers, distributors and retailers; each tier has its own set of rules and requires its own special license with an application paperwork trail that only a lawyer could love. Inventory is expensive and margins are thin, managing inventory and cash flow is extraordinarily difficult and SKU level demand is nearly impossible to forecast accurately. Running a small liquor store requires business acumen – accounting, operations, human resources, customer service, marketing, sales – the whole enchilada. If you were thinking that a liquor store is like an advanced lemonade stand you’re completely underestimating the task. This is good by the way. Communities need opportunities for individuals to learn how to run a complex business with full P& L responsibility. Distributors hold all the power. As a retail liquor store owner I am only allowed to purchase inventory from a licensed distributor. Seems reasonable to keep tabs on who’s moving liquor around the state. But, here’s the catch. Every licensed distributor has a complete monopoly on every product they sell. So, any self- respecting liquor store should have various sizes of Jack Daniels on the shelf, right? I think I’ll call around and see who has the best deal on a case of 7. Jack, compare prices/terms and place the order, right? If you want to buy Jack Daniels or any other product whether it’s a brand of beer, wine or spirits, you have your choice of exactly one distributor who carries that product. So, negotiating price isn’t an option. The only possible way you can get any sort of discount is by purchasing large volumes. As a result, the distributors pass along more favorable prices to the mega- stores who can afford to purchase 1. When I learned this was the way the system worked I was stunned. The Budweiser distributor welcomed us to the industry by requiring cash upon delivery for the first 9. No 3. 0- day net invoice. Not even a money order. Cash on the barrelhead. Owning and operating a small liquor store can provide a comfortable income and job security but it’s no cash cow. If you read my About page you’ll see that I have a day job in a completely separate industry. I don’t work in the liquor store. I hired a manager to run the operation and she supervises a handful of employees who staff the store when she can’t be there. She’s paid a decent salary providing a reasonably comfortable living in Pueblo. We pay hourly employees a decent wage as well. It’s not lucrative but I’m willing to bet we pay better than comparable positions at local grocery or convenience stores. The store is humming along. We did a good bit of business around the holidays and customer traffic is steady. This business is not designed for an “absentee” owner because after payroll and inventory replenishment there’s not much left over. However, the setup is perfect for an owner- operator. As an owner- operator of a liquor store you have roughly the same job security as a tenured college professor. The store could go under if you fail to compete effectively or if the market for liquor dries up somehow (just like a school could close or an academic department could be eliminated). And, your take- home pay will vary with some years better than others depending on volume. But, so long as you have customers who walk in the door, no one can really take away your job. Sure, I wish the store was a huge cash cow; you know, pay myself a nice salary every month and do whatever I want all day. Sounds great in theory but as a member of the community I’m glad it’s not so easy because big corporate greed would quickly follow. It’s nice to have the owner behind the counter. Customer service is better. And, it’s nice that the liquor store provides a comfortable income. That way the owner is highly unlikely to sell booze to minors – there’s too much at stake to break the law for a few extra bucks. Mostly, it’s nice that a big company can’t swoop in and take over every liquor store in sight. In the name of low prices, they’d shut most or all of the small stores down and open newly constructed mega- locations on the outskirts of town where land is cheap and profit maximized, laying to waste neighborhood small markets within walking distance. More people have skin in the game and a strong incentive to take care of their stretch of sidewalk in the community. In fact, aside from the distributor monopolies and the cumbersome government licensing process, it just might be a model worth considering for distribution of other commodities, like fresh food. But that’s a topic for another blog post.
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