Moon Colony Razorblade closes, Shanty Town Pub opens
11/20/06 • Posted in: Springfield by Joey Marchy 23 Comments »
The articles One step backwards and From Max Wood/Cash Carter tell the story. Moon Colony Razorblade is closing its doors on November 27th.
As one downtown retail flame fades, another rises from the ashes just 12 blocks north in Springfield. Ian Ranne and Marianne Purcell are opening Shanty Town Pub Friday November 23rd at 3:30pm.
Ian sent me these details earlier today:
Shantytown is owned and operated by Ian Ranne (Triclops I) and Marianne Purcell who learned the trade from managing The London Bridge on Adams St. for the last few years. We will have 8 beers on tap Guiness, Stella, Woodchuck, Strongbow, Spatan Dark, Tucher, Yuengling and Abita Purple Haze. Pints run $4 even. Over 50 beers in the bottle from your cheapo $2 PBRs to Budweiser all the way to some fancy ones like Chimay and La Fin DuMonde and Ephmere for the connoisseur.
There is a great wine selection hand picked by Marianne and champagne. 3 TVs, Jukebox, Turntables, Bonfires, videogames, bells and whistles. The pub seats about 35 and the outdoor seating area can hold another 40.
We will be open 7 days a week, 3:30pm till closing time. Happy hour daily from 5-7 pm. $1 Yeungling!
Ian and Marianne are really looking forward to becoming part of the neighborhood. Ian says to expect mellow happy hours and some wild nights! If you have any ideas for the pub or just want to chat you can contact Shanty Town Pub at:
(904) 798-8222
shantytownpub@hotmail.com
myspace.com/shantytownpub
tags: Tags: jacksonville, springfield, pub, shantytown
i’m so freaking excited about shantytown pub. it’s across main from my house, so i could conceivably stumble home after some drinks!
What’s the specific address?
22 West 6th St.
Jacksonville, Fl.
32206
Ian and Marianne, wish you two the best and you know we will be supporting you heavily. It’s about time!!!
Great news. The corner of 6th & Main is turning out to be a lively spot. Hopefully the rest of the Main Street corridor will follow suit.
[weeping with joy] It has been a long suffering 4 years living on Laura St, between 5th and 6th, waiting for glorious pints of Guinness to be served within crawling distance from my house.
Congrats to Ian and Marianne…
Grateful and Thirsty,
Phil
RE: MCR - I’m really sorry to see them going; I was hoping to see them become a Downtown mainstay.
RE: Shantytown - Are kilts allowed?
Moon Colony Razorblade would have done fine but for two factors.
One is that the shop was located in the Toxic Bubble–that area of downtown where the enforcement of parking fines combines with the vagrant panhandlers and the buildings kept dark and broken by city owned but not maintained structures to make the most forbidding retail environment in the city.
Two is the non reality based commercial leasing agents.
Commercial property for retail is based on two things: Size and Traffic.
People mistake ‘location’ with ‘traffic’. When you hear the phrase ‘location! location! location!” what it refers to is actually ‘location in relationship to passersby’.
Simply being in proximity to expensively built structures does NOT increase the value of the space to a retail customer unless there is accompanying foot traffic.
Retail (meaning stores, shops, services, restaurants or any other business that is open to the public with direct sales rather than wholesale) pays for the value of potential customers.
In both Springfield and Downtown the same set of characters is overpricing on speculation rather than reality. Which is fine for real estate purchase to own or invest but has NOTHING TO DO with retail leasing realities.
If there is no street traffic by a given location, then the space is worthless to retail and will remain unrented.
You can have the largest showroom in florida next to the most glamorous convention center in the south, but if there is no street traffic, even the best constituted business will fail in that location: Even if the space is free.
Hionides, Van Horn, and a number of other ‘investors’ simply don’t understand this dynamic. Which is why they keep sabotaging their own developments with businesses that don’t last a year.
Understanding that dynamic, and learning that one of the primary investments that a real estate developer who expects to trade in retail spaces must make is CREATING STREET TRAFFIC is why the Shultz brothers succeeded in Five Points.
STREET TRAFFIC is the only value to a potential merchant, and lease prices for shops are either based on street traffic or they are doomed to fail.
The space which Moon Colony Razorblade leased from Chris Hionides (or more accurately, Mary Farwell) was only worth 300 to 500 dollars per month TOPS because of the amount of existing traffic which the building could offer to the tenant. That they were paying 2000 dollars per month is totally based on fantasy, and typical of the reason why speculators like Mary Farwell are sheer poison to developing neighborhoods.
Craig Van Horne has tried the same approach to all 900 incarnations of 9th and Main, forcing the tenants to pay rent based on his percieved value of the building. Each of them were doomed to failure and bad feelings because the property simply does not have the street traffic to justify 6 thousand dollar a month rent.
The only successful strategy for retail development in ‘emerging’ areas is taking the long view and ‘cycling the tank’. i.e. judicious leasing to shops or shop mixes guaranteed to create street traffic or synergy which insures the success of the businesses who lease at that building.
Street traffic and businesses making mad profits off of the existing location is the only thing which justifies a raise in the lease prices. Pretty soon, the ‘location’ has value all on its own simply because of its position in a high street traffic area.
So Moon Colony Razorblade had two strikes against it succeeding: The same two strikes associated with a whole bunch of people in downtown. Inside the Toxic Bubble, and Non Reality Based lease agreements.
“Are kilts allowed?”
Kilts are allowed anywhere and everywhere at any time. In fact, they should be required :)
Needless Things is opening at 40 W. Monroe Street next to the parking entrance for The Carling. The Merchants Association should stop by and welcome them and give them the usual warnings, BEFORE they find out the hard way. Due to open Dec. 1. Best of Luck to them.
Do you know what Needless Things is?
“Are kilts allowed?”
Derek
Let me know when you are going and I will break mine out as well.
Derek where can I get a kilt? I’m Irish but I have no kilt.
“where can I get a kilt?”
Check out Celtic Charm on Centre Street in Fernandina Beach. I believe they can hook you up. Are you familiar with the Northeast Florida Highland Games? You can always purchase kilts out there every year as well.
http://www.neflgames.com/
I love the wheat beer Purple Haze made by Abita. Does anyone know anywhere I can purchase this beer in Jacksonville?? Please respond if you do.
Thanks.
Try Total Wine at St Johns Town Center
http://www.wineaccess.com/store/totalwine-jacksonville/store-info.html
I’m glad to see that ShantyTown PUB is serving Beer like 100 Feet from my house!!! I do wonder how many more people will be walking around 6th and Laura and under what intoxication level they will be at??? I’m also wondering if that means I will be seeing more of my neighbors drinking in public now?? HeHe….Congrats Ian and Marianne! Cheers!
Hate to be a stick in the mud, but does Jax really need yet another watering hole?
I can’t believe they were asking $2,000 a month for that junk. These assholes probably live in Ponte Vedra and could give two craps about downtown Jax.
Lee,
Most definatley Jacksonville needs another watering hole. Shanty Town Pub adds another dynamic layer to the Springfield neighborhood. The owners Ian and Marianne do not live in Ponte Vedra and they care very much about Springfield and its success.
They ran the London Bridge Pub downtown before opening Shanty Town. I am running a full review of the pub tomorrow. You should check it out, then check out Shanty Town.
I wasn’t refering to the Shanty owners there, but the realtors Stephen Dare referred to.
I do like London Bridge, so if it’s going to be done, at least it’ll be done right.
I can’t stand when the word “definitely” is spelled incorrectly.
Best of luck, guys.
I’m a kil-wearin’ black man.Let me know when there’s a tartan night & I’ll be there representing wallaces, stewarts and Clan Gunn (U.S. Army).
Anyone headin; 2 savannah for St. Pat’s Day?
We’ll wear tartans, drink beer and chill with the irish folks.