I just am always in awe of successful business owners who don't leverage their success into a business loan to buy the building or one nearby. I grew up in Austin, and there are a few businesses that have no business still sitting on their little plots to obvious places are: El Patio and Dirty Martin's. How are they able to stumble along with low prices and old school menus? Well, they own the property they sit on.

Time and time again, I see businesses fighting against rent-seeking landlords who are happy to remove a well-loved successful business for an extra few hundred a month. It's happening right now to Yard Bar (my favorite weird spot in Austin right now).

I know it's a thin margin business, but I wish every successful spot would take every damn dollar they made and at least by a comparable property so they have leverage against these landlords. It's a pointless destruction of value that doesn't have to happen to profitable well loved businesses.