re: Buying gas stations

DON'T DO IT!

There's a reason Indians run 95% of them now and also live in them or behind them. They dedicate their whole lives to it so they have no labor cost and also get a 10 year tax break on them.

Because of the above and the fact that Indians have been very good about forming a union more or less and making a large buying group so they get huge discounts and can undercut others on the things that make the majority of your profit like beer, tobacco, and cooler drinks.

When I had mine my deli was the biggest money maker but also the biggest headache and most expensive thing to get into. My ancillary hood alone cost $12K. Know how many burgers you have to sell to make that back? My commercial cooler broke in the middle of the night and I lost a lot of food over it. Thousands worth and it also cost me $1200 to repair it. Just constant BS that can eat your margins.

If I were to do it again I would have stuck to a counter top fryer and limited my menu to what I could cook in it and that's it.

And don't get me started on the employees you deal with. They will rob you blind and not think twice about it. Plus, you aren't dealing with the smartest people in the world and they don't care about calling in sick and fricking you. I can't tell you how many shifts I would go cover for my people when I really didn't have the time.

I bought it thinking it could run itself more or less, and even though I did improve it a lot from when I bought it, that couldn't be further from the truth.

If you like making your money a nickel at a time and have to deal with minimum wage employees then go for it. If not, then stay far away. There are far better businesses to invest in.

I hated every GD minute of owning mine and was so glad when I sold it. The only good thing is I sold it for 3 times what I paid for it since I bought mine from a bankruptcy and built it back up.

A family friend did this for a while. He had a solid location, great staff in the kitchen for plate lunches, ect, but it was a ton of work. He had all of his children working there at times to help keep it going. He made some money at it and sold it when he retired from the school system (he was a principal). He's happy that he did it, as the extra money has been a huge boon to his retirement, but he's also just as happy to be rid of it.

I would be nervous of someone blowing the place up.

Seriously owning a gas station sounds like a headache. For some reason the people who work in them, and the people who shop in them, are degenerates. I would never attempt that.

Idk about owning a gas station, but buying one to redevelop the land is a pain in the arse with all the environmental stuff you have to do when you remove the tanks.
Lots of opportunity there though with all these big gas station concepts pushing the little guys out of business. Some of the land is primo.

quote:

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yourself a favor, stop one exit over(92) and go to the truck stop north of I10 across from the Loves, it's a ShopRite store now

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Yes. Listen to this individual and stop there!

My parents had a couple of them in New Orleans. Gas is a few cents on the gallon (there is a small profit), but the more gas you sell the more you make. They also had like 8 mechanic bays which is where they made their money. The the convenience store was also a money maker as well but it took up probably 75% of their time. First you have inventory that if you don't keep track of, it will walk out the door. Lottery tickets, cigarettes and beer. Those were the triple crown.

They counted the every box of candy, cigarettes, beer, soft drinks, etc. EVERY single month. Then finding competent employees to work the 24/7 convenience store was always a challenge. Most of them would steal stuff or let store walk out the door. I don't think we could ever go anywhere for more than a day or two because whenever they left town, the place would get ransacked by employees. They would hire trannies who were clean cut to run the register because most places wouldn't hire them so they were loyal and since they couldn't get a job anywhere else, they were generally honest employees. They finally sold them after about 15 years of working all the time, moved to the mountains and pretty much never want to deal with the public ever again.