The Pigtowner

I actually already have this pig hook in my house.  Just after we moved in, it was apparent that I was losing my keys in the morning because I couldn’t keep them in the same place.  Or something.  Anyhow, I have this right by the front door now and I keep my keys there all the time. It should be available again at Restoration Hardware for $14 27JUN08.

It’s super piggy cute.

While stuck in the lounge of a Mr. Tire the other day, I was forced to watch FoxNews with my fellow tire-consumers and I was amazed to see this.

It intrigued me.  Instead of tupperware, you could have a taser party?  I’ve always wondered how to use a taser and I can’t deny the appeal of being able to defend myself at night with a plastic shiny pink electrical pistol.  So I googled “taser party” and found this site, which helps you host parties in MD.  And guess what?

Stun guns are banned from Baltimore City.  

I should’ve known.

When you live in Pigtown, anything piggy becomes a ridiculous consumer obsession. You start noticing porcine products everywhere and suddenly you realize that you have to exercise a little self control. Because when you start buying piggy stuff for yourself, piggy stuff comes to you in the form of gifts– and you only have so much space in a rowhouse.

My personal philosophy is to not seek the pigs, but let the pigs come to you. So when I noticed piggy corn holders while shopping for bathroom storage, I couldn’t help myself. I had to get them. 

Oh, piggies! You will make my corn taste so much better!

… and Highlandtown and Penn!

SC Johnson decided to clean all three neighborhoods because it was such a close call!  So we all got some grime taken away from Baltimore.

I was unfortunately out of town so I couldn’t see the team at work!  I hope that someone might post photos on the internet… and maybe we can see what they did and keep up their cleaning!

Maybe these rainbows will give the Ravens some luck this year:

 So, I was driving home on Friday morning when something caught my eye. A bright orange thing around the Save-A-Lot. A really shiny bright orange thing:

Well, at least Raj LLC did something about their loiterers… after a whole year!

Sadly, the vagrants have moved over to a shady knoll with their mattress and one of them was following the call of nature on the drain/sewage opening there.  There goes my dream of guerrilla gardening that area… although, I daresay some stinging nettle might work really well.

Location: 1145 Hollins Street; Baltimore, MD 21223
Phone: (410) 685-6999
Hours: Kitchen Hours:  Closed Tuesdays  M,W,Th,F,Sat:  1130-11pm Sun:  12:30-10pm
Bar Hours: Thur., Fri., & Sat. 11:30 – 12:00

Kind of place: Local pizza joint that you go to/get delivery from every week.

Zella’s was voted for Best Pizza in 2007 by the Citypaper for good reason:  the pizzas are created on a strong foundation of soft tender dough, zesty sauce, and creamy, gooey cheese.   And like the venerable institution of Matthew’s Pizza, Zella’s doesn’t skimp on their servings but somehow leaves you hankering for more.  (If you ever order their meatball calzone, you’ll know what I’m talking about– it’s the size of a football and it takes you two or three meals to finish it, yet somehow when take your last bite, you wish you had another one in the fridge.)

Unlike Matthew’s though, Zella’s has an amazing amount of space for dining inside and the parking in Hollins Market is of course plentiful.  The dishes at Zella’s are slightly jazzed up (try their caprese or their Pizza Proscuitto) and the environment is artful and yet cozy.  In fact it’s the ambience that wooed me over, a kind of quietly classic pizzeria without the gimmicks of other pizza places.  It’s the kind of place that you take your parents to, to show them that the west side isn’t so bad (and make them a little jealous that they don’t have a place like it!)

The bar is where Zella’s beats most pizza houses in the city away.  With a decent selection of affordable wines and a higher standard for beers on tap, Zella’s is a wonderful place to get together with a large group of friends to drink, eat great pizza, and catch up.  But don’t get deterred by the bar if you have wee ones:  I don’t think I’ve ever been to Zella’s when there wasn’t a lovely couple with children. 

Zella’s deliver too and if you’re too tired to make dinner, I highly recommend that you call them to deliver.  (Unfortunately, they have a limited delivery area, but you live in Hollins Market or Pigtown, I think you’ll be ok.)  It’s the best place to get pizza and it’s not expensive for the quality and the quantity. 

I swear I’m not getting any money from these porcine products I keep posting, but damnit, they’re cute.  And of course, I absolutely NEED a piggy doorstop as I live in Pigtown:

Let’s assume that the lease for this thing was $5.00/sq ft when the Save-A-Lot was still here.  At 17035 square feet, that means that the store was paying $85,175 per year on the lease.  This means that the store had to make more than $7098 per month to just cover the lease.  This doesn’t include other expenses such as employee wages or utilities.  If you have a store with 10 people on the payroll, at $6.55/hour, you need to have made $10,480 per month to cover your employees.  Your utilities are pretty hefty too with the cost of electricity to cool your goods at 17,035 sq feet:  so let’s assume something like $5000/month.   And stores must run on some kind of profit margin, so let’s assume that the store was making 25% on its sales.   From these barebones calculations, the Save-A-Lot store had to make a minimal $28,223 to stay afloat.  What does this mean?

What it means is that when you double the lease of a store to $170,350 per year, you are assuming that the store is making $37,095 per month, which I doubt the store was making.  The Save-A-Lot is a store that targets a demographic of people with a fixed income of $35,000/year. And even if it was making gangbusters, it’s still difficult to justify a two-fold leap in lease.

In a neighborhood that had an average income of $28,000 per year, I doubt the landlord is going to find anyone willing to pay that much for this property.  Or any bank to approve a loan for a business on this property. But I have a sneaking suspicion that Raj LLC is willing to have this loss.  If the company can somehow afford to purchase a property for 2.8 million and leave it empty for a year, they are somehow willing to swallow the interest on the loan on the property.  They can afford a loss of $170,350 in revenue this year, meaning they can afford the guesstimated payment of $159,000 per year in loan interest. Meaning that Raj LLC must be making some ridiculous amount of money and needs a tax shelter.

Oh Raj LLC. I think you should adopt me and pay me six figures to sit around vacant for a year. With that kind of money, I can clean up real good. I promise! And since you like to buy stuff and neglect them completely, I’m certain that you won’t mind if I take that money to the Greek Islands. Or St. Thomas. Or the Bahamas!

I’ve already posted this once, but in case you didn’t take it seriously, VOTE for PIGTOWN.