Missed Brooklyn Bagels?
 

You must be missing Brooklyn Bagels on 441. Boiled and baked just like NY. With the ‘flavoring’ on both top and bottom! Our NY friends say they’re even better.

Have you missed both superbly well-equipped Villages Woodshops? One on Rolling Acres Road, the brand new bigger one across the street from Eisenhower Rec Center.

concierge service -
One stop shop for everything from arranging transportation to house painting

$100 an hour? We have an average sized home in TV with 3 irrigation zones and pay $65 a month. They do my yard 3-4 times a month and usually they have 3 people who are in and out of here in about 10 minutes. If they cut grass 3 times a month their man hours would be 1.2 hours. $65 is cheap as they have other expenses, such as WC, fuel, insurance, administration and equipment(their mowers cost as much as our golf carts).

What is the current wait time to get a membership to the woodshop?

Most people WAY underestimate the fixed operating costs of many businesses.

While I 100% agree that there is a dearth of independent non-franchise restaurants in this area, restaurants have one of the highest failure rates of all new businesses. Rent in a good location would likely be super-expensive, and finding reliable employees a huge on-going hassle. But oh how I wish there were more good ethnic restaurants in the area!

I'd also wish there was a good "dive bar" with decent food & drink prices, darts & pool tables, with a dance floor that had good live music on the weekends.

And/or a cool restaurant / bar bistro that hosted national/regional touring bands during the weekends, maybe some cool jazz nights during the week, live comedy a few times a week. I'm probably in the minority here, but the music @ the Squares with local bands that play nothing but covers of songs we've all heard a million times before bores me to tears.

OP's friend wouldn't get rich without expanding and taking on multiple crews / employees, but small businesses with high potential for success that one could open for less than $40,000:

Pool maintenance service
Lawn care business
Irrigation system installation & maintenance
Gutter installation / cleaning & maintenance
Pressure washer / window washer / screen replacement
Mobile golf cart repair
Small engine repair
General Handyman service
Interior / exterior painting service
On-site computer repair & training
Mobile car detailing & window tinting
House cleaning service
Property management for absentee homeowners
Small furniture moving and assembling

Nothing new under the sun, many of the above ideas have already been mentioned.

Turns out there are places like that. You just have to go outside the bubble. There's the Gator Bay Bar and Grille in Leesburg, on the way to Mt. Dora. They have live music, reasonable prices, fried gator and po boys as their specialty foods, karaoke night, burgers and fries, hotdogs and fries, $2.25 domestic drafts, a glass of cola is $1.25, etc. etc.

I've been there & like it! But it's 40 minutes away from me, too far to drive on any kind of regular basis.

Seemingly there's a large enough year-round population here to support more food / entertainment options, but evidently not.

Hobby Garage Condo's
 

This one's so obvious. I'm tempted to risk my retirement savings and go after it myself.

The only bad thing about moving here last March was that half our stuff wound up in storage, with our hobbies mothballed. My wife's a quilter with a 12' quilting machine, and I'm a tool guy who likes to build things -- furniture, cars, motorcycles, and even an airplane once. We bought a big house (for the Villages) with a big garage (we thought) and tried to downsize. It wasn't enough.

I can't believe the Developer hasn't already thought of this. There must be thousands of car guys alone in the Villages with the same problem.

You would buy an acre and build a big metal building on it. Divide it up and sell it off, 600 sqft at a time. Collect maintenance fees. Build another one and keep raking in the dough.

There ya go! You're welcome! Just remember, I GET THE FIRST ONE!

Business idea
 

Italian ice and Boardwalk Fries stand would be a great business.

How about a fast food fish joint like, long John silvers, capt. Ds

Well Steve17.............did the villagers give you ideas??? Did you summarize for your "friend"?? I think you should provide feedback.

:popcorn:

You can rent exactly that right outside of Fenney, I believe they are 500 sq. ft, maybe some larger with a little office, air conditioning, restroom, etc. There are also a lot of them on C. Thomas drive in Wildwood just behind Lazy Days RV. A lot of car guys rent them as well as some small businesses, one guy is running a baseball card business out of his unit.

This almost identical post was posted over 10 years ago.

I wish somebody would open a restaurant with a good quality Sunday Brunch buffet with all-you-can-drink Bloody Mary's & Mimosas!