The Start of my Search

For the past month or so, I began to consider the possibility of starting up my own business in a professional space outside our home kitchen. I'm thinking of a small café kind of spot that would offer lunch (perhaps to go or dine in), and that would also offer private events at night a couple times a week (private dinners or parties, wine tasting, cook book review, private cooking lessons, demo of product/equipment/technique, etc, etc) . If this sounds a little like Le Yumming....or La Salon Saint Michel (two small concept projects I've been involved with this past year), well, at least I'm being consistent! I continue to migrate towards these thoughts, and this tells me something.

Searching for a restaurant or local (commercial space) for sale in Paris has been a really interesting journey. My search started out small & quiet (right around the corner), and then it expanded quickly to most of Paris. I have a few criteria: the kitchen must be adequate to handle the things I want to make (sweet & savory), it must have extraction au norm (ventilation to code) to allow me to cook properly or should I say legally, the seating capacity must be small (less than 20-25) so that it's manageable, and ideally, it will also allow me to have some sort of a personal life (I might be dreaming a little here....) And with all of this, it must have location, location, location & be at the right price...good luck!

I've seen some interesting places and some really scary places on the market. All of them have one thing in common: each of the owners is a character. So, in my next few posts, I'm going to write about some of the characters I've encountered on this little journey.

I'm happy to say that it feels like I'm going down the right path. We'll see later on if this really turns out to be true, but for the moment, I'm enjoying the ride. A bientôt. Until next time.

A sign of spring seen yesterday while crossing town, going from one appointment to the next, just after a light rainfall, and just before the temperature dropped back to winter!

/dma