Espresso Royale has gone out of business
One of the early predictions people smarter than myself made early in the pandemic was that local businesses and/or mini-chains were going to be hollowed out and only the large national chains were going to survive, especially in the food service industry. This proved true quicker than I thought it would.
I spent many a weekend studying downstairs at the Espresso Royale on South U. While the central campus area isn't hurting for Starbucks and other caffeine options, there's something inherently sad about this and I hope (despite my own expectations) that this does not become the norm. One of the many things I love about Ann Arbor are the local, funky spots for unique food and drink, and I would be devastated to see those all replaced by Applebees over the next decade.
That sucks. Coffee shops are what college towns are built on (well, that and dive-ass bars)
It sucks because Ann Arbor used to be filled with all these one-off, strange, unique, weird mom-and-pop shops (selling everything, and i do mean EVERYTHING), and it's already slowly been disappearing for the last 30 years, this will only accelerate things.
At the nation-scale, this crisis was a windfall for big coporations (Half-Trillion in growth already) and catastrophic for small businesses.
Agree completely as a long time Ann Arbor resident. The unique stores that sold "stuff" like gift shops, galleries, quirky merchandise, books, music, and most clothing places are almost all gone. If all you like to do is eat and drink, Ann Arbor is probably as good as ever. But the diversity of choices is gone. At least the Dairy Queen is still there on Stadium!
The rules that have been promulgated to "fight" the pandemic have greatly benefited companies like Amazon or the like which are entirely or mostly on-line. And then delivery of their items was allowed as essential. It has been great for McDonald's and Burger King, etc (first time in ages I've seen lines at the BK drive-thru). For the local restaurant? Devastation.
Something very wrong with Jeff Bezos profiting from a pandemic on the backs of the little guy.
AFAIK Encore and Wazoo records are still there.
Spent many evenings in high school listening to Sharkey Jake jam in the Main Street cafe pretentious
When I was at the School of Social Work across the street from Espresso Royale, was a staple, although I never cared for the prices and wasn’t a huge fan of their bakery selection.
South U is becoming unrecognizable. I went to the Blue Lep before the Army game and couldn’t believe how much it has changed. Village Apothecary was gone, Oasis, South U Pizza to name a few.
All of downtown A^2 is getting converted to near skyrise development. It totally sucks.
Elitist greed. Ann Arbor is a shell of itself.
Oasis is across the street and Joe's Pizza absolutely destroys South U Pizza.
When they were building the new school of social work building my crazy, drunk gf at the time thought it would be a good idea to climb to the top of the half-built building with some friends. Thank god they didn't fall. Sorry, your post just triggered this memory. Go Blue.
South U Pizza is still there I think, but people don't really go to it unless they're really high, in my experience.
And yeah, even as a student just entering my junior year, I'm worried about the direction the area is headed. Joe's Pizza is nice, and the new highrise apartments look good, but everything just feels so expensive and...preppy. A lot of campus is headed that direction, and I hope that the more middle-class, in-state students don't start to feel more out of place than we already do.
I never knew a local student who lived in any of the apartments located either on S. Main or the recently built at the time high rises. I can only imagine how expensive they are. When I lived on the westside I was paying 400 a month while people living in 1 room apartments on or near central campus were paying over a grand. I can’t even fathom what housing costs now
I live in a house with seven other guys about a block from campus. We pay about $700/month each, which is an absolute steal, even though we don't have A/C, pay all utilities, and sleep on some mattresses we found in the basement. Our landlord is cool and only raised our rent $20 each for next year.
Most of those highrises cost $1200/month at least. I would say the average student pays about $850-900, and the cheapest apartment I found when looking last year was $600, and it's not getting better. I imagine that when I graduate, my house will go for $1000/month.
South U evolving and becoming more residential and modern is necessary though. Ann Arbor seriously lacked affordable and available student housing. The few high rise apartments going up have already resulted in Landmark's rent being close to cut in half. These high rises are going to have to lower their prices to compete with each other
This.
More student-centered units is a really good thing for prices.
You think things have changed a lot? What the hell is the Blue Lep? Is that Touchdowns?
It is, but that space has been Blue Lep for about 11-12 years now.
But that’s the point, stuff changes. You know it as blue lep, or whatever it is, others of us know it as touchdowns. My parents loved pretzel bell (which I understand is back now) that I never had any clue about. I ate at this “new” sandwich shop Jimmy Johns on south U three times a week. Now it’s a national chain that kinda sucks.
Stuff changes, the nostalgia that you know replaced the nostalgia that I knew, replaced the nostalgia my parents knew. My parents didn’t understand Pearl Jam, I don’t understand Billie eilish. We get old, we canna hack it, and then we die.
I miss quarter wing night at touchdowns. They had great chili cheese fries, too
Was it Condoms 101 or Condomsense that was South U? Anyways, condoms are only for sailors.
obligatory: user name checks out*
Was it Condoms 101 or Condomsense that was South U? Anyways, condoms are only for sailors.
They should be, those filthy beggars, they go from port to port.
That's really sad. I've been going to the one near my house more days than not for two decades and got to know the managers/staff. They had great lattes.
My absolute favorite place to study and meet up while I was in Champaign. Super bummer.
total bummer. That place kept me awake for many early classes.
South U is becoming hard to recognize. One of the best things about AA is the local businesses and funky joints. I hope COVID-19 doesn't destroy that.
To be fair, it was already being destroyed. As noted, South U is unrecognizable and downtown has largely already been replaced by chains. Middle Earth, Village Apothecary, etc already closed before the pandemic hit.
COVID-19 is just another (big) thumb on the scale against small businesses like Espresso Royale.
Man, I remember Middle Earth and Village Apothecary from when I was student in the mid-90s. I also used to upstairs to Pete's before they built the bigger downstairs Pete's on the other side of the street.
Anyway, on the topic of Espresso Royale, my drinks of choice were the Dharma Bums - Early Gray, Steamed Milk, Almond Flavoring - and whatever Italian soda struck my fancy that day. Maybe I'll try making a Dharma Bums today for old time's sake...
Damn, that is sad. I sobered up there more than a few times. It's a shame that our government couldn't (wouldn't) get their shit together to save businesses like this.
That said, they were probably on their way out eventually anyway. There just isn't much of a market for places like that anymore, even in college towns. Rents are way too high in urban areas. So unless you own the building, you're fucked. Only the chains can afford the rent.
That's why Family Video is still around and Blockbuster isn't. They own all their stores. The one near me rents half the building to a dental office now.
It's a shame that our government couldn't (wouldn't) get their shit together to save businesses like this
What about the CARES ACT? I worked the PPP side of it. Saw a lot of money get sent to small business to keep them afloat.
The hospitality sector got absolutely hammered. Only the strongest will survive and there's no way the government could have thrown them all enough cash to stay solvent.
Too bad it was safe to protest shoulder to shoulder with thousands, but selling shitty coffee while wearing a mask would have caused a covid extinction of humanity. Sucks to be you poorly capitalized mediocre coffee store.
Sucks to be you poorly capitalized mediocre coffee store
Yeah... I read, and I don't care to look up the link right now (so blue in dc can fucking blow me), that 75% of SBs in the US only have enough cash on hand to survive 4 weeks.
That's shocking to me (again, not a finance guy). There's got to be a better way.
I’ll pass on the blowing you, but a census survey says 75% have less than 3 months cash on hand. Of that, about 44% have less than a month.
https://portal.census.gov/pulse/data/
You’re welcome. It wasn’t that hard to find.
My source was the SBA. Provided in a briefing from the bank I supported.
Fuck off self-styled know-it-all dick
You do realize that the only reason that I even bothered to look it up is because you felt the need to tell me to blow you in a thread I hadn’t even commented on or even read when you made the comment? If you hadn’t thrown my name into it, I wouldn’t have even responded. It seemed like a pretty reasonable assertion.
What I really don’t understand is why you didn’t say this in your first post? I read it somewhere and I’m too lazy to look it up, so instead I’m gonna tell some random guy he can fuckin blow me seems like a bizarre way to support your point when you could have just said I heard it in a briefing done by SBA.
Oh, there is plenty of money to go around -- seriously, there is still over $100 billion left. And that money is forgivable (i.e., the loan becomes a grant) if certain terms (which have been made much more flexible lately) are met.
Of course certain people won't let us know who is getting that money. I wonder why?
No one said the protests are safe, although them being outside certainly helps.
Either way the protests are completely unrelated to covid as much as you want them to be with your schtick. Some people (hopefully most) are willing to say these protests are more important than coffee. Not you of course. Your freedoms have been decimated and you'll likely never recover. See? Anyone can do disingenuous hyperbole you petulant dolt.
Oh it definitely helped a lot of businesses, but the application process was a clusterfuck for the first round of funding. And I think a lot of businesses that would have qualified didn't apply because of the strings attached in order to have the loan forgiven.
The intention was good, but the execution was poor.
On a side note, I've been spending the past month working PPP related fraud and aml cases. All because I had to open my stupid fucking mouth and suggest we actually look at the loans.
but the application process was a clusterfuck for the first round of funding.
I saw a lot of those CFs but didn't necessarily attribute that to the process but rather the people. I'm not a finance guy either. But from what I understand, all business owners needed to do was:
Provide a 940 from 2019 and 941 from Q1 2019 -or- payroll records.
-OR-
a 1040C and associated 1099s as applicable
-OR-
COMPLETED 1065 or 1120/S.
I say "completed" for that last part because 90% of them had the lines needed for calculation blank. WTF? If you're a business owner how hard is that? How do these people pay their taxes every year?
It's not hard; this guy made a rap about it:
Anyway, when I was loaned out to PPP from my normal service line, I spent half the night filling out additional information requests for people who couldn't comply with one of the three above... and when they did respond, they'd upload shit like W-2s, their driver's license, images of cancelled checks, letters riddled with f-bombs, I could go on... none of which is a part of the program or written down anywhere.
And I think a lot of businesses that would have qualified didn't apply because of the strings attached in order to have the loan forgiven.
From what I understand the loan is forgiven if 75% is used for payroll. Are there any other strings? Even if people made over $100K a year, we still gave them a loan. We just amended their application to be (100,000/12)*2.5.
If someone wants to use it to buy a new PoS system, or fix a light, or order a new cooler, that's fine but the intent of the ***PAYROLL*** Protection Program is to keep small business employees out of the unemployment line and around to work for their employer when the economy re-opens, right?
All because I had to open my stupid fucking mouth and suggest we actually look at the loans.
LOL. I revisit learning that lesson a lot.
Family Video is a money laundering front.
Signed,
A former "management trainee"
Say more.
Sorry, NDA.
" That's why Family Video is still around and Blockbuster isn't. "
Nah - Family Video carried porn. Blockbuster didn't.
Store names definitely don't check out
I assumed family video and porn were synonymous.
The porn is gone now. Kinda sad.
Please don’t broadcast this but there is porn on the internet, for free.
Since we're keeping things on the D/L... I've heard it comes in faster if you view it on your work computer.
Who comes faster?