"Gossip is just news running ahead of itself..."

"....in a red satin dress." Liz Smith.

The rumor mill is grinding away steadily in Bend. On one hand, I love the gossip. Doing a blog is very conducive to gossip. Especially if the mainstream media in town isn't even willing to confirm some of the real news -- such as the suicides of local builders. We bloggers leap into the breach.

Some of it is silly, such as talking about 'mob hits'. But I'm assuming that kind of talk is just for effect and that the other bloggers don't really believe it. But the rumors enter in when at least one of these guys is said to have been going through a divorce....and I haven't heard it mentioned anywhere.

Which is more irresponsible -- to repeat information that isn't confirmed which you heard from the horses mouth and thus betraying trust? Or to repeat information that isn't in any way confirmed but feels true? Or to talk mysteriously about things you know or guess and come across as a big tease?

Yesterday I got a couple of search bings about a local, prominent restaurant closing. This was probably just fishing, but it makes me wonder if something is happening. See....I wouldn't be surprised. This is a place that would probably both surprise people because of its size and its splashy debut .... and not surprise others.

I have made myself a little inner list of 6 restaurants downtown that I don't think are going to survive the year. Probably more than a little bad karma in even making the list, much less saying it out loud. I want to be able to take the credit for being so prescient, to say "mark my words" and at the same time I don't want to be accused of helping the process along.

I'm being purposely oblique.

So why do I do it? Mostly it is my survival instinct, testing my perceptions against results. I had a list of 5 competitors that I had estimated wouldn't last 2 years, and that is exactly what happened. Again, I couldn't say it out loud. But I knew just from experience, from watching, that things were happening. Confirmation of my instincts just reinforces confidence in my instincts. What I couldn't know was the inner dynamics, the capital reserves the level of motivation and tenaciousness. Thus, the what I considered the weakest store lasted the longest.

I usually don't have any real inside knowledge. I just know things like -- level of business, local attitudes, tourist waves, overhead, profit margins, and so on. Put it all together and I can make a pretty good guess. For 90% of the businesses I look at, I don't have enough information. I hold back on making an opinion.

And I also have some overall theories about the size and demographics of the local population that definitely don't match the common perceptions.

Let me give you an example. I had a fairly famous guy in the store the other day. I tried to stay real casual, but just in our little conversation it was pretty much clear to me that he liked Bend because of the small town nature of it. And that he couldn't care less about fancy restaurants and jewelry stores and such.

Because, folks, where he came from little old Bend's "high-end" probably looks like a joke. He wants high end, he can get all the high end he could ever want where he works.

I extend that to all the supposed 'rich.' Which means, to me, that much of the high end in Bend is selling to the rich and famous wannabes....

I've just always believed that you should aim your store or restaurant for the somewhat humble but things starting to happen and nice stuff in a rural town and isn't it great atmosphere of say.....ten years ago. That was both appropriate for locals and visitors.

And in the last five years, we've really overshot that. Just driving around the west side, it's clear that we've completely overshot the amount of office and retail we really need.

Let me give you another example.

I believe that you could take any number of businesses that have opened in the last five years, and they would have been appropriate for Salem, Eugene, Medford or Portland.

But the same storefront probably would've done one third better business in Salem, Eugene, and Medford, and maybe half again better in Portland -- just because of population base and demographics, because of colleges and interstates and surrounding towns.

And I'd be willing to bet, nary a one of these new businesses really knew that.

I've been trying to say to folks that I think the last 4 years were nearly an illusion. That if and when we settle back down to reality, it will become clear to everyone that we overshot the mark.

We have two high end business districts in Bend, at least, the Old Mill and Old Downtown. The way I think it will play out is that the Old Mill will become the province of chainstores -- that it will become very difficult for locally owned businesses to survive there, because of both the size and cost of the storefronts.

Meanwhile, downtown will become the province of locally owned businesses, because I believe the chain stores have inner dymetrics about size and suitability of space and parking and so on that would preclude them coming. And this is also with the big caveat that the local landlords don't go too crazy on the rent increases.

Like I said, I don't really have any inside knowledge. Just what I observe from inside my store.