Have you always dreamt of owning your own eating and drinking establishment? Don’t lie, you know you’ve thought about it at least once or twice. If such a thing grabs your fancy, you have options. You could find yourself a location, procure a liquor license, and build out the bar of your dreams. Depending on the size of the space, figure that’ll set you back close to $500K, assuming you’re starting with a vanilla box. Alternately, you could purchase an existing bar/restaurant and save yourself a ton of work and maybe some money as well.

It just so happens that we know of a place that’s currently available for purchase, an establishment called Devil’s Pocket. This restaurant is located at 2425 Grays Ferry Ave., technically right on the fringe of the Devil’s Pocket neighborhood and across the street from Naval Square. The restaurant opened roughly three years ago in a space that was previously home to Resurrection Ale House, and before that a place called Yello’bar.

The restaurant is on the small size, though some would say it’s an excellent size for a starter restaurant. The bar seats about 20, and there are ten tables spread between an upper level and a lower level. The business purchase includes the fixtures inside, including the tables, chairs, kitchen equipment, and so forth. The small size of the place makes it relatively easy to staff, but the limited seating means that the place will really only profit from turning over a few times per night.

Assuming someone (you, perhaps) buys this restaurant and rebrands, it would be the fourth concept in this space in about a decade. This is due in part to the inherent challenges of the restaurant business, but also speaks to the difficulty presented by a smaller sized place at a location that isn’t on a commercial corridor. We believe that an owner-operator could make it work here, and with a list price of $350K for the business, it’s almost definitely less expensive than building out a place from scratch. Still, it’s a tough business (we know) and we encourage any potential buyers to consider all the possibilities before pulling the trigger.