Five Businesses Northfield Needed Yesterday

Or, five businesses which could separate this fool from significant fractions of his annual adjusted gross income:
  • Pizzeria selling New York-style pizza by the slice: Walk in, choose a giant slice of pizza (in all the usual varieties), throw five bucks down, grab your pizza and a soda, walk out. Two minutes, tops.
  • Outdoor-equipment store: Positioned conceptually midway between R.E.I. and Target, and to one side of the team-sports oriented store on Division, this would be a place to get good-quality gear for camping, hiking, canoeing, kayaking, skiing. A proprietor could make money hand over fist just by selling North Face stuff to the undergrads at the two colleges.
  • Convenience store east of Washington (on the northwest corner of Prairie and Woodley?): Because a) at nine p.m., it's a long way to Econo for a gallon of milk, and b) the zillion or so kids (like mine) who live east of Prairie need somewhere to walk to when they're older.
  • Brewpub: Good bar food + locally-brewed beer = license to print money. I'll even give away a good beer name: Cannon Ale. (Okay, not "give away" so much as "propose in exchange for a bottomless glass at the bar.")
  • Thai restaurant: Because pad thai is to the 21st century what the hamburger was to the 20th.

Forecast: Significant blowing and drifting, with the possibility of heavy accumulation in rural areas.