speaking ill of the dying

without a doubt, I'm going to miss the sleepless goat. BUT I'm hoping that the end of the goat era might be an opportunity for another, more well run boho café-restaurant will open. kingston didn't really have room for two. I think it's fair to say that the goat was a hole in the wall that people loved for nostalgia and the casual environment, but not for the run-down, slightly gross bathrooms and rag-tag kinda-falling-apart atmosphere.

the sad and frustrating thing to me about it's closure is that ultimately (I think) it was due to the idealistic co-op approach to business. at one point, there was one owner who probably knew what he was doing, but over the years, the revolving door brought in all sorts of co-op co-owners; some of which had no cooking experience and others had no business experience, and there's a big chance that many had neither (granted, not everyone). you can't run a successful business if the majority don't know what they're doing. a few years ago, they had a fundraiser to 'save the goat'. I said to b "what kind of business runs a fundraiser?" and he said "a poorly run one". that's really not a sustainable business model.

it's not that they didn't have a dedicated customer base. people LOVE the goat. I'm disappointed that a Kingston institution was basically run into the ground. sure, there are external factors, and I'm sure the big-dig road construction didn't help, but a 24 year old business should be able to endure such events. you know... I bet they could've sold the business rather than close it. that place has lots of name recognition and would've been a good buy.  

anyway... I've been to the wild oat in ottawa several times. it's well run, it's organized, the food is good and it feels like it would pass a close examination by a health inspector. I hope something more like that pops up in k-town in the next few months or years.