Sometimes even when they aren’t cooking, the smell of their spicy food just lingers.

It's wild that there are kitchens out there with two little counter tops and nothing else for people to make food on.

Not having a kitchen means they can't cook, and I GUARANTEE they will let you know of what a pain and inconvenience it is, and how much money they spend on food, how stressful it is on their kids, etc...   

It is common in this market for landlord to give generous Tenant Improvement budgets to attract high quality / long lease tenants.The timeline will depend on your build requirements but also how well priced or poorly priced (i.e. expensive) the space is and how motivated a tenant will be.Have you considered a non-national food and beverage tenant? 

I also brought a bid DD box of coffee to the meeting and some finger food and was greeting people who came in and offering coffee :)  

Is there any common area for food prep or do you have a bunch of people with hot plates in their room. 

This doesn't help with your question directly but food for thought, conventional loan rates are from the mid 3s to the mid 4s currently.

Just food for thought, but starting a career with iffy contracts will likely lead to not running things at the level you can.

A new shopping center/pedestrian mall is going up, lots of investing in property is happening, and a new food co op has gone in.

Definitely food for thought.