8 Broadway Brewing: Another rendition of a Grand Marais Microbrewery

Ok, so I got sidetracked on the brewery situation.  Admittedly things have been a little crazy in my life for the past year.  One thing has stayed constant in my conversations with people though; Grand Marais needs a microbrewery!

This Stuff is Expensive!

When I was putting together the idea for the brewery I got some really great support from some statewide organizations who offer investments to rural businesses so that the communities they exist in can benefit.  This rolled out to mean that I could find funding for the brewing equipment, which was not a small amount of money, but I couldn't find $1.00 to help with the costs of finding/buying/leasing a LOCATION. for the brewery.  Given, real estate in Grand Marais is neither cheap nor plentiful, but there are a few locations that would be ideal.  No dice.  Soooo, when a new piece of property came up for sale my interest was piqued yet again.  I started up the conversation with a few fellow beer aficionados again and got a rough idea put together.  Bear with me, but I think that you will like this!

The idea:
Grand Marais lacks a micro-brewery to serve as the area's hub for local flavors and beer snobs alike.  The night life in town is wildly underserved not by the fault of any of the area businesses, they are actually doing a lot and are doing it well, but because there just aren't that many venues, nor are there venues that are open late enough for the local folks to use them.  Now, with that said, there has to be some market research done here to make sure that what I am saying is completely true!  Everyone that I have talked to about it agrees though: Grand Marais needs a casual, affordable, comfortable night spot.

The property:

Needs some TLC; use your imagination!

8 Broadway.  This building is a historic "downtown" building that needs some love, but that has quietly hosted an art gallery for several years.  The first floor of the building is one large, open room with a low ceiling and a loose herringbone wooden floor.  With that right encouragement and handy people, this first floor could become something beautiful, dark wood on the walls, classy light fixtures to promote a shaded yet bright environment.  There are several little nooks on the first floor right now, which would be great to build into seating areas or just to give you a little privacy in an otherwise completely open room.  On one side you have the bar, at the back corner you have a stage for performers.  It would be beautiful and awesome.  Total seating?  I would guess about 30 people.

Yes, I'll take a Scotch...

Upstairs there are currently two apartments.  Good income potential there as well, but I think it would be awesome to convert one of them into the "Scotch Room," a nicely done conference room that could be rented out for everything from weddings to local meetings to even fantasy football players wanting to watch games and the other could be an apartment, a vacation rental, an office, you name it...
In the back of the building there are a few studio spaces that could easily be converted into the kitchen and brewery area for the business.  This would allow for some major publicity as people would love to walk in the back door from the East Bay Suites to get a beer and a sandwich... which gets me to the next item!

The Menu:

So, what do people want?  A nice place, a decent price.  What else have people wanted in this community for some time?
1. A bakery--I have talked to AT LEAST 50 people who want a bread bakery in town.  The coop wants this too.
2. A sausage maker-- The grocery stores have picked up the slack with this, but there was once "The Sausage Guy" in Shroeder who did tremendous business providing gourmet brats and sausages to the restaurants on the North Shore... Time to start it up!
*So, we do this:  A simple menu, some appetizers, nice sandwiches on fresh baked bread, designer brats and sausages along with delicious locally brewed beers.  Sounds pretty good, huh?

The Price:
Well, again, as with any good idea there is a catch.  The building is worth about $300,000 at the absolute max, probably more like $250,000, but it is listed for almost $600,000.  That is the first hurdle.  Second hurdle would be getting the spaces ready to be used for the restaurant and brewery.  We are talking maybe $50,000 for that too.  Brewing and baking equipment: another $250,000+.  This all crunched out means that we would have to earn about $7000/month in order to service the loan on the building, not to mention operating capital and payroll.  So, we would need to roll about $120,000/year minimum to make it fly.  Can we do that?  I think so.  One of the other night spots in town turned almost $2,000,000 in revenues last year, I think that we could get some of that, especially if our products were good.

Who is involved:
Well, at this point no one is really involved because this is a bit of a pipe dream!  I spoke with a fellow beer lover who has a background in financial planning who said that we would need to either find some kind of an angel investor or we would have to organize a consortium of investors who would be interested in taking responsibility for part of the overall debt, kind of like a co-signer on a mortgage.  Any ideas guys?  Any takers??

The bottom line:
I see this as an amazing opportunity and a great idea.  Time to get some numbers and maybe do some surveying to find out if people really want/need something like this in town.  It doesn't have to be in the Broadway building, but I think it would be a good fit.

As always, if you have any ideas about this, drop me a line or a comment.  I am always open to conversation, whether it be over a Scotch or not...

The Free Cabin: What, Where, How?

 The other day I saw on the local bulletin board, Boreal, that someone was selling/getting rid of a small 13'x17' cabin up by Devil Track Lake.  It was the original cabin on the lakeshore, but now the family has rebuilt and just need the structure out of there.  I called the person and went out to take a look at it and I was really excited by the structure.  Problem is I can't figure out WHERE to put it that would be a good fit!

A little about the structure:
The building is a pretty solidly built stick-framed (2x6) shed-roofed situation.  It has single glazed windows in it, which would likely have to be replaced, but the inside is just WAITING to be stripped down, insulated, paneled, and beautified!  Imagine your own little sauna shack!  But oh, I am getting ahead of myself...

 It has a shed roof on it, meaning that it has one angle to the roof.  Pretty popular with cabin builders of old because it required less wood and hardware than other methods.  It has a nice rustic aesthetic to it as well.  Because of the shed roof we would be able to trailer it without too much trouble, but to where!?

Ok, let's get to the nitty gritty:
I want this thing for a sauna.  It is too big for a sauna i.e. it will NOT fit in my backyard.  Also, in order to get this thing in good enough shape to be a sauna I would have to a.) strip it out b.) insulate it c.) build a drain in the floor d.) put in a chimney (or wire it for electricity, which would likely happen anyway) e.) build a sauna room and changing rooms f.) you get the picture... a lot of work.

What else could it be used for?  Is there anyone out there that needs a project cabin or something to put on some rural land?  I had initially thought that I could put it on a trailer and have it as a "really big tiny house" that I could rent out to people buying land until they have their home built, but it is legally 1 foot 6 inches too wide for that!  I am sure that I could work something out to get that all squared away though!

It is set up on nice square timbers so moving it wouldn't be too much of a problem, but getting it to sit on a trailer and be properly attached?  Umm, that might be a bit of a chore.

Let's talk planning and zoning for a little bit... riveting I know!  You learn a lot about these things when you are living in a yurt... Up here in Cook County you can put a building like this out in the woods without a foundation with only a special use permit.  If you want to live in it full time then you are starting to look at more technicalities (septic, homestead, etc) and thus I think it would be worth your time to put in a foundation and get it registered as a structure.  I am looking for alternatives though!

 So that is the question of the day, friends.  What can this little gem of a historic North Woods cabin be used for?  How can it be reclaimed/repurposed?  If someone comes up with a really good option other than what I mentioned in the blog I would love to help make it happen!

Getting up to Speed... November to November

Well, I certainly have been playing the part of the Prodigal haven't I?  Too much riding bike, not enough writing blog posts... (Ennis loves his pink bike by the way).

*I can say for certain that this will be the most boring blog post that I will write this year, but I want to get some groundwork done before I launch into NEW, BEAUTIFUL IDEAS!



Since I last worked on this blog my life has changed significantly to say the least, but many of the ideas and concepts I have had in my head have only gotten weirder!  Let me explain:

When I wrote that last post "Update from Up North," I was writing sitting next to a nice warm wood stove and was starting a new adventure of a simple life on a CSA farm living without modern utilities and/or facilities... Very pioneer of me, definitely.  Tonight I am writing this post sitting next to a nice warm wood stove in my own house again starting a new adventure!

I can say with certainty that living in the yurt was a great learning experience, one that will color my life for the rest of it... I can also say that living in the yurt was not as much work or hardship as one would think, but what hardship there wasn't was often replaced with anxiety over the unknown.  For instance:

The first night that we spent in the yurt the temperature was about -30F with a gusty 30mph wind.  Rose and I said many a prayer that the yurt wouldn't blow over and that we wouldn't be swept away into the dark cold of winter... But we were relatively happy and warm.

We starting going to sleep pretty much when Ennis went to sleep; it proved difficult to stay awake in a pitch dark circle when everyone else was asleep... We needed so stop relying on our computers and phones as well because battery power was fleeting.  Add all of that up and it looks like a pretty calm, balanced life... with lots of sleep... strange how it never really seemed to be enough, as illustrated by Ennis's "selfie." (I can't believe I just wrote "selfie." Oh I did it again!)

There are many things that weren't quite perfect though... Once we upgraded our woodstove from a metal barrel to an airtight stove I didn't have to stoke it 4 times a nightas many chilly butts.  Once we got our food and town routine down we were able to feel like human beings again.  But, I had to continually scrounge for firewood and keep a constant vigil on the status of our life to make sure that we didn't lose our health or our investment in the yurt.  That was the most exhausting thing!
.  Once we got our bathroom situation taken care of there weren't

*This is the philosophical part:
We have all been a part of one of the greatest conspiracies in the world.  This conspiracy is to remove so many of the day to day concerns that plagued our ancestors only to replace them with modern concerns that really have no consequence in our greater physical life that we forget our own creative power in living and are willing to settle for whatever standard is on the market and worry about things that don't have any real consequence in our actual lives... More on that later if you would like... (You should put a comment up if you would like to hear more about my thoughts on this or if you would like to broach this topic.)

All of that from living in a yurt?  Sure!  Mainly because living in the yurt and not having much for resources available to me made me HAVE to look at things a little differently.  I got a pretty good job working in a field that I am passionate about, low-income housing, but it is only half time and doesn't pay tremendously well, Rose and I ended up buying a house contract for deed only after convincing the seller that we were worth the risk, and we started up a business in that house because it would be the only way that we could afford to live in it... That was a little thinking outside the box and a LOT of serendipity.

So, where are we?  We are now the owners of Art House B&B in Grand Marais (come and stay with us!  Blog reader's special!), there are more ideas in my head than ever before, we are still thinking outside the box and trying to apply it to everyday life, we STILL don't have a proper heating situation (the boiler in the house is non-functional), but we are working on that and I am cutting firewood again!

Stay tuned for an update on the Grand Marais Brewing idea, the Cook County Housing Cooperative idea, a sewing company I am starting, MANY tiny home ideas (including a renovated Winnebago), MANY considerations on low-income housing solutions, and some projects I have been working on (Renovating Rose's studio, trying to build myself some work space, etc)!
*By the way, the floating shelter was built by a bunch of Norwegians... Big surprise!

Take That Thoreau! I'm Starting a Business!

In my last post I talked a little bit about Thoreau's view of work and how it is integrally connected with the possession of "stuff."  The more "stuff," we have or want, the more we will have to work in order to get it when, according to Thoreau, we actually don't need it at all.

He uses the example of his squatter garden, which he proudly claims profited him $13.44 or around $350 today all told.  He planted and hoed and harvested by himself.  People who walked by often scoffed at him saying that his field will never bear any fruit because he was so late in planting and because he never actually hoed the whole thing.  If he had an ox, he could have gotten it all done earlier, had more leisure time, and would have had more income from a better harvest.  Problem is that an ox in 1850 cost around $30, which would come out to be about $650 today.  He would be working for almost 2 years to pay off the animal and that doesn't count building the animal a stall, feeding it, etc.  The expense adds up without you realizing it!  This is still the case today in many situations.  Thoreau claimed that he was doing better than any farmer in Concorde that year!

Anyway, with all of that said, I am going to try to take the best of both worlds and start a business based on low overhead, a sound idea, a lot of elbow grease, and some serendipitous resources.

A little background first:

My acquaintance with the great city (village) of Grand Marais began some 8 years ago when I arrived here on my way to be a canoe guide at the end of the Gunflint.  At that time Grand Marais was already a tourist destination, but hadn't done a lot to polish up its image.  (It has since done a magnificent job of becoming a welcoming destination).  That summer I repeatedly told my co-workers that something that Grand Marais needs is a gym because there is no place to work out in this city!  Behold, 2 years later: The Pump House and a community gym at the high school.

THEN, I was an intern at the North House Folk School and spent pretty much all of my spare time out in the woods doing this or that, hiking, collecting mushrooms, collecting birch bark, you name it.  I told people then, "You know, Grand Marais needs an outdoor sporting good store." Behold, Stone Harbor.

SO, this time I am not going to let my ideas get away from me!  I have already begun discussing business plans and potential investors to get this project off of the ground.

Behold, the Grand Marais Brewery.

No, the brewery is NOT in the lighthouse... I doubt that I could get the Coast Guard to go for that one, but I think that the lighthouse is going to be present in the logo when I get it developed...

Anyway...

Grand Marais is a destination.  People love it here because it is beautiful and it is pretty calm, and there is some really great food around here.  What better to compliment these wonderful things than the ability to quaff some great local beer along with your Lake Superior Trout or Ancho BBQ marinaded pork ribs?  Sit by the Lake and enjoy a Pincushion Porter in the shadow of the mountains that gave it its name.  Watch the loons fishing while tipping back a Loonlight Belgian White.  Dig into a Wild Rice Stout and be transported to a simpler time...

Ok, so that last one was going a little overboard, but I think that you get the point.

I have been brewing since I was an intern at North House.  I haven't done much in the last year (because you can't get good hops in India... or any of the other stuff for that matter!), but I am starting to refresh myself and already feel that I have exceeded the brewing knowledge that I accumulated over those years.  I do have many additional resources to tap (heehee) into to make sure that the product is as good or better than the idea!

Supply would be limited to the North Shore, starting in Grand Marais and branching out.  The recipes are in the works as we speak and if anyone has any name ideas that have to do with things Northern, please send them to me via email!  I would love to hear your ideas!

I have serendipitously met several people who have been interested in helping me get this project started: One person who knows a master brewer who can give advice on the recipes, one person who is looking to start a distillery and could potentially coop, and many people who are excited for this to happen.

The first thing is funding.  I will likely be able to get some startup funding from the Northeast Entrepreneurial Fund (the same organization that helped one of my friends start a coffee roasting business-- Fika Coffee), but am open to grants and other ways of getting funding.  If any of YOU out there in blogger land would be interested in being a part of this, please let me know!

There will be more coming in the future about this, but I just wanted to get the word out more effectively and put some of my ideas down on "paper."  And to see what you all have to say about this idea.

This has truly been an interesting development considering my recent reading of Thoreau and Sigurd Olson, both of whom viewed that their work, writing, was so much more important than anything else that they could possibly be doing.  I am pleased to be pursuing something that I am excited about and see that this could add another layer of strength to Grand Marais's appeal/draw.



It will be a win/win situation!

Update: The Journey Home

It has been several months since I have put up a post and I had to chuckle a little when I revisited the blog to see what the last thing I put up was.  That was written in a time when I was increasingly sure that Rose and I would be heading back to the US, but when I was completely uncertain of the terms etc...

Since that time there have been many, many developments in our lives to get us to the place we are today and I hope to introduce you to many of them (without boring you into oblivion!).

While in India Rose and I finally agreed after weeks at loggerheads that things were not going the way that we needed them to so that our family could thrive.  Ennis was doing well, learning Hindi, being a very well-behaved young man, and growing increasingly aware of the dangers of strange dogs and monkeys.  I was doing very well, having time for exercise, personal reading, all of my work, and some other adventures on the side.  Rose was struggling through the challenges posed to her of being a white woman in a culture that has a not-so-rosy view of white women, an empowered woman in a culture where women are just starting to gain a foothold for their importance and wellbeing, and a young mother of an active young man starting to take many risks in the world around him.  There were many other things, but I generally boil it down to these things and Rose hasn't said that I am wrong, so I will just leave it at that.

When we starting thinking of coming home my first impression was to start a business or be self-employed.  I looked into the Go-Fer Cabins again, I applied to positions all across the state, I contacted some of my friends who have their own businesses.  The choices we had were:

1. Go-Fer Cabins-- Required investment and a lot of work
2. Wedgewood Motel-- Required MORE investment and a lot of work
3. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Farm-- We would live on site and work in exchange for rent.
4. Bike Shop-- Do part-time work at the local shop
5. Cook County Visitor's Bureau Marketing Specialist-- Getting people to come north!
6. Grand Marais Parks and Recreation Manager-- Managing the public resources of Grand Marais
7. Maintenance Manager @ Bluefin Bay Resort-- Making sure that all of the properties were working properly
8. Technology Specialist at an outdoor non-profit in the Cities
9. Director of a small non-profit bike shop in the Cities
10. Director of the Bear Center outside of Ely
11. Adventure Curriculum Specialist at Wolf Ridge ELC
12. Marketing Manager for the City of Duluth
13. Teaching at Shattuck-St. Mary's in Faribault
14. Starting a small business in Faribault
15. General Manager of several hotels in Grand Marais

Now, these are all across the board with all kinds of pros and cons.  I believe that I could do all of them well, but I struggled with the same message that I wrote about in an earlier post speaking about working for your lifestyle instead of working for money.  Security won this battle this time and even though I wasn't offered many of the jobs I applied for (there were hundreds of applicants for one of the positions, including people with doctorates and masters degrees... these are NOT high level positions, but I digress), I was offered some of them and they offered us some good opportunities.  We ended up taking the position managing the hotels in Grand Marais because we felt that it would offer us a good amount of co-working time, time together, and time to spend with Ennis while accomplishing something meaningful, being able to do the job very well, and being able to be in the community we feel a deep connection to.

We think that we made the right decision.

So here we are at the Aspen Lodge Hotel in Grand Marais, MN.  I have been starting to brainstorm new ideas for other projects (in posts to come!), reading some good books, working hard, and getting some time with the family.

There are still challenges in this situation, but they are very minor compared to the challenges we faced in India or moving back from India.  The US is a very, very good place to live despite its rough edges, there is a LOT of nice smooth area in the middle.  We are happy to have landed on that smooth area and are ready to start making waves!

But for now, if anyone wants to come up to the North Shore and hang out with us, let me know.  We are running the hotel, so we can give you a "good" deal!  It will be great to reconnect and revisit the past year with everyone!

In the future, keep checking in for new posts on some of the interesting things that I have been learning about Cabin Industries and self-sufficiency...

Life-Style and Business Idea: Go-Fer Community Cabins...

Well, now that I have gotten a little bit of my philosophy and basic ideas put down in this blog it is only natural that I move on to the practical application of these ideas.  This brings me to the thought of the night (sometimes there are several "thoughts of the night," but tonight there is but one!).

After much deliberation and a few intense debates, Rose and I have decided to return home to the US after this academic year.  I met this with trepidation as I have a desire to stay around here, continue to let my ideas (and this blog) develop, and get a tighter grasp on how we can put these ideas into action upon our return.  Well, we are putting those plans in fast forward now and have also been squeezing the accompanying stress into a smaller package in the process.  But great pressure is needed to form diamonds, right?  Well, I hope that the ideas that have come out of this are as good as diamonds.  I believe that there is at least one that is a golden idea none-the-less!  Let me know what you think about it!

Grand Marais.  A beautiful, scenic, eclectic, and expensive place.  There aren't that many places to live in Grand Marais and due to its proximity to Lake Superior, the places that there are to live are hard to come by and usually pretty expensive.  Often times this is overcome by just how COOL Grand Marais is though.  There are adventures for just about any soul in this town: arts, crafts, scenery, hiking, canoeing, fishing, birding... the list just keeps rolling on!  BUT, no matter how cool the town is, if you can't find affordable housing or a job that can sustain you (and your family), then you are kind of out of the running.  Now, before I go any further I feel obligated to mention that there are many young families in Grand Marais that are making it work and there are many pioneering people up there of all ages that have made the Grand Marais lifestyle work despite its challenges.  These people have often adopted at least some elements of a simpler lifestyle, either it be by living in a cabin without water or by passing on many of the material pleasures of the world so that they can enjoy the natural pleasures.  This plays a role in where I am going with this:

If there could be a way for people to live in Grand Marais in a comfortable, cheap place, those people would be free to use their money for other things, probably things in the community... That seems like a pretty good idea, eh?

So this is my idea:

Right now there is a property for sale in Grand Marais.  It is the old Go-Fer Cabins on the eastern side of town.  It used to be an RV park and a small resort, but has gone through many incarnations of this and that, currently ending up as a kind of neglected looking question mark.  My idea involves purchasing this property, renovating the cabins into efficient, intuitive little homes that could be rented out monthly for a relatively low amount, and developing this new little microcosm of Grand Marais into a contributor to the community.

This is my vision:

-There are 8 cabins and 11 RV/trailer spots.  After renovation (can you say container houses?) this could be the new affordable and efficient home for 19 families!  This is a new neighborhood.  If you were to live in these cabins you would agree to be respectful to the other families in the neighborhood and to support local businesses as well as to give some of your time to beautify the area/tend the garden.  We would throw block parties and host events in the neighborhood to get people involved and mainly offer a solution for one of the problems in Grand Marais... but not a solution that would burden the community with a huge increase in population.  There are many people who want a simple life, but also want to have some of the comforts of a modern home.  I see this option as offering both!

There are challenges however.  I believe that this operation would be run very much like (or AS) a non-profit with any and all of the profit from rent being re-invested into the community and the housing situation.  The only way that this would really work is if the cabins were full almost all of the time.  I do not have a finger on the pulse of the community enough to know if this is realistic; if there would be people in Grand Marais who would like to live in a situation similar to this... Anyone have any ideas?

Also, where does the money come from?  The property is selling for $259,000 and this is, um, kind of not in line with my previous conversations about living a life free from debt!  I would be very much willing to take on the financial challenge of this if I had support and the information to know it would work.  The question is whether any self-respecting bank would agree to let me!

So here is my challenge for the blogging community out there:  If you can think of some way that this can become a reality, if you have ANY ideas about funding options or if there is some really simple solution that is beyond my grasp at this point, let me know PLEASE because I do believe that this could happen and it could be pretty amazing.  We just need to get all of the puzzle pieces together!