Joseph Mizrahi spotted this change to “opening soon” sign in the window of the slated Bill the Butcher shop on Stone Way:
Perhaps the change has something to do with their recent financial troubles. Back in April, Marketwire reported:
High Capital Funding, LLC, a privately held investment fund, announced today that it had commenced a lawsuit against Bill The Butcher, Inc. (OTCQB:BILB.OB – News) in the Federal District Court for the District of Nevada for the non-payment of a $300,000 promissory note. The suit seeks payment of the principal, accrued and accruing interest, and the expenses of collection, including attorney fees. The summons and complaint was served on the Nevada registered agent of Bill The Butcher, Inc. on March 16, 2012.
Seattle-based Bill the Butcher (BILB) became a publicly traded company by merging with an already-publicly traded shell company in early 2010. BILB is now trading at .13, down 93% from its all-time high of 2.16 in October of 2010.
It’s unclear from the photo — was the “NEVER” sign applied to the outside of the window, or the poster itself (which is on the inside of the window)?
The latter would be significant — basically, an admission by the BtB owner that this branch won’t see the light of day.
Otherwise, it’s just a comment by some anonymous person with a custom bumper sticker on the long-empty BtB storefront. (One I sympathize with, but which doesn’t indicate what the final outcome will be.)
FWIW, their Twitter account is pretty active: https://twitter.com/#!/@TheOnlyMeat
The “NEVER” sticker is in fact outside the window, so it’s likely an act of guerrilla informativeness.
Love the sign. Wish I had thought of it.
I’d just like to see something actually active in there. Be it Bill the Butcher or some other business, something COULD do well there. The last thing Wallingford needs is an empty store front.
I’m not sure I understand that. I mean, I could see large numbers of empty store fronts, but not the problem with an empty store front or vacant lot here and there.
From a practical point of view, a store’s function is pretty obvious. For you, it’s an opportunity to acquire goods or services within walking distance. (For an owner or employee, it’s potential revenue; inverse perspective on really the same thing.) A store with nothing of value to you is no better than a vacant lot, true?
Consider these words translated from the Tao Te Ching: “Clay is molded into a pot, but it is in the space where there is nothing, that the usefulness of the clay pot lies.”
Without some empty space, no one can enter the neighborhood. If we manage to fill all empty stores and vacant lots with, say, hair dresser salons and insurance agencies, the cheese shop you’ve been waiting for will have to go to Ballard. (This is of course a fictitious example, haven’t heard of any cheese shops in the offing.)
From my family’s perspective, a vacant storefront means another small, local, independent business bit the dust in what appears to be a growing trend (Frank&Dunya, Oasis Art Gallery, Fremont Place Books, The Folkstore, Deluxe Junk to name a handful off the top of my head).
Hello,
Thanks for alerting us to what was vandalism on our sign. And while the ‘Coming Soon’ time frame is taking a little longer than we hoped, we are still “Coming Soon” and looking forward to opening in the Wallingford neighborhood. For a not quite 3 year old start-up company, we have always had a vision for our growth that was based on bringing the neighborhood butcher shop into the great neighborhoods of the Greater Seattle Area. Our sign is still in the window because we are still committed to opening in that location. As a publicly traded company, and the only publicly traded butcher company, raising capital is a challenge and factor in the nitty-gritty time frame for our planned new shops. So we ask for a bit of patience and we will strive to make the wait worthwhile when we do open.
Terri A Johnson, Bill the Butcher
Terri: Vandalism requires the destruction of property. This sign is not vandalism.
Yeah, stickers aren’t even covered as graffiti under Seattle code. At least, they weren’t a couple years ago; I don’t think Burgess’ campaign to extend the graffiti law went anywhere.
well, you can be rude and argue about what constitutes vandalism or not.. the sign was deliberately made with planning, use of a printer and deliberately placed on the window. The wording is mean-spirited.
…or at minimum, it’s not how most of us treat our existing or potential neighbors (whether we happen to like–or approve of–them or not).
It just goes to show how our lovely little neighborhood can be shamed, by the brutal act of one person. Maybe it would be a thoughtful gesture to organize a work party, to help peel that dreadful thing off.
the ‘never’ is gone this morning 30 min ago
Terri,
Since you’ve posted on this, I’m hoping we can go a little off topic. Can tell us what is the current corporate policy on disclosing the sources of your meat vendors?
The “COMING SOON” sign went up a year ago. If Bill the Butcher can’t stand a little ribbing, they need to check their funny bone.
“Ribbing”…. Good one!!! 🙂
Many things worth having are worth waiting for?
We can take a ribbing, especially if it’s a short rib… and they’ve been braised low & slow. Sorry, if my reply came off as too serious.
Lauren, if you stop in to any shop our butchers will be able to tell you where every cut came from and how it was raised. With about 40+ small ranchers and farms that we work with and source from on a rotating basis, there is some variety week to week and month to month. Our minimum requirement is the farm is raising their animals on open pasture with no GMO’s, no added anti-biotics or hormones, no pesticides. The beef is grass-fed & grass-finished, and for this week came from both Long Valley and Jerry Foster Farms – both Washington farms. If you have any other questions – please visit our website http://www.billthebutcher.com or find us on Facebook or Twitter.
Thanks – terri
One correction to my last reply; Long Valley Ranch is in Oregon.
Terri
Thanks for the updates, Terri — still looking forward to having Bill the Butcher close at hand. (One cannot have too many Gangs of New York references close at hand.)
“…our butchers will be able to tell you where every cut came from and how it was raised”
Terri — Sure, that’s impressive but can your butchers tell us the *name* of the cow it came from?
. . . put a bird on it!
Good one Nancy!
Thanks Terri.
Like the whole idea of BtB, but baffled as to why a butcher shop felt compelled to structure its business like a credit default swap.
The Bill the Butcher franchise is as dead as the cows they serve up…