The small, historic village of Catskill, New York—which actually sits on the Hudson River, not in the Catskill Mountains—has a lot of natural beauty and charm. Still, there’s one more thing the 11,000 residents could use, and that’s a new top-notch restaurant, one that can generate the hype to lure some curious city folk upstate.
To that end, they’ve issued a YouTube call for the perfect chef, with an offer too good to go to waste: bring your food here and our Main Street art deco restaurant space is rent-free for one year.
It’s a wonderful opportunity for some experienced and visionary entrepreneur without much liquid capital, perhaps, though there are some catches. The mystery landlord behind this deal (who appears with a brown paper bag over their head in the video) is requesting the new tenant make capital improvements, which can be a bit pricey. Otherwise, he or she is willing to negotiate a normal rent agreement. It sounds as though whoever moves in will be investing no matter what.
The YouTube clip also doubles as an advertisement for the town of Catskill itself, touting the inexpensive commercial real estate—especially as compared to the already heavily gentrified town of Hudson, just 12 minutes away. The AP also quoted one Nina Lanksy, who is part of a group promoting Catskill’s finer points, on the relationship between the towns: “God forbid if the place turns into something like Hudson, but a little bit of it would be nice.”
You know what might be the best PR? If they kicked this rivalry into high gear.
Photo by exithacan/Flickr