Bruster's Ice Cream is for sale.

In his latest blog, John Heneghan has spread the word about the pending sale of our favorite ice cream shop, the Bruster's location right behind our neighborhood.

Oh, so tempting.

In my awake-at-3AM musings, one of the repeating fantasies is owning a shop. Of course, that usually means a yarn shop. I even made an offer for Dunwoody Yarn before it closed, but the owner had some drastically unrealistic projections of its value and cost. Perhaps there was a small sigh of relief when I didn't close the sale, because it's one thing to fantasize about owning a shop. It's something else entirely to RUN a shop. Sales tax and employee management, business licensing and inventory control . . . those are the not-fun and not-my-domain essentials to retail business. But there's this space in the heart of Dunwoody Village that would be perfect, with plenty of room for classes (major revenue source) and patterns as well as all the luscious yarn and tools knitters love.

Since these are my fantasies, I then envision a business partner who loves doing that stuff, giving me the freedom to focus on the marketing, traffic-building special events, and inventory selection. (Two names always come to mind in this scenario: Beth and Lisa. You know who you are.)

Back to Bruster's.

The "abstract" trumpets sales of $300,000, which covers all expenses including $35,000 for a manager. Hmmm. Con: to maximize profit, the owner needs to be the manager, covering most hours of an operation that runs 11:00 am to 9:00 pm seven days a week + opening and closing chores (longer hours during the summer). Pro: my kids would have steady jobs during weekends and summers. Con: I'd have to pay my kids. Pro: wonderful daily engagement with our community. Con: having to take care of  pesky details such as sales tax and facilities management and employees and banking and . . . Pro: I could walk to work. Con: I'd have to be at work all the time.

It's tempting.