Clout

I feel like if I would have sat down this morning and wrote this post, I would have had a thousand things to share. But now it’s 12 hours later, we did Epic Pie Tasting, and the average temperature at Nifong this afternoon was 83 degrees. Yesterday, I was the cream and whip table person, then the customer service person. Today, I was customer service person, pie kit creator person, and quiche person. And look, none of that matters but to say that there is zero glamour in entrepreneurship.

We are hitting a significant stalemate on our Letter of Intent on a St. Louis space. The landlord - not The Kroenke Group on this one - on this space had a specific set of terms and so we sent in an offer and they responded with a basic “NO”. I mean, it was worded fancier than that but they could have just drilled it down to “NO” and saved us all the time of the pleasantries. In short, they did not negotiate. And actually, we were surprised. I mean, The Kroenke Group is known for being intense negotiators and since I’ve been through that show a time or two, I felt pretty prepared for a different landlord group. Actually, I guessed it was going to be easier. Naive, I know.

So what I’m saying is that maybe I was wrong about the difficulty of our current landlord situation….certainly not in all respects, but I do reconsider several of my former statements about the difficulty of Kroenke lease negotiations. At least we could have a conversation and come to a meeting of the minds, so I’ll give credit where credit is due.

Or maybe what I’m saying is that St. Louis landlord just thinks someone will pay the $36 a square foot, so why waste time with our less-than-$36-a-square-foot offer? Or maybe:

1. This landlord doesn’t like pie;

2. Or this landlord doesn’t like small business tenants;

3. Dierberg’s is across the street and maybe the landlord doesn’t want to hurt their bakery’s feelings;

4. Actually we’ve been known to raid local grocery stores for butter, pumpkin, and cream cheese so maybe the landlord didn’t want to deal with those complaints since Trader Joe’s is in the same complex;

5. Or maybe the landlord reads this blog and thought we sounded like more than they wanted to deal with for a reduced square foot price.

Or maybe the landlord has no idea we exist because it’s a huge company and they might think we are crazy for believing in a less-than-$36-square-foot price.

My guess is on the latter. But can you imagine if it was just our propensity to raid nearby grocery stores? I guess we will take clout where we can find it…