This and That

Spring has finally sprung, if that does not get you to get off your ___ and do something, I do not know what will motivate you. I spent the past weekend in Houston Texas and found the place inspiring.

I was staying in the museum district so I wasn't exactly poor boy-ing it. I came back inspired that in the middle of this recession there are many business doing just fine. I stopped at the IKEA store and their sales where down a bit if you can call $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 a day being down.

I had pizza at a pizza shop just off hwy 59 (the name escapes me) It was packed at 5:30 in the evening and the waiter said their sales where between $1.5 and $2 million a year. They served excellent New Your deep dish style and Chicago style pizzas. Prices ranged from $11.95 small to $16.98 large.

Then across the street from them is the 59 diner, I could not get a sales figure out of them but the place was hopping 1950's style.

If that didn't take the cake, we went to a ladies shoe store that carries name brand shoes in extra small - extra narrow, all the way up to extra large - extra wide sizes. Prices ran from $79.00 to $500 plus. The store had old fashion shoe salesmen in ties. I mean gray haired old time shoe men. This store takes pride in carrying the hard to fine sizes and thus is a destination store. teh store is well located just a few blocks from the Galleria shopping center. It has sale volume of $5.5 million a year. Incredible in a 10,000 square foot store, half of which is storeroom and offices. By the way, my wife purchased seven pairs of shoes.

My on line sales (patiostore.com) are good this month, up 100% year over year. I look for an over all 20% sales up tick this year, about what we where down last year. Like most businesses if the sales come back the profits will be up because of the expense cuts made over the past two years.

That shoe store made me want to investigate the shoe bussiness. But I must maintain some discipline and focus on real estate the next five years, I know I can make a million dollars doing that.