Contract Agreed.

Old School BBQ and Grill (You Gotta See This)

Jesse — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 01:59:31 +0000

Update:

Albert sent me this list of links to various media stories about the bus:

Yelp review

http://www.yelp.com/biz/old-school-bbq-and-grill-austin

Austin Food Cart

http://austinfoodcarts.com/2009/12/18/old-school-bbq-grill/

Fox 8

http://www.myfoxaustin.com/dpp/good_day/011210-Old-School-BBQ-and-Grill

KXAN news cast

http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/local/new-web-site-for-austin-men-launches.

Thrillist Article

http://www.thrillist.com/austin/old-school-bbq-grill

Community Impact

http://impactnews.com/central-austin/recent-news/6691-bbq-bus-and-brazilian-cafe-join-citys-food-scene

Since Austin is going through a Trailer Cuisine / Roach Coach craze it occurred to me to make the most of the trend on one of my properties. Well, it went better than I could have hoped for -here is a link to a news item about the Old School BBQ and Grill.

When I met Dan and Albert for the first time on the site (from my Craigslist advert) they told me about the converted school bus that was to become the Old School BBQ and Grill. Here is what my memory tells me (as accurate as Wikipedia):

The bbq/hamburger school bus is a 1991 model they bought in Kentucky and drove to San Marcos for conversion. It has a full kitchen, built to better than commercial kitchen standards, and a BBQ SMOKER. The smoker is sectioned off from the hamburger kitchen. $7 gets you a gourmet hamburger and fries that knocks the competition outta the park. You should hear Dan describe the experience. He is a longtime chef and food snob. I asked him if he could smoke brisket and drive 55 down I35. He said, “not a good plan.” So we have a sensible tenant as well!

I can’t wait to get over there, sit on the benches under the trees by the creek (just two miles from downtown) and chow down on this amazing sounding fare.

If you go there – please email me or comment here if you like it!

Here is the link to the article on Thrillist.

Off To Gibraltar

Jesse — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 18:16:54 +0000

This week I am winding down the business year 2009 and planning for 2010. I like this time of year. It is fun to look back at all of the improvements made in 2009 and to look toward an even better 2010.

This year has been amazing.

Below is a recent picture of me in Gib. Will just be there for a week this Christmas.

H-A-P-P-Y–H-O-L-I-D-A-Y-S

Jesse on the Rock

Costs of Thanksgiving Dinner Lower This Year (Commercial Real Estate, Too)

Jesse — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:06:23 +0000

Holiday shoppers keeping an eye on their food budgets will be pleased to know that the cost of the ingredients for a Thanksgiving dinner for 10 declined by 3.8 percent this year to $42.91 according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. Black Friday shoppers will find even bigger markdowns in the world of commercial real estate. Renting a square foot of office space for a year will cost $26.57, a discount of 3.9 percent from the third quarter of last year, while landlords have marked down a square foot of industrial space by 6.8 percent to $5.35. Those are the asking rents, equivalent to the sticker price on a new car. Shoppers willing to haggle should be able to secure bigger markdowns. So far this year, effective rents for office and industrial space, which include periods of free rent and above-standard tenant improvement allowances, have fallen by 12.2 and 6.8 percent, respectively, from the same period in 2008. Want to build your own building? The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that non-residential construction costs have declined by 5.9 percent from a year ago, with steep discounts for land also available. The most impressive bargains are in the big-ticket category of building acquisitions where sales prices have declined by 37 percent from a year ago as reported by the Moody’s / Real Commercial Property Price Index. These statistics are averages. There are considerable variations by product type and by geography.

Great Food = Great Town

Jesse — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:16:02 +0000

———-delish———-

I read a great article in the Wall Street Journal about great food in Austin. And it just so happens that I had an amazing meal at Uchi on Saturday night, the best meal I have had since the last time I went there about six months back. So it was fun to read about a restaurant (and even specific dishes we ate) in the national media.

But even though the article was about food, the take away for me was about (you guessed it) investing in Austin real estate. The article reads like a prospectus – hipsters moving in from the coasts, highly paid tech workers parting with their disposable income, restaurants that can stand above restaurants in NYC. Really? Seems like it is possible.

That’s good news if you own are going to own commercial real estate here.

Let me know if you agree.

Austin’s Labor Market – Relatively Strong

Jesse — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 21:55:17 +0000

Austin’s labor market ranks No. 1 in the nation according to a new study by Bizjournals. That does not mean we have a good labor market, just that it is the least worst!

Check out the full story here.

This is just another bit of positive news for Austin, a long term winner.

Austin - We Suck The Least!!

Computer Recycling in Austin

Jesse — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:57:19 +0000

The following is ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW to get your computer recycled for free in Austin:

It is easy to recycle your “e-waste” and, particularly, computers.

For computers and computer peripherals, Dell and Goodwill have teamed up to make it easy.

All you have to do is go to your local Goodwill and drop everything off. They recycle either the whole system or break it down to its parts.
Be sure to wipe your hard drive, and then pull the HD out of the system. Here is the fun part: smash it with a hammer. Once you do that you can be 99.9% sure your data won’t be compromised. What ever you do, don’t hand over your computer (even if it has a password) without taking care of the HD first.

Here are the only links you need:

reconnectpartnership.com/howitworks.php
reconnectpartnership.com/locations.php

You can feel great about yourself aftwards, as an added benefit!

Happy Recycling!

How to empty your inbox

Jesse — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 15:48:12 +0000

My Inbox consistently has fewer than 30 messages. Right now it has 14. Of those 14, I could get rid of about 1/2 just by inputing them into my system.

The main way that I accomplish this is:

1. Filter all mailing lists to land in a special folder. It is amazing how little life changes when some emails skip the inbox.

2. All READING MATERIAL goes into a reading material folder immediately. It is hard but, TRUST ME here.

3. Delete any junk immediately. Pay no attention of offers of any kind in email and unsubscribe if possible.

4. Use gmail – it has an excellent spam filter.

5. Do not deal with messages more than, say, 30 days old. Start with 90 days if this makes your head spin all the way around.

6. Dive into email on the iPhone when I have a free moment somewhere and use this time to purge junk or take care of low hanging fruit. “Yes, we would love to come to dinner on Friday.”

7. For emails that need complicated actions and responses, use “GTD.” This is the most effective step, and the one that I can’t explain in just a few words here. Basically, go buy Getting Things Done by David Allen. Basically, these emails are part of projects and should be entered into your system and dealt with when you decide it is appropriate. You put the task into the appropriate project, reference it in that project, and archive it. You go back to it when needed. Most of the time, you just note the info and you never have to go back to the archived email.

Let me know how it works for you!

Recently Closed Office Lease – Arboretum Area

Jesse — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:14:01 +0000

I recently completed an office leasing assignment for Real Linx, Inc. Details were mentioned in the latest Austin Business Journal, here.

The client will be located at Prominent Pointe I in the Arboretum area. They got a great deal on the space, a new build out (from shell), have a gym, great parking, and a top location.

The building is beautiful, and the space is just off the lobby.

Executed Lease, Class A Space

If you are looking for top quality office space and would like a top quality negotiated deal to go with it, please call me!

Real Linx, BTW, is a fast growing provider of VOIP and Internet service for small to medium sized businesses, nationwide. Give them a call (888-243-0733) but call me first for the good word.

Real Linx

Why Own Commercial Real Estate In Austin?

Jesse — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 19:38:18 +0000

Why should you think about owning commercial real estate in Austin, TX?

Owning real estate is like magic

Click the picture above for a recent presentation that I did for a group of entrepreneurs. Soon I will get it into slideshare. Once in slide share, I will have descriptions of each slide. For now, it is just a big ol’ PDF file. Call with questions!

Scotland Photos

Jesse — Sun, 31 May 2009 19:27:44 +0000

Finally I am sharing some of my pictures of the trip to Scotland.

Click on the photo to check it out!

Scotland 2009

I have a second album from my week on my own in Scotland. I took a week to drive over 1200 miles (1,208.5 actually). It was amazing. Click the pic to enjoy!

On My Own in Scotland