CONWAY - Stephen Johnson worked at the Scottish Lion when he was 14 years old. This past spring, he bought it.
Johnson, a 1988 graduate of Fryeburg Academy and a Portland restaurant owner, was looking for a restaurant site in Mount Washington Valley and came upon the Scottish Lion property while searching the Internet. Nine months later, the deal was sealed, and on July 2 Johnson opened Moat Mountain Smoke House and Brewing Co., at the former Scottish Lion site.
"We've had a great showing from people I grew up with and who I knew from here," Johnson said. "It's been great. We've steadily and progressively gotten busier."
Dennis Helfand, former owner of Cranmore Mountain Lodge and now an Internet SEO consultant in California, helped make the Internet connection.
"About two years ago, I was back in North Conway on the way to an Amherst College reunion," Helfand said. "In the course of that visit, I had dinner at the Scottish Lion. I knew Michael and Janet Procopio (Scottish Lion owners) very well. They were telling me that their inn was listed but that it was not moving. I made arrangements with them that I would market the site over the Internet for them, and I was very confident that I would be able to sell it."
The Procopios had a Realtor, and Helfand is not a Realtor himself. "The arrangement was that I would handle all of the Internet marketing for the Realtor," he said. "Any inquiries that might come in, I would immediately forward to their Realtor to handle."
Internet real estate listing generated about 85 inquiries…
Over the course of about a year, the Internet listing generated about 85 inquiries, which Helfand said was about 10 times the number of inquiries the Realtor was receiving from print ads. One of the Internet inquiries was from Stephen A. Johnson.
"Hello," Johnson wrote. "I am very interested in receiving a prospectus on the Lion. I am a restaurateur in Portland, Maine. Looking to expand my holdings. Incidentally, this was the property where I first cut my teeth cooking professionally during high school. Please feel free to e-mail me."
Helfand passed Johnson's e-mail message onto the Realtor, who then negotiated the sale.
Selling commercial real estate online - selling a restaurant
"It's so hard to sell commercial real estate," Helfand said. "It's a slow process. What we try to do if help speed up that process. Our role is to get as many buyers into your sphere as we can. At that point, it's up to you and your Realtors to create a proper sales environment so that the person will be motivated to buy."
Johnson could have located the Scottish Lion property through any of a number of Internet search engines.
"We are specialists in getting properties positioned on major search engines," Helfand said, "and we have a large collection of specialty web-site addresses in the real estate field, particularly commercial real estate. We get the site announced as being available through these specialty locations."
Johnson said he turned to the Internet as an "alternative" when negotiations on another property fell through.
"I had done the physical work," Johnson said. "I had come into town and asked around. That's how you usually find stuff, but I couldn't find a suitable property. Then this came along."
Johnson said the Scottish Lion property was actually a little bigger than what he wanted. "But it was a good location, north of the village," he said. "Good for the locals anyway. I do want that to be the core of my business."
Moat Mountain Smoke House opens at 11:30 a.m. each day and serves food until 11:30 p.m. or midnight on weekdays and 12:30 a.m. on weekends. The brewery is not yet up and running but will be by the end of September, Johnson said.
Phone number is 356-6381. |
