My slow-living store

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The dream would be to open up a slow living store on beach somewhere. The design of the place would maximise for comfort. The primary KPI would be how long patrons stay there for: the longer, the better. It is a place where people go to live slowly and enjoy the little things in life: a coffee with friends, a place to read, and a haven for writing.

Functionally, the store serves as part-café, part-book-store, part-fashion-boutique, and part-lounge. I would have staff on hand to run the place like a barista, a chef, a book-store clerk, and a clerk for the boutique. Most of the day I imagine I would just read, write, or strike up conversations with the patrons. I want to be an owner-operator that gets to know the clientele, the community that makes up the slow living store. If I find myself needing a break or something else to do, then I will help out wherever is needed.

With that set-up, I would hope to attract kindred spirits and like-minds: slow-living enthusiasts. I imagine the space would attract perhaps a creative crowd: writers, artists, and thinkers. A crowd that is not dissimilar to the ones Hemingway writes about filling up the cafés of Paris in the 1920s. The crowd that I would actively try to shepherd away would be the entrepreneurial-type with their laptops, headphones, smartwatches and all. To me, they are the opposite of slow-living.

From a business’ perspective, so long as it making enough to pay for its upkeep including paying staff, that is all I would be concerned with. The lifestyle would be all the payment I need.


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