Last Thursday I had a conversation with a commercial real estate colleague whose firm specializes in retail. This particular colleague is primarily focused on HoCo loco retail real estate. I mention this because this person was the “informed source” I referenced in this post about the Friendly Inn.
It turns out that my colleague was not as informed as they led me to believe. Since I will likely have future business dealings with this person I will refrain from revealing their identity. For now let’s just call this individual Minus.
Minus told me that the Wecker brothers were involved in the reincarnation of the Friendly Inn to a wine bar. This information seemed plausible. The operators of the Iron Bridge Wine Company have already exported their wine bar expertise to Warrenton, Virginia and is widely believed that they have been scouting out a second location in HoCo as well.
That may be true but it that second location is not the Friendly Inn. Rob contacted me yesterday to clear this up after a reporter from the Howard County Times alerted him to the blog post. I immediately posted the correction on the blog.
I should have contacted Rob myself before putting up the post. That was simply bad form on my part. To make matters worse I actually know Rob and his brother Steve. They are great guys. In fact, I know them a lot better than Minus which makes my not following up with them all the more egregious.
After Rob contacted me I apologized to him. Please consider this post an apology to the readers of Tales of Two Cities. I screwed up. Lesson learned.
