Moving Sucks!

KegWorks has been in existence for just over 9 years now, and we are now in the process of our third move. And, I can’t wait until it’s over.

We started out in the spare room in a decent sized apartment. After hiring employee number 2 it became quickly obvious that three guys in a spare room was a bit tight. Not to mention, the small amount of inventory we carried back then was stashed in my closet as well as the garage. Soon, it was definitely time to get the biz out of the house.

I never realized how much stuff we actually had until moving day. We moved into an 800-square foot office space in a really old, but architecturally cool, building (built in 1907) in downtown Buffalo.

The building looked great on the outside, but inside it hadn’t been updated in decades. We didn’t care though - it was a cool building in downtown Buffalo and had awesome views. Almost everything we needed was right outside our door. About a year and a half later the building was sold and we were asked (told) to move out ASAP as the place was being turned into apartments.

Time to find some new digs. We could use a bit more space, anyway, as employee number 3 had just come on board. A quick stroll down the street and we hit the jackpot! A few hundred feet away was another old building, built in 1911 (Buffalo is loaded fantastic old buildings!), that was just bought by someone who was looking for their first tenant. We signed a lease and waited for the owner to renovate our 2,000-square foot space. Ok, so, moving literally a few hundred feet down the street sounds easy. But we took a good look around at how much stuff we had and said ‘no way are we doing this ourselves.’ So we hired a moving company. They literally showed up with two trucks and a small army. Everything was moved, no lie, in less than 45 minutes. Done.

We now had more space than we needed, but it was great. We actually had a bar custom built-in, a small kitchen area, hardwood floors, high ceilings and plenty of space to throw a football and jump rope. Employee number 4 then showed up. Good times.

Soon enough we outgrew our 2000-square foot space. So, we took over the basement, then added another 700-square feet across the hall. No more space to grow, and lack of loading docks is a bummer. Unloading a freight truck by hand in the rain and snow is no fun. Time to move again.

We spent over 18 months looking for new space that would accommodate our growth. I spent numerous weekends driving around the city looking for the perfect building. We had thought we had found it and spent a lot of time and money getting the plans together. In the end it just wasn’t meant to be for a lot of reasons. Trying to find the right building to meet our unique needs was not easy - Large amounts of office space, wide open warehouse space, loading docks, parking and security all had to be taken into account. We spent far too many hours being driven around by real estate agents who sometimes just didn’t get it. Long story short, we stumbled upon something that just might work. It’s not pretty - the area is quite industrial. It’s not downtown or even in Buffalo. But it meets our needs and the price was right. And, we’re sick of looking.

So, in two weeks, we once again, pack everything up and do the big move. It will be sad to leave downtown Buffalo. We will miss all the crazy people who kept us entertained just outside our front window everyday (Ninja lady, the dude on the funny looking bike who rides around in circles all day, and most missed will be Lou the mailman with his crazy holiday costumes and beer funnels just before the St. Pat's Day parade). We’ll miss having a ton of take out restaurants all within a few blocks. Lunchtime walks down Main St. on a sunny day. Thursday in The Square concerts.