Close to restaurants, public transport, attractions.

@Lior Reich , you find a permanent location ( a restaurant, a coffee, an organization that has a large meeting room that you can rent for free), you choose a specific day and time per month (ex: Second Tuesday of every month) and choose a time that will work for everyone, so probably after work.When you got this in place, find some speakers in the industry that will be willing to talk for free: other successful investors, lenders, real estate brokers, etc, create a flyer and then start marketing your event on BP, in your area, on Meetup.com, craigslist, wherever you think you can reach the people willing to invest. 

I always had dreams of opening my own business (a restaurant) but didn't feel like it was a safe enough investment for all the hard work I put in to save my starter funds.

Just across from two strip shopping malls, banks, restaurants, stores.

That area has a lot of cool local restaurants.  

So if I were u, which I kinda am, same age, in the restaurant industry.

I would differentiate mine from the others in the neighborhood by doing something special like offer to pay for a Uhaul for a day for the move, or free TV with a one year lease contract (TV's are cheap now, but you could make it a tablet, or whatever),  or offer a one day certificate to the spa to rub out those sore muscles after the move, restaurant gift certificate, whatever appeals to you.  

I buy my contractor friend lunch at his favorite (fairly expensive) restaurant.

I have a professional looking card that I use when meeting with sellers and I have an "ugly" we buy houses type card that I leave at gas stations, restaurants, etc.

There are still plenty of dollar stores or restaurants in that range for cash.The dollar stores typically are around a 9 cap but stay flat for the primary term (10 years).Restaurants are typically a 20 year primary term lease with a starting cap or 7 to 9 depending on if you are dealing with the parent company or a franchisee.Rent bumps go up 1.5% to 2.75% a year on most of them.Lenders want 25% down typically on a restaurant.So an Applebees for instance would be priced at from 1.8 million to 3.2 million depending on the location.So at 25% down at 1.8 you are talking 450,000 down to purchase .Pharmacies you can get in with as little as 5% non-recourse down but are mainly not buying for yield but for holding an annuity for retirement.Now there are some great pharmacies with a few years left but would have to be taken down with mostly cash.The pharmacy will likely renew but if they do not you can re-rent.You just have to figure out what the second generational tenant will pay per sq ft for that location and who the likely target is.