21 Responses to “wanna buy a coffee shop/wine bar/book store?”

1. posted by Kory at February 1, 2008 4:30 pm :
   

   Wow. Tempting, very tempting. Anyone wanna consider going in w/ me? ;)

2. posted by Page at February 1, 2008 10:46 pm :
   

   I wonder what Gutenberg is paying for rent.

   The fundamental risk is that if the flood-wall breaks (or alternatively the drainage fails), then you have a giant mold experiment (among other problems)…

3. posted by john m at February 2, 2008 8:20 am :
   

   I believe that the owners of the cafe also own the building.

4. posted by Katherine at February 2, 2008 7:30 pm :
   

   Their service has always been the pits. I don’t like to kick someone when they’re down but I haven’t been there since I moved here 2 years ago for that reason.

   I would have liked to have been a regular customer but they just didn’t give me any incentive.

5. posted by Jim at February 4, 2008 7:20 pm :
   

   I have visited Cafe Gutenberg a time or two and have always found the service and the service personnel to be superb.

6. posted by tim at February 5, 2008 10:53 am :
   

   That’s really disappointing to hear (unless someone picks it up and runs it).

7. posted by HT at February 5, 2008 12:37 pm :
   

   From the looks of the sign it seems as if only the building is for sale. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the business is also for sale. Has anyone heard differently?

8. posted by alicia at February 5, 2008 3:00 pm :
   

   Sadly, I heard from one of their part-time employees that the cafe will be closing sometime over the next couple of weeks.

9. posted by john m at February 5, 2008 3:11 pm :
   

   I called: the business is for sale.

10. posted by HT at February 6, 2008 12:33 pm :
    

    Wow…It’s such a great place. Good coffee, good food, great books…Hopefully a neighborhood friendly owner will keep it going.

11. posted by Dorrie at February 10, 2008 3:52 pm :
    

    It is ashame that Richmond will lose such a unique place. I really like the atmosphere of the cafe. I would frequent the cafe once a week until they changed chefs and the menu changed. That is when I noticed the selections were not as appetizing and the food definitely went downhill.

12. posted by john m at February 12, 2008 8:19 pm :
    

    This week’s issue of stye confirms that Gutenberg is ailing:

    Steve Graca, part-owner of the shop, says he’s looking for someone to buy the business or the building. An engineer by day, Graca opened the café with two co-owners but says “the ownership is moving in different directions.” A final timeline is still being discussed, and he can’t say whether it will close its doors before a new ownership arrangement is reached.

13. posted by john m at February 21, 2008 6:28 am :
    

    RTD 2/21 – Unsinkable cafe may close – Shop that survived floods now threatened by loss of two partners

    “… the popular coffee shop, bookstore and wine bar needs to find $300,000 by Sunday or shut the café’s doors forever.”

14. posted by River District News » Gutenberg after Gaston (2004) - Richmond, Virginia at February 21, 2008 6:51 am :
    

    [...] see the waterline near the top of the photo. The flood didn’t close the place for long, but a squabble among partners might shut the doors for good this Sunday. Posted by john m at 6:47AM under RVANews-news, history, real estate | Tags: Cafe [...]

15. posted by Paul H at February 21, 2008 7:48 pm :
    

    So we will be up one coffee/winebar/restaurant (Aurora @ 4th and Grace) and down another (CG). It’s a shame that such a cool area (Shockoe Bottom) is still struggling. The market area doesn’t look much different from when I got here 7 years ago, but the surrounding neighborhood is booming.

16. posted by john m at February 22, 2008 7:12 am :
    

    GlobeHopper looks like it’ll be neat, and there is that Starbucks opening on Cary, too. Folks like their Starbucks.

    This seems like a good place to lament the passing of 17.5, who never made it back after Gaston.

17. posted by TJ at February 22, 2008 5:02 pm :
    

    It is kind of shitty that these 2 partners out of the country are putting this kind of pressure on the cafe. One of these so-called partners abandoned the cafe in a drunken fog years ago. I wonder what their motivations were in the first place.

18. posted by Magneto at February 23, 2008 10:40 am :
    

    I just stopped by Gutenberg this morning for coffee. It appears that they will be open for about another month and a half. According to the person with whom I spoke, their other potential investor seems pretty convincing, so that is what has motivated them to stay open longer. I’m crossing my fingers really hard that they can make the deal work!

19. posted by Karen at February 24, 2008 2:09 pm :
    

    I am crossing my fingers too! We don’t get down there as much as we would like but we love Gutenberg and would really hate to see them leave!

20. posted by Anynonomus at February 26, 2008 10:07 am :
    

    they are going to stay open, I know the owner, and they found a partner, they are staying open!!!

21. posted by River District News » a pretty good 180 days - Richmond, Virginia at April 24, 2008 5:09 pm :
    

    [...] working. In our almost 250 posts, we caught the raid on Velvet and all of that mess, we broke how close Cafe Gutenberg came to closing, helped spread the word on the painting over of Trask’s Princess Diana mural, and offered [...]

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