"You're sure you'd rather walk?" Tara Strange spoke after she and Melissa Stovall had worked through all the coding for his phone, "I'm sure we could get one of the other officers to give you a ride home now that your phone is clear."
"No... I'm fine with walking," Moe answered, "besides... regardless of the town's were laws, I still have work to do... get my pizza shop on its feet."
Tara and Melissa Stovall traded some glances as Moe then walked on and made his way out of the station. Moon Lake already had a pizza shop that did rather well, DiMaggio's. In this, both of them figured that Moe would be facing an uphill battle if he were establishing his own place as he would be challenging an established business, but then neither of them were involved in any degree of restaurant business. Between them, only Melissa Stovall had any business expertise at all, and that was more due to the fact that Moon Lake's weres had at least initially been very hesitant around things like the internet. The end result was that Stovall Systems was something of a monopoly in Moon Lake and did a lot of business with it because Moon Lake's weres seemed to trust the weremer wife of the town's mayor over some of the bigger and better known companies.
That, however, wasn't really the biggest issue on Moe's mind at the moment. He was more familiar with the restaurant business and he did know how to operate in it, and given that Moon Lake was a college town, he figured there would be some group in the town that would want pizza and would get it large numbers. And while Moon Lake might be a small town and had one pizza shop, that wouldn't mean that there wouldn't be room for others. However, it would require some scouting on his part to get things ready for establishing "Moe's Pizza" in the small Washington state town. And thus he set out to explore the town and see what it had to offer and what he and Nichole would be up against businesswise.
Though, as he left the police station, he really didn't have too much in the way of knowing precisely where everything was. There were a few road signs here and there, but from what he knew already, Moon Lake's wagon wheel layout made that sort of thing difficult. As signs to every business would be impossible at the central point in the town where all the main roads converged, and that the signs that he did notice were likely for those that were most important or at least those that would work well for anyone that came into Moon Lake as a tourist or to attend college. And so he began his scouting mission just looking around the town, with an eye on what he'd need to market to in order to compete and what he'd likely need to look into with regards opening Moe's Pizza.
It ultimately proved to be a lot of walking through the course of the morning, but Moe did learn a lot. Outside of three circular streets at the center of Moon Lake, there really weren't any intersecting streets that met with the straight streets that operated as spokes from the central hub. The only places where that changed was in relation to the High School near his home, which was large enough to cover the ground in between in terms of land area, and it was complete with a parking lot and even a modest football field with bleachers as well. It left Moe with some questions, but he figured he'd find out about that later. The only other place where there were streets that intersected with the main "spokes" that made up the roads in Moon Lake was at the southwest end of town where the college was, which made some sense to Moe as it would allow students and staff to get to the various buildings in conjunction with the campus, including the dorms, class buildings, and so on. It was impressive, though despite the apparent age of some of the buildings, Moe's initial thoughts on Moon Lake's population wanting pizza stayed there.
There were also some other things that Moe found out. The town didn't have too much in the way of restaurants, but it did have a modest pizza place called DiMaggio's, which Moe found on Moon Lake's Main Street next to a Wells Fargo Bank. DiMaggio's had an electric sign that looked like it came out of the seventies with the name and a loose image of a pizza for the sign. In the light of day it didn't look like much, and at the same time, the building itself wasn't too big. It likely had enough room for cooking space and for delivery drivers to wait on the inside, but it didn't look like they had room for anyone to sit inside, which was something Moe had always catered to. Delivery was great, advertising a bit of ambiance of sitting down to eat was also good in Moe's opinion. The only other restaurants were a small diner, oddly named "the Local Diner" and a Burger King on the west end of town.
"I'd think with Moon Lake... we'd be able to do rather well," Moe thought to himself, "not too many other restaurants, and Nichole and I can offer something that the other pizza place can't. Of course... Moon Lake's were population might have certain food requirements... maybe more meats for carnivorous weres and more veggies for herbivorous weres... Of course, we won't find that out until we can open..."
Moe also found a few small odd things well. The town had a movie theater, but it was of a rather small size, and from the signs that were posted, the movies they had available, largely at different times through the day, were also older. In this, they didn't have the new releases, next to it was another small theater, which was noted as a burlesque theater, which Moe guessed was probably a strip club and passed it buy as quickly as he could. Though that wasn't the thing that ultimately held his attention. As he passed along a street on the second ring from the town's center he came across an old restaurant type place. Some of the signs looked like it sold subs, but it had gone belly up. Particularly as the inside lights were all out and there was a lone realtor that was taping a "for sale" sign to the window. This got Moe curious.
"Umm... excuse me!" Moe called to the man as he approached, making him look up to Moe, "do you own this place?"
"The company I work for in Seattle technically owns the building at the moment," the man answered with a small shrug, "You looking to buy?"
"Maybe... I'm Moe Charleston," Moe introduced himself and offer him a handshake, "I've run Moe's Pizza in a few various cities... and when not haunted by outside trouble I've been reasonably successful. Fate has had it that my family and I have come to move here and I'm generally in the market for opening Moe's Pizza here, since I AM here now."
The man gave a slow nod, but did shake Moe's hand. There was a few moments of silence as they looked to each other. Moe wasn't quite certain on how to go from there, as while he WAS in the market for a new location, buying or at least renting an existing location would be better than having a new building built from scratch, but it was also a decision he and Nichole usually made together before they finalized anything.
"However, I'm still a bit new to the area and am looking to get the lay of the land as it were," Moe continued, "What was here before? It looks like it was a restaurant... but beyond that..."
"Well... it was a nice place," the realtor answered, "a sort of low level place for sub sandwiches. Nothing big like Subway or Jimmy Johns... but not to bad, at least with their idea."
"What made them go under?" Moe wondered for a moment.
"I think was portion sizes," the realtor answered, "and pricing... a lot of the people here can be pretty big eaters, it seems, and there were complaints that the portion sizes were too small and that the prices for food that could be filling for everyone would be too much..."
Moe quietly thought over that and some things he'd noticed earlier came to mind. He privately guessed that weres could be pretty big eaters and that some of their ability to transform consumed additional calories, which privately made him wonder if that was a part of why every were seemed so... healthy, but he didn't know for sure. It was a guess based on the fact that some of the hamburgers that the Brooks had served the previous night were a bit bigger than Moe thought of as normal, but at the time that escaped his notice.
"So there was no health complaints or anything like that?" Moe wondered.
"Not to my knowledge," the realtor answered, "You might have a bit of cleaning to do with regards to getting it up and running again... but you may not need to replace anything with regards to equipment... though I can't go into anything in that regard to an inspection until after we've filled out paperwork and whatever loan material you'll need to get started."
"I see... well, I can't make any offer at the moment, as it'd also be something I need to talk with my wife with first," Moe answered, "but... if I may ask, what are the prices you have at the moment? And have you had any offers already made?"
"We haven't had many offers, though most businesses may not be aware of this shop closing," the realtor shrugged, "though that could change. The price range will vary, and will probably be higher as the old business left us as the owners of their main equipment, so we will want to make sure it all remains in good service. The cheapest would be a simple renting program... one monthly payment and we'll then handle whatever costs that rental insurance doesn't cover. The best offer would be a rent to own program, the monthly payments will be higher, but once you've paid off the cost, you'd have full possession of the restaurant and can handle things from there. Or you could make a straight payment for the entire restaurant as it is... I don't have paperwork so I can't give you anything concrete right now."
"If I could get your office number and the line number, maybe we could work something out that way," Moe answered, "I can then talk to my wife and discuss how we'll handle this we can then get back to you."
Moe then watched as the man began to fiddle with his pockets and eventually produced a small card. It was in black and gold coloring and had no picture, but he did not the realtor company and a series of phone numbers. The realtor held out the card so that he could point to things with his index finger.
"This number is our main office number," the realtor spoke, "You can contact us there to schedule formal appointments and meetings. The second number is my personal office number extension, so you can contact me directly, and the last number is my cellphone number in case I'm not at my office. If you and your wife wish to try your luck here... let me know."
Moe nodded and took the card. He thanked the man before moving on toward his home after a rather interesting morning/day. His phone was now clean, though he might need to get a more reliable service that the mountains wouldn't interfere with, but at least with everything clean and his contact numbers still in tact, he wasn't completely unable to make things work. And he'd also learned a few things on the town's layout and had some guesses into what he'd need to do businesswise. And this chance run in did provide some opportunity for getting Moe's Pizza running. There might be some time in handling the paperwork and getting all the utensils in and paid for, but for the moment it was an opportunity.