There's no store yet, not even a location picked out, but I've been working very hard every day.

So while there's no official news I figured I'd post any progress for the curious and it might be helpful for anyone who wanted to open up their own store one day. Ideally looking for a place on the Westside that's about 1,000sqft and under 3.00sqft with plumbing and parking spaces. Maybe something that used to be a coffeeshop, frozen yogurt or boba tea business. It could cost up to $90,000 and a year of construction and inspections before a store is ready. Other rules like available parking must be considered. For a retail shop that does "incidental food service" there must be 1 parking spots for every 200sqft. Also, only 1/3 of the store footage and 20 seats max are allowed for customer section. Makes a lot of sense to find an old business and renovate than to start up new.

Even way before Cafe Balcony's, I've worked with a business broker and gone through many lists and honed down on some potential locations.
The first one was on Ocean Park blvd and 31st street. Nice area, across from the business park and easy to measure potential customer flow by nearby coffee related businesses, which makes it easier to figure out a breakeven point. But during the 3rd round of lease negotiations, the building owners superseded the brokers and found their own tenant.
Found another location on Westwood blvd, that used to be a Quiznos, but there was already a Starbucks in the stripmall and they had a non-compete clause in their lease contract.
Same deal with a closed Red Mango shop on Venice, where the Coffeebean had non-compete in the lease.
Then there was a coffeeshop/boba in the Sawtelle Place, that later became a failed Tofu restaurant. It's available but next door is Beard Papa who renewed their lease with a non-compete clause, so even though they do creampuffs and they existed with a coffeeshop before, they worked it in their lease not to allow coffee businesses there anymore.

Let's see what else... some locations popped up but were too close to other indie coffeeshops. If it were next door to a Starbucks I would love to take that.

I'm currently checking out a former frozen yogurt shop on Wilshire and Euclid. It's huge, but built out. 1,400 sqft is big compared to the little 592 sqft Cafe Balcony. Also the rent is 5 times more than the old location so I figured I need 120 people a day to break-even.

Well that's it for now. Thanks again for your continued support!

Ray