There is a bakery in my small town that went out of business after 51 years due to owner's health. Everything is still there. It is as if they just have gone home for the day. Half was a cake craft store which is fully stocked with chocolate molds ,wilton character pans (some retired), tips, you name it. Everything including the building( which I have not been able to get inside of yet) which has 2 apartments upstairs, her recipes, display cases, you could walk in and bake tomorrow for a very good price.
Cons- I am not established and it is downtown about 10 miles from Wal-mart. There are some businesses downtown (hospital, lawyers) but basically no shopping.
Pros The only other alternative is Food City, Wal-mart, and Kroger.
There is also enough space for high quality crafts that could be done by local crafters who pay a small comission.
Also my state does allow home bakeries and my husband can add kitchen counters, whatever is needed for quite a bit lower cost.
I guess my question is what would be my best route.
I have asked around and it is about 50-50 whether it would go or not
Any help would be appreciated.

A lot of "depends" in my answer.....

Depends on.....

....how much money you want to invest.
....whether you want to work from home or if you want to go home at the end of the day.
....how big do you want to get or how small do you want to stay?
....the purchase price, the condition of the building, is the equipment included?

It sounds exciting to me. You could sell hard to find cake ingredients and cake tools and supplies since there are home bakers in your area. I don't know how many cake stores you have in your area but if you don't have any this would be a good route to go and still bake wedding and special occasion cakes. You could even have instructors come in and hold classes for cake decorating.
Jacqui