10/27/2025
OKā¦ permit me to exercise my civic duty this one time. It wont be eloquent, this I am sure, but hopefully somewhat diplomatic. Below was a response I provided on those popular Muletown FB group pages from comments that we were a high priced shop and that was due to higher rents. I want to give greater insight into why some businesses have to close downtown given the current discussions. Remainder of explanation is in my first comment.
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So, yes, rent has more than doubled since we started in 2019 when you could get downtown space for $11-13 per sq ft. Now base is $24+, and if lease is triple netā¦ itās effectively over $30. But thatās not the only reason prices are high. Retail Businesses donāt only raise prices on goods due to rent costs (at least to any great extent)ā¦ thatās factored when they accept a lease based on gross revenue they expect to make. Prices are based on cost of goods we purchase to saleā¦ and as a market, our markups are probably way less than other types of retail, typically less than 50%.
Folks are used to mass produced foods and those ābargainsā from big box stores are sourced from all over the globe. Whereas local, clean food, the cost of real food, is much higher. Our eggs we sold for $7.50ā¦ we maybe collected 4 or 5 doz a day on any given day through the year. But managing 6 or 8 doz chickens, 2 or 3 hours of work a day, carton and label cost etc. Whatās your labor worthā¦ you get the point that real food is expensive. Sure you can get cheap eggs from a chicken farm with thousands in a large barn never seeing the light of dayā¦ itās a personal choice what you invest your money in.
Labor cost are also up, but weāre happy to pay thatā¦ but itās factor.
And finally, sometimes city decisions have unintended consequences that favor some businesses and and disfavor others. The construction of round about may be a great thing for the city overallā¦ it may be a great decision long runā¦ but for a business with road and parking challengesā¦ it was a 40% loss in revenue over 4 months. Not all businesses are built to absorb this loss and it can be devastating real quick. There are no civic go fund meās for us to go to in order to ride it out.
