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August 19, 2004
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August 19, 2004 |
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Caboose owners selling new product: their lease
The popularity of in-line skating hit its peak in the mid-1990s, around the same year, 1994, when Caboose Bike & Skate sold 300 pairs of skates and grossed its best year in business. Every year after that, however, the business’s owners, Doug and Chris Roberts, have been disappointed by their profits, and this summer they decided would be their last in the bike and skate business. “Our profits are down, the business is a lot of work, and we decided we wanted our weekends off to do things we enjoy, like riding our bikes,” Chris Roberts said on Monday. The Robertses are liquidating their merchandise and selling for $1,000 their lease with the Village, which owns the cabooses the business is located in. They had hoped to sell their business with the lease, but if they don’t get an offer by the end of the month, the lease will go to someone with other plans, Roberts said. The Roberts’s lease with the Village allows the Robertses to transfer their current lease to a new lessee upon written approval by the Village. Village Council has a right to reject the transfer to any business it deems “unacceptable.” The Robertses pay a monthly rent that now totals $3,646 for the year. The rent increases 5 percent a year until the end of the lease, in 2009. Just after Roberts placed a for sale ad in the News two weeks ago, a local resident who wished to remain anonymous made an offer through an attorney to purchase the lease, Chris Roberts said. Negotiations have not been finalized, however, and everything is still for sale, she said. Though Roberts would not disclose the prospective buyer’s identity, she said it was not John Spariosu and Marcia Sauer, the owners of the Village Cyclery. Last year Spariosu and Sauer questioned the legality of the Village’s lease with Caboose Bike & Skate and pointed out that the rental agreement conflicted with a 1986 Council resolution that said roadside stands and private installations are prohibited within the bikepath right of way. The cabooses are located within that right of way. Last summer, Council agreed to amend its lease with the Robertses to limit their business to only rentals. However, in January 2004 Council reversed that decision but said Council would not renew the lease after it expires. During the last year, the Robertses found the emotional stress on top of the financial decline difficult to handle, Chris Roberts said. “It’s been very hard on us this last year, and though it didn’t affect our decision to close, it affected our being able to sell the business as a business,” she said. Problems with the Village did not precipitate their decision to close, Doug Roberts agreed. The Robertses tried to sell their business in 2000, after the lease was renewed for 10 years. A buyer considered purchasing the business for $60,000, but the agreement fell through before it was completed. It’s hard to sell a business whose profit just barely supports its owners. It makes owning a business just a job, she said. Doug Roberts and Selwa Whitesell opened the Caboose business in 1992 and a year later Doug and Chris Roberts took it over. The revenue from skate and bike sales and repairs has always been fairly balanced with the rental business, which has a higher profit margin. After the roller-blading mania peaked, the Caboose’s sales dropped off by at least 80 percent, Doug Roberts said. The business went from selling 300 roller blades in 1994 to just three pairs last year and not a single pair so far this year. The Robertses tried to recover by focusing on a niche. They tried introducing recumbent bikes to rent or to buy. But by the late ’90s, the extension of the bikepath north of Springfield and south of Xenia meant that traffic on the Yellow Springs section of the path was more spread out and less likely to pass by the Caboose, Doug Roberts said. The two cabooses, eight feet wide, could not accommodate a large stock of recumbents as it could skates. Lack of choice hurt the business, sending total profits down to half of what they were in 1994. “You have to figure that profits have been going down for 10 years, and it’s been very stressful for me,” Chris Roberts said. “We’ve tried everything we can think of. We’ve put huge energy into trying to turn the trend around, and I’m very tired.” The Robertses opened Kiss and Hug Car Wash and Self-Serve Pet Wash on U.S. 68 at the south edge of town in 2002. The profits are enough to support the business, they said, and they plan to start investing more time and energy into growing it. Village Council approved the establishment of a car garage and a nine-car lot from which Doug Roberts had planned to buy, repair and sell used cars. Roberts said he might still like to do that, if the money to build a new building became available. “I don’t know that people are ever going to love the car wash. It’s hard to imagine it would become the kind of center the Caboose was,” Chris Roberts said. “But it’s certainly possible now that we have time for it.” Running a business out of the Caboose that encouraged people to exercise and have fun was a positive thing, she said. But the facilities, which have no restrooms, were cramped and acted like little ovens in the summer. While 95 percent of transactions must take place outside, both the sun and inclement weather constantly made it difficult to do business, Chris Roberts said. “It’s been a much-loved business, and we’ve had satisfaction in creating something people loved,” she said. “We’re both ready for a change in our life. We’ve had this business ever since we got married, and it’s time to do something different,” Doug Roberts said. |
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