Anyone experience with a food commissary

[Mike Carino]

Complete newbie to the warehouse world, so I am hoping fellow BPers can point me in the right direction and start asking the right questions, point me to the right people, podcasts, and books that can help.

I am considering a new business venture in a small commercial warehouse space for a food commissary. My business partner and I run a small chain of restaurants in the Atlanta that has done pretty well over the last few years with steady growth. We are in need of both dry and cold storage and a centralized location for logistics and quality food preparation that we can use for the long and supply the stores.

I am a real estate investor, and stay busy on BP to focus on my residential properties. So I ask myself why rent a warehouse space when I can own the building. One big reason for me is the commercial restaurant equipment, walk-in freezer/coolers, ovens, and kitchen space would have to be converted into a rental unit and will get costly into a building I do not own. We do enough converting with rental store fronts, and this situation doesn’t quite fit the same bill.

Any investors go down the path of opening any food commissary? I am familiar with apartment units, but would this follow the same logic in regards to appreciation? Will equipment and NOI increase the appreciation on a warehouse space? Better to start from scratch to place my modifications, or buy a pre-existing building? My plan would be to essentially leverage the appreciation capital to open other store fronts.

Have not reached too far with banks on the commercial side yet, but wanted to make this its own LLC identity separate since it essentially is a new business model for us. Would they even consider lending without any track record? The credit, salary, and down payment is there to be qualified.

Thanks in advance