Shelley Thompson stood outside of Faegan's Café and Pub in her puffy winter coat on a Wednesday night. It was Flip Night, and she was out with her girlfriends. While she and her friends drove to the bar, she said she wouldn't think of walking outside in the cold Syracuse air without her winter coat.
Faegan's is one of several frequented bars in the Marshall Street area. On a typical weekend night, coats and boots can be found tucked behind the bars or under tables in the local pubs - often mixed up with others, forgotten or lost.
But a new business opening up in the area is trying to fix that problem. Check It! could be a prime location for bar-goers.
The business will potentially be located along South Crouse Avenue and Marshall Street. Patrons would be able to check in a coat or a pair of boots for $2 or check both a coat and boots for $3. Check It!, which was started by the Entrepreneurship Club at Syracuse University, will hold onto customers' belongings in a U-Haul truck throughout the night, said Koby Brandstein, chief executive officer of Check It!
"We're providing a safe way for people to store their coats just before heading to the bars each night," said Brandstein, a freshman in the School of Information Studies. "It's especially for people who have the big coats who don't want to just shove them under a table and lose them."
The checking system is similar to one in a theatre, Brandstein said. But unlike the typical numbers system, Check It! has the added benefit of taking people's phone numbers. If a person forgets his or her coat at the truck during a night out, Check It! will call the owner as a reminder. Left behind coats and boots can be picked up the next business day. For a $2 fee, Check It! will also deliver the belongings to the owner.
"It's really become something we are making a big effort and commitment to," Brandstein said. "We're going to see how we do, give it two or three runs, make sure it's profitable and, starting second semester, really kick it up into gear."
With low start-up costs, Brandstein said, the business has a good chance of being profitable. While they would not release the exact costs of their start-up materials, members of the Entrepreneurship Club said their biggest reoccurring expense is the U-Haul truck they rent each weekend. For around $60, the club can rent the ten-foot truck needed to store all of its customers' belongings, said Tory Gentes, president of the Entrepreneurship Club and a senior in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management.
"We chose one specifically that wouldn't have high start-up costs," Gentes said. "So, realistically when you sit down to think what's to be done to be able to put this business in action, it's a storage space. We've kind of settled on renting U-Haul trucks versus buying property on Marshall Street."
But the group has run into some problems in starting its business.
"One of our hurdles is we need to get a license for this and the city right now is not recognizing it," Brandstein said. "They've never heard of a business operating like this before."
Check It! was originally planned to open the weekend after Thanksgiving break, but after running into licensing problems in early November, Brandstein said the Entrepreneurship Club is now aiming to open the business by next spring. But they need the license from the city to move forward.
"City Hall, they were just a flat out 'no,'" he said. "It's mainly they didn't know what type of license to give - if I wanted one. They just don't recognize that type of business, nor do they have a license for it. And we can't create one, which I asked them to do."
Any non-food business that is run out of a vehicle is not permitted by the city for safety and traffic reasons, said Deborah Somers, Syracuse deputy commissioner of finance.
"It's more a safety issue. And then you'd also have vehicles parked on corners, or wherever, disrupting traffic," Somers said.
With a slight glitch in the legality of their plan, the club is now looking into a different option: renting out a private lot. The possible locations include the Waverly Avenue parking lot or a spot in the alley next to Bruegger's Bagel Bakery, which wouldn't be far from the original planned location.
If all goes well, the group said they plan on creating additional Check It! sites along Comstock and Euclid avenues.
"As of now, I don't think we would just go off one weekend's worth," said Gentes, president of the Entrepreneurship Club. "Because we realize it's going to take probably at least three weeks for people to realize it's there. We'll definitely be back next semester full force."
sirodrig@syr.edu
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