About Mara Cole & This Blog
Hi, I’m Mara. For more than ten years, I helped run a small brewpub — the kind of place where the beer was brewed twenty feet from where it was served, and the kitchen team knew the regulars by name. I handled operations: staffing, vendor relationships, the hundred little decisions that either make a night run smoothly or turn it into a quiet disaster. Somewhere in that decade, I learned that a great menu and a talented crew aren’t enough. If the space doesn’t work — if the layout fights the flow, if the lease terms strangle your margins, if the foot traffic just isn’t there — you’re fighting uphill from day one.
That lesson became personal when the building that housed our brewpub was sold and our lease came to an end. I had a choice: find another location and start over, or step back and share what I’d learned with other food and beverage entrepreneurs. I chose the second path, and that’s how this blog came to life.
1320 South Monroe was our address — the physical anchor of everything we built. Keeping the name felt right, because the principles I write about now grew directly from the hours spent in that kitchen, on that floor, watching what happened when a dining room was just a few degrees too warm or a bar layout forced servers to cross paths all night. The address is a reminder that place matters, literally.
Today, this blog is a resource for anyone who serves food or drinks and needs to make smart decisions about commercial real estate. You’ll find practical, no-fluff articles on:
- Lease negotiation strategies that protect your bottom line
- How to evaluate foot traffic, visibility, and neighborhood dynamics
- Zoning, permits, and regulatory hurdles specific to food service
- Layout and design considerations that affect both customer experience and operational efficiency
- Market analysis for restaurants, cafés, bakeries, and specialty food concepts
I don’t write about abstract theory. Every piece draws on real numbers, conversations with brokers and operators, and the hard-won lessons from my own time in the industry. My goal is to help you avoid the expensive mistakes I’ve seen — and made — so you can build a space where your business actually thrives.
If you’re scouting a location, renegotiating a lease, or just trying to understand why some restaurant spaces succeed while others fail, I hope you’ll find something useful here. I’m always happy to hear from readers with questions or stories of their own — feel free to reach out through the contact page.
Thanks for being here.
— Mara Cole