Going Places
Leasing a location
When Steven Heald, 33, and Nick Fontana, 36, negotiated the lease for Capital Q, their 1,300-square-foot Texas barbecue restaurant in Washington, DC, there wasn't a lot of room to cut costs. A new sports venue, MCI Center, was scheduled to open in December 1997--exactly when the partners expected to serve their first meal--and the excitement was pushing commercial rents sky-high. That didn't stop them from looking for ways to save, however.
Rather than pay the $65 or even $100 per square foot owners were asking for prime commercial space, Heald and Fontana shopped around and eventually settled on a location between the White House and Capitol Hill. Signing a 20-year lease helped them negotiate a cost per square foot of only $32, in addition to pass-throughs--a set percentage of the landlord's property taxes, property insurance and common-area maintenance costs.
Continue reading this article - and everything on Entrepreneur!
Become a member to get unlimited access and support the voices you want to hear more from. Get full access to Entrepreneur for just $5.
Entrepreneur Editors' Picks
-
James Dyson Created 5,127 Versions of a Product That Failed Before Finally Succeeding. His Tenacity Reveals a Secret of Entrepreneurship.
-
7 Meaningful Ways Your Business Can Honor Memorial Day
-
Breast Implants Left This Founder With Debilitating Symptoms, So She Launched an Intimate-Apparel Line That Goes Beyond Buzzwords
-
Kids in the Hall's Bruce McCulloch Says TikTok Is the New Punk Rock
-
'I Am Not a Diversity Quota,' Says the Founder Disrupting the Dessert Category
-
Memorial Day Is a Time for Remembrance, So What's With All the Mattress Sales?
-
Pharrell Williams, Contemporary Artist Nina Chanel Abney and Brand-Builder Shaun Neff Announce Launch of Game-Changing NFT Platform
