Sometimes you get lucky.You could even bring up the subject of seller financing (search online for ideas of how to structure a seller financed offer), and make sure a competent real estate attorney helps write the offer documents (if it gets that far). 

We live in California at the moment and I have W2 job and my wife a small online business.

It is not very difficult or complicated to evaluate commercial real estate, there are plenty of good books available that can teach you how, textbooks, online courses, community college classes, even excellent youtube videos etc, and it is actually quite enjoyable in the process to learn.

This owner found a free lease template online that provided very little landlord protections. 

It would be nice if you gave them more than that, because it takes a lot of effort to move a business (online marketing, business cards, etc.).

I did further investigation and it is my theory that their website was purchased so that it looks like they have an online presence since the early 2010s, and the extreme lack of online information on this company makes it very suspect.

Why not have an online meetup in the second week of April?

Seen that play a few times.. this whole sub to being taught to under capitalized or starter investors who don't know what they don't know and learn this on line is just so very dangerous.

One tip is to start looking into meetups to connect with investors / others in the REI game (in person/online).

Our online court records in CT are now automatically dropping tenants' evictions fro the record after 3 yrs, or even less.