Choosing the Cafe

We visited France in August 09 and saw a cafe for sale. It was perfect, beautiful position, good business but unfortunatly wasn't for us, not enough space. It was enough though to make us realise that running a cafe was an option and so when we got back home we started to plan. We put the house on the market and our decisions became based on when and not if. The house was sold stc in late Jan 2010. We took a week off work and travelled to France to view 7 cafes, all different but all within a 50km radius. We had done our homework on the internet, using various websites including streetwise, to see the villages, the locations and get a feel for each.
Of the seven. We eventually viewed six as one sold two days before we got there. All different and very difficult to compare. One had letting rooms, one had a gite, one had a huge garden, another had none.
We were fairly specific in what we wanted, a cafe/bar with a bit of character, decent private accomodation with space for friends and family to stay,a private garden, something we could put our mark on ( whatever our mark turns out to be!) and finally it had to be capable of taking some money. The last point is important but was not the deciding factor. Our plan is for this to be a lifestyle job. We dont plan to employ anybody so it's got to be what we can manange and no more. If it's too big it was out

A busy week seeing six cafes. We were welcomed in all and all had good points but we had to make a choice. The first looked as though it could only operate in one way and we would have just been the new owners with no other changes. The second was a restaurant rather than a cafe. The fourth was just rubbish accomodation. The fifth nearly got us going but the bar was too small, it felt like the customers were sitting in your lounge. The sixth was a disgrace and the owner should be prosecuted under each and every advertising law.

This left number 3. The cafe bar is in a small village called Champniers about 30 miles south of Poitier in the Vienne department. It has been closed for just over two years so has no "business" but everything else looked good. It has three public rooms, a bar which holds maybe 20 seats, a small restaurant which holds another 20 and a large function room which can seat up to 100 and opens up many possibilities.

This was the one for us. An opportunity to start from scratch in a small village.
There is a fairly large english population in the area so we can appeeal to both nationalities. We negotiated the price, worked out what needs doing before we start( more of that later as we go through it) and last Wednesday finally put pen to paper. we take possession on June 16th 2010 and hope to serve our first drinks at the beginning of August.
The dream is turning to reality and the todo list is getting longer and longer.
But the consulation, little traffic, lovely surroundings, it wasnt dark until 10pm last night, the sun is already shining today and I can smell the fresh bread from the bakery.