Do not just look at the books of a business

[PaulT]

In a resurrected post Patf stated:

If you are thinking of buying, or renting  a business you should always ask to see the "books" of the last proprietors.

I will add also observe how they run the business.

Near where I live is a Fish and Chip shop. It was owned by a Chinese couple and the fish was superb. A measure of this was that the queues went outside the shop on to the pavement. I do not queue but I did for their fish. Even National Express drivers would drive their coaches from Gatwick airport, past another fish and chip shop to go there. Customers came from a very wide area.

Sadly the wife was taken ill and they sold the business and returned to China.

The quality of the fish is way below the standard of the Chinese couple, in fact we now use a shop far closer to where we live. Now at peak times there are no queues out of the door sometimes just one customer inside.

I presume the new owners are thinking that they looked at falsified books whereas in reality they have lost business through providing a poor product when compared to the previous owners.

Paul

[Chancer]

Not the chippy in Crawley Down by any chance?

If so then I am sorry to see them go, they were/are a very hardworking family.

[PaulT]

It was the one in Salfords - between Redhill and Horley (but they may have been at Crawley Down previously)

[Chancer]

Yes I know the one! Just as well I no longer eat take aways.

I am still mourning the loss of the old fashioned bicycle shop from that parade, Frederic Pratt & sons, probably grandsons as well, it was turned into a trendy Indian restaurant, is it still there?

What about the Chinese restaurant by the traffic lights at Woodhatch, for decades that place was seriously good, I always took my Japanese clients there, they reckoned it was the best, can it still be going and still as good?