This is the first installment in Neighborhood Notes’ series on indie business collaboration through space sharing.
Attention entrepreneurs: Many of you have great ideas for new businesses. Some of you even have the wherewithal to navigate the technical, legal and governmental landscapes, and a lot are capable of gathering the funds and support needed to get it all off the ground.
But, plenty of you may run into a few stumbling blocks along the way. There’s the obvious difficulty of finding the perfect, and affordable, space in the ideal neighborhood surrounded by the right businesses. And then there's the matter of the right amenities, products and marketing, among other business challenges.
A host of innovative Portland business people are solving these problems in inventive ways by collaborating with other businesses through space sharing.
Neighborhood Notes has dug up a variety of ways local businesses are sharing spaces and shaving expenses to give the next wave of indie entrepreneurs some fresh ideas on how to collaborate and thrive.
Sharing With Your Neighbors Makes Sense
As you should’ve learned in kindergarten, sharing is a good thing. And for a lot of Portlanders in the food industry, it just makes sense.
For Prost!, a bar that’s driven more by German beer than its food offerings, it was a natural decision for owner Dan Hart to design a restaurant and deck area that would not only coexist but also reinforce the neighboring Mississippi Marketplace cart pod.
“We’ll allow people to bring in cart food, we just want people to drink our beer,” Hart spells out.
As both the bar and the carts came to fruition around the same time, his goal was to create a neighborhood bar and community space. So, why not include the adjacent food vendors?
Taking advantage of the resources at his disposal, Hart established an open door policy with the carts that share the same lot. Although Hart admits that he might sell more food if the agreement didn’t exist, he stresses community and thinks it’s been “mutually beneficial,” plus he relishes the idea that everyone can get exactly what they want and still enjoy a quality German beer—his true focus.
“The whole idea was born out of [the fact that] I didn’t want to eat bratwurst and kraut every day,” Hart says, but he still wanted everyone in the neighborhood to enjoy the patio (and hopefully a beer).
More Food Cart-Bar Love
In 2009, Prost! was notably the first restaurant-bar-cart collaboration and the synergy has spread. This last winter, Ryan Pawley and Bob Jones of Buckman’s The High Dive organized a similar agreement with the longstanding Cartopia food-cart pod at SE 12th and Hawthorne.
Upon finding their spot half a block away, “We recognized the possibility to cross-market with the carts during our build-out process after meeting a lot of the employees, managers and owners of the carts,” Pawley says. “We were welcomed with open arms so the relationship was created organically. Once we opened we decided to make cart food welcome at The High Dive.”
Both watering holes say their agreements with the eateries are fairly informal. Pawley says, “[It’s] pretty much just a handshake and the warm fuzzy feeling everyone involved gets participating in small business helping small business!”
He does note that his bar has cart menus on hand and promotes the fact that patrons can consume cart food on the premises. “In turn, they [the carts] have allowed us to attach signage to the carts stating that you can bring your food to The High Dive and enjoy a cocktail,” Pawley says. “The cart employees are also amazing at the word of mouth. So it really is just a grassroots marketing thing that just happened by a bunch of conscious locals.”
Following the same model as Prost!, another cart-bar combo is the Q-19 pod, at NW 19th and Quimby, and the next-door bar Quimby’s, which have been sharing space for just shy of a year now.
Ménage à Trois: Sharing Adjacent Space, Amenities and Food
Speaking of sharing amenities, southwest has its own dynamic modus vivendi betwixt the legendary Mary’s Club, the Mexican restaurant Santería, and the neighboring beer bar Bailey’s Taproom.
Be forewarned, if you’re eating some of the self-proclaimed “Best Mexican Food on the Planet” at Santería but need to use the baño, you’ll have to use the restaurant’s rear door and pass through the seedy dimness of Mary’s to get there. Or, if Santería’s seating area is crowded with late-night carousers, feel free to order and then take a seat over at Bailey’s (and maybe even use the bathroom there if that makes you feel more comfortable).
This particular relationship, like many of the others, is founded on friendship and mutual support. Santería subleases its spot from Mary's, but Mary's also takes advantage of the food Santería serves to offer its patrons more snack options. Bailey's on the other side of alley follows suit because owner Geoff Bailey has no interest in serving food, according to Santería manager Rebecca Roark. In fact, her crew delivers "room service" to Bailey's. After placing your order in her restaurant, grab a beer across the way and take a seat. When your order's up, Santería will come running, complete with a jack stand for the trays and plate covers to keep your eats hot.
And if you’re drinking in the right bar and happen to stumble across a menu for Lonesome's Pizza, the pizza distributors will deliver your order to the bar, including a side of art with each pie. (“We put what we think's awesome art by folks you may or may not have heard of inside the box,” Lonesome's Pizza states on Facebook.)
In fact, plenty of bars around town will allow you to bring in outside food because many, like Bailey’s, don’t serve much, or any, food themselves. SE Division’s Apex is one of these spots, and the policy is advantageous for the adjoining Los Gorditos taqueria. You can often find Apex patrons sipping beer on the picnic tables out front while chowing down on burritos.
How Do You Set Up A Shared Space?
Look around your community and see what other businesses might complement your offerings or supplement your amenities.
For Hart, he trusts “in the team concept,” holding value in what everybody brings to the table.
“Believe in what you can do,” he says, but also know your role in the surrounding community. For Hart, his primary role is beer while the carts’ focus is undoubtedly food.
Keep your business and mission in mind and “have a vision of what you want and what you’re looking to get from” a potential collaboration, Hart says.
“Just be open to opportunities that can arise from working with others on your block or in your building,” Pawley says. “Go out and create those opportunities and be active in your neighborhood. We believe that can help way more than hurt.”
But beyond food and booze, there are many more Portlanders sharing space in even more idiosyncratic ways.
How about three distinct businesses completely sharing one retail space, a candy shop in a gym, or a building owner that doesn’t charge his tenants rent because he’s interested in the experiment of developing a collaborative, creative space?
Neighborhood Notes will spotlight these space sharing collaborations and more in the next article.
Until then, do you know of any business around town with unique space sharing arrangements? Please share in the comments below.
