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Thanks for the advice. Money is not really an issue, since I have enough to live on for at least a few years, but I would like to open a bakery wherever I move at some point.
Well that makes it easy. You first need to find a good business location, and that will be where you will live. The business needs to come first.
A bakery would not be the best business for the coast. At Least not a bakery in the traditional sense. A successful business here must cater to tourists, as well as locals. The bakeries here are all actually restaurants that make most of their money during the tourist season. There are already quite a few of them. I also would not recommend that you buy one of the above. If they are making money the owners would have no reason to sell it. So you would just be buying an unprofitable business. For every operating business on the coast there are at least two sitting abandoned with no prospect for ever reopening.
If I was trying to open a food business on the coast, I would look into buying or building a food truck and get a cheap motorhome to put in an RV park. Food trucks are very popular in Oregon, because they are cheap to operate, so they are easy to make a profit with. Even in locations that can't support a stand alone restaurant. You just need to rent a vacant lot along the highway with good visibility to passing motorists. If a location doesn't work out for any reason, you can easily move the food truck and your RV to another location or town. The food truck shouldn't be anything really fancy. Just something to make the basic sandwiches or seafood, that the tourists will buy. That's the way I would do it anyway.
Seaside or Astoria are not the closest coastal areas to Portland. Any place between Cannon Beach and Lincoln City would be closer.
Where in the world did that come from? Totally wrong. Just look at any map!
Cannon beach is about 74 miles, and Seaside is 78 miles away from Portland. Tillamook is 74 miles away.
That's 26 to highway 6 to Tillamook, straight shot out 26 to the others.
So for each of these you are looking at roughly a two hour trip from Portland (actually a little over 90 minutes) if you do the speed limit and stop and take a potty break.
Astoria is 97 miles to Portland.
So, I would venture to say that Cannon Beach, Seaside and Tillamook are the closest to Portland, Astoria being a close second.
If you want to get to the coast the fastest from Portland, take 26 out to Seaside or Cannon Beach.
Lincoln City is 84 miles south of Cannon Beach making it roughly 160 miles from Portland if you take 26 to CB then 101 south.
Lincoln City looks close, but it depends on what route you take.
Googles fastest direct route mileage wise is also the slowest route time wise (because of small town traffic).
It's actually faster to drop down to Salem and then to Lincoln city.
PS: I know what it's like to live in a "cheap motorhome" on the coast.
Summers or OK, but the rest of the year..................not recommended!
If it's not summer you'll be cold, damp, everything you own will smell like mold, storms and salt water will destroy your RV, and by the end of summer you'll want to kill every tourist you see, it's just not worth it, but I guess to each his own.
Plus monthly rates in a decent RV park won't be cheap on the coast in summery tourist time.
Last edited by pdxMIKEpdx; 06-26-2017 at 12:36 PM..
Not bragging at all, but I could buy a house in cash if I chose to, but I prefer to rent until I can find the perfect home in whatever community I eventually decide on. I do know that I enjoy clouds and rain over hot, dry sunshine that we have in Southern California (I realize summers are mostly cloudless in Oregon). Also, maybe a bakery business is not the best idea for coastal Oregon. I just like baking.
I'll think about other business options as well, I just need a change right now and I absolutely love the PNW, and how green and beautiful everything is! Thanks for everyone's input.
Also to the OP, sorry if I hijacked your thread, I should have started my own.
BTW, people sell businesses for all kinds of reasons. It could be possible to find an existing bakery that's for sale on the coast that isn't failing; people retire all the time. You just have to look and see what's available. I'm sure you can do better than living in a cheap motorhome and selling food by the side of the road.
Where in the world did that come from? Totally wrong. Just look at any map!
Cannon beach is about 74 miles, and Seaside is 78 miles away from Portland. Tillamook is 74 miles away.
That's 26 to highway 6 to Tillamook, straight shot out 26 to the others.
So for each of these you are looking at roughly a two hour trip from Portland (actually a little over 90 minutes) if you do the speed limit and stop and take a potty break.
Astoria is 97 miles to Portland.
So, I would venture to say that Cannon Beach, Seaside and Tillamook are the closest to Portland, Astoria being a close second.
If you want to get to the coast the fastest from Portland, take 26 out to Seaside or Cannon Beach.
Lincoln City is 84 miles south of Cannon Beach making it roughly 160 miles from Portland if you take 26 to CB then 101 south.
Lincoln City looks close, but it depends on what route you take.
Googles fastest direct route mileage wise is also the slowest route time wise (because of small town traffic).
It's actually faster to drop down to Salem and then to Lincoln city.
PS: I know what it's like to live in a "cheap motorhome" on the coast.
Summers or OK, but the rest of the year..................not recommended!
If it's not summer you'll be cold, damp, everything you own will smell like mold, storms and salt water will destroy your RV, and by the end of summer you'll want to kill every tourist you see, it's just not worth it, but I guess to each his own.
Plus monthly rates in a decent RV park won't be cheap on the coast in summery tourist time.
OMG, why are you nitpicking on my post? I don't need to look at a map. I know the Geography of Oregon. Seaside and Astoria are far north of Portland. The area south of that is closer to Portland. Even Lincoln City is closer to Portland then Astoria is. So the OP should be looking in that entire area.
As for the rest of your post, we get it. You don't like the coast, we get it. Some of us don't like the hot summers and cold winters of Portland. To each their own.
Sorry, but you can't argue with maps and google and known mileage and Oregon's wonderful highway system that we have to rely on because we can't fly in straight lines to wherever we want to go.
We are kind of dependent on roads, ya know?
I am not nitpicking, you are just plain wrong.
Maybe your map is wrinkled up or something, or maybe you should visit the north coast sometime so you can find out for yourself that you are wrong.
BTW, Astoria is closer to Portland.
Look it up.
ALSO, you can look at the map and link I provided as proof in my above post.
Highway 26 might be of particular interest.
Never did say I didn't like the coast.
I have said that I would prefer not to live there full time year round.
Last edited by pdxMIKEpdx; 06-26-2017 at 04:22 PM..
BTW, people sell businesses for all kinds of reasons. It could be possible to find an existing bakery that's for sale on the coast that isn't failing; people retire all the time. You just have to look and see what's available. I'm sure you can do better than living in a cheap motorhome and selling food by the side of the road.
It's not easy to make a go of a business on the coast, when 90% of your business is in just a few months out of the year. You still owe the rent and utility costs even in the winter when you are sitting in your empty restaurant with no customers. Every vacant restaurant is a legacy to someone who tried it and failed.
Operating a food truck is cheap. Almost all of the profits stay with the owner. If a particular location doesn't work out, you can pack up and move in a day or two. If you have a lease on a building, and it's not working out, you are screwed. If your lease is short term, you are at the whim of the landlord to jack up your rent. There is a reason that food trucks are so popular in Oregon.
Jumping head first into buying a business, and signing a lease is very risky, especially for someone new to the area, compared to just parking a food truck on the side of the road. A food truck business can easily be converted to a permanent location, if it works out. In short a food truck is less risk and more profit.
It's not easy to make a go of a business on the coast, when 90% of your business is in just a few months out of the year. You still owe the rent and utility costs even in the winter when you are sitting in your empty restaurant with no customers. Every vacant restaurant is a legacy to someone who tried it and failed.
Operating a food truck is cheap. Almost all of the profits stay with the owner. If a particular location doesn't work out, you can pack up and move in a day or two. If you have a lease on a building, and it's not working out, you are screwed. If your lease is short term, you are at the whim of the landlord to jack up your rent. There is a reason that food trucks are so popular in Oregon.
Jumping head first into buying a business, and signing a lease is very risky, especially for someone new to the area, compared to just parking a food truck on the side of the road. A food truck business can easily be converted to a permanent location, if it works out. In short a food truck is less risk and more profit.
Well, Cloudy, I'm not the one living in subsidized housing on the south coast, but thanks for the business advice.
I own a pretty successful business myself; must have been through sheer luck that I didn't make it without your advice.
The things you say have some merit, btw, but as usual, you're attributing things I didn't say or even imply to me.
What the aspiring bakery owner has that most don't appears to be enough capital to keep a bakery/restaurant afloat during the first shaky few years and to purchase her own business space rather than being subject to a landlord's whim. That's the main reason why these businesses tank; the lack of cash to cover the types of emergencies that typically plague them. Agreed that it's a risky business, but a lot of that risk goes away if you own the property.
Quote:
It's not easy to make a go of a business on the coast, when 90% of your business is in just a few months out of the year. You still owe the rent and utility costs even in the winter when you are sitting in your empty restaurant with no customers. Every vacant restaurant is a legacy to someone who tried it and failed.
^That's why you don't pay rent and why you close the business during the off-season so that utility costs don't eat you alive if you don't have much of a local customer base.
Last edited by Metlakatla; 06-26-2017 at 04:55 PM..
Sorry, but you can't argue with maps and google and known mileage and Oregon's wonderful highway system that we have to rely on because we can't fly in straight lines to wherever we want to go.
We are kind of dependent on roads, ya know?
I am not nitpicking, you are just plain wrong.
Maybe your map is wrinkled up or something, or maybe you should visit the north coast sometime so you can find out for yourself that you are wrong.
BTW, Astoria is closer to Portland.
Look it up.
Quote:
Portland, Oregon to Astoria, Oregon
1 h 53 min (96.8 miles)
Via I-5 N and US-30 W
First of all, I would call the 6 mile difference between the two meaningless.
How long does it take to go 6 miles at 60mph?
And here's a free real life lesson for you about this part of Oregon:
Even though you are technically correct about the 6 mile difference, the route you are so highly excited about is the absolute WORST route to take to Lincoln City from Portland.
It goes from Portland through Tigard, Tualitin, Sherwood and Dundee on 99W, which is constant slow moving and stop and go small town traffic until you hit McMinnville, right about where the big Spirit Mountain Casino is.
Then it's a winding highway to Lincoln City.
You might as well be driving a 150 miles for as long as it's going to take.
Even though it's a few miles shorter, chances are that it will take at least an hour longer, more if something big is happening at the Casino.
Maybe if you had some real life knowledge of this part of Oregon, you would know that.
And, if you want to play games, you also took the longest route of three to/from Astoria to prove your point: https://www.google.com/#q=astoria+to+Portland
(This route is 90 miles)
It also takes longer to get to Lincoln City than to Astoria.
What does that mean?
It means your couple of miles means diddly squat in real life, but if you really think you have the right answer.................then whatever.
Lincoln City is 6 miles closer, but takes an hour longer to get there using your shortest route.
So much for it being microscopically closer to Portland.
Last edited by pdxMIKEpdx; 06-26-2017 at 05:18 PM..
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