The place I'm renting from is going out of business at the end of next month. I've been looking through Craigslist and plan to contact some places tomorrow in my area... but I'm looking for a new place. Tomorrow, also, I'm supposed to talk to a competitor who wants to rent me the unit next door and I can use her equipment. I don't really get how that would work out w/o competing w/ each other. I'm so frustrated. I just got my business started last year, and I have a lot of energy and money invested into it. I'm not ready to give up yet!

P.S. I wanted to rent a kitchen from an old victorian type house that is used as an art gallery/antiques place - I'm waiting to hear from the inspector, but the lady at the dept. of agriculture was quite b***y about it and said she doubted it would get licensed. Why?! Anyone know? I have seen other houses like these used as office buildings and some even have cafes inside. What's the big deal!?

The big deal is money and what it takes to get them up to code.

Big big bucks.

I just talked to the health inspector and she was actually nice about it. I'm so clueless on what you need to be up to code. Sorry - I guess it's cuz I'm just starting out. Why do they have to make it so difficult?

I mean would it be more fair for them to let you get opened up then come back and say oh by the way your ceiling and floor do not meet code and you have to do a ton of plumbing too. No of course not.

I mean there's all kinds of reasons for all the stuff you gotta do and all the codes and rules and regulations you gotta satisfy.

Everybody else has to satisfy those requirements.

To get to code generally you draw up your floor plan and take it to the health department or the code boys or to an architect or a contractor and see what they say.

Stuff like that.

Old places can often be too difficult to get to code. Because of all the stuff and all the codes there for our safety.

Hmm... well she said that she would have no problem with licensing it as long as it was kept for food only and they didn't store non-food stuff in there. I'm hoping it won't be that difficult, but who knows! I will explore it a little further and if it doesn't work out, then I will move to another idea.

In my area the fire department does their inspection too. Older places need a lot of improvment. So maybe it will be easier in your area.

If you do any cooking of fillings or icings you gotta get a hood for your stove--different places and different inspectors have different hoops to jump through.

What does store non-food items in there mean, like lawn furniture or something?

Yeah, I guess! I thought that was a weird thing to say, too.