A home away from home
It's funny how things work. We remember when we first started planning Clutch Moto, we had this idea that everything would work out perfectly. We figured we'd find our coffee supplier, pastry chef, location, architect, and contractor all in a within a respective and seamless timeline and for the most part we've hit the nail on the head on a lot of things but damn were we off on this one...by a lot.
These last couple of months have been challenging to say the least. It has been physically and mentally draining, to the point that I personally have sprouted my first gray hairs (plural) and I'm sure Kim has her laundry list of baggage that she has been coping with as well, but there isn't a day that goes by where we would do things any different. Starting a business changes you and even though our doors haven't opened, we already feel the overwhelming support from friends, family, and our supporters and it helps us push forward so thank you for that.
As a lot of you may know, we have been on the hunt for a location since June and we had originally planned to open either in Jersey City or Hoboken due to their placement on the map and proximity to NYC. Sure enough within days we found ourselves with a large list of locations to check out. It felt like we were back in the dating pool flirting with all these different locations, some were big, some were small, some were too needy, some weren't needy at all, some came with baggage, and some were down right crazy.
After a couple of months in the dating ring, we were having a meeting with Travas ( our wonderful coffee guru at modcup), you know...spilling the tea, and he helped us come to a realization. We were spending so much time trying to place ourselves in a location that was, quite frankly to our blind eye, over saturated with competition and so over populated so our business model was not fit to work in a place like Hoboken or Jersey City from the start.
So we started to look elsewhere and somehow, the perfect location was right under our nose the entire time.
Bayonne, NJ is an interesting place. It is traditionally a blue collar town in a pre-teen stage trying to find it's identity in relation to its fully developed siblings right up the road. New luxury lofts are erected every day, and with them follow ideas that are challenged every day by the new blood migrating from the north trying to escape high living conditions while maintaining the eccentric lifestyle they had in booming cities like Jersey City, Hoboken, and NYC. It is an ongoing revolution and nothing is more obvious than the inevitable change that Bayonne will go through within the next couple of years.
Clutch Moto needs to be at the forefront of that crusade. We found a lovely little corner space that used to be a pharmacy with a lot of natural light, plenty of parking, and strategically located in a spot that we hope will evolve in the years to come. We have been given a great opportunity to bring something new to this town and we look forward to sharing the progress of our space.
-Kim & Fernando