How do you know when it’s time to open a new location? If you’ve secured a loyal customer base, have rising demand, and have the drive to see your business grow and evolve, it’s a good idea to consider expansion. One of the biggest challenges to expanding is finding a property that best suits your business needs. While you may have heard much about rough CRE market conditions, finding the ideal second property need not be a permanent roadblock. With some creativity, determination, and the help of your NAI Mid-Michigan team, it’s possible to adapt available properties to suit your business.
Check out this story about Peppino’s Pizza in DeWitt, a thriving pizzeria that set up shop in an unlikely CRE space.
The Square-Peg-and-Round-Hole Property
“At first glance, the business we wanted to create just wouldn’t fit in the space,” Padot said. “NAI was a great partner when we built out this location. Nick Vlahakis actually walked the floor with me, and we did some brainstorming. He said, ‘Look, Tim, what if we did this here? What if we created this?’ It was basically a square-peg-round-hole, but we got it in there because of that creativity in approaching the problem together.”
Vlahakis approached the neighboring business and negotiated a deal for the use of their unused office space. This deal allowed Peppino’s to expand their restaurant and build an essential walk-in cooler.
“That was the domino that really helped everything fall into place,” Padot said.
Surviving and Thriving During the Pandemic
Ten years later, Peppinos is thriving and has even opened up additional locations in Grand Ledge and East Lansing. What’s more, they weathered the challenging pandemic marketplace and saw continuous growth. Peppino’s was lucky enough to be considered an essential business during the initial pandemic shutdown. With a new wave of people stuck at home, ordering in, and looking to support local small businesses, Peppino’s gained renewed traction in the community.
“With the market reducing down to just a few choices for dining out, we got a lot of exposure,” Padot said. “And a lot of people who got into a routine during COVID are now ordering from us weekly. Our business just thrived.”
While Padot has experienced similar staffing challenges as many other businesses in this marketplace, he knows Peppino’s success over the past two years has all been due to his incredible core team.
“They’re the reason why we were able to maintain this phenomenal growth,” he said. “They just kept taking more and more on their backs and performed so admirably.”
Leveraging Strategic Partnerships
Padot would advise other business owners to see their relationships with their landlords and commercial real estate brokers as valuable partnerships rather than short-term transactions.
“You can get so much tremendous value if you create that kind of working partnership,” he said. “From the beginning, when we created the space, all the way through our operations in the last seven years, I’ve really been lucky to have a great partnership in NAI Mid-Michigan.”
If you want to learn more about how NAI can help your business expand to a new location, contact us today.
