Storefront Mastery

06/30/2026

I swore I was gonna start an architectural magazine when I graduated from Architecture school. I toyed with the prospect a bit, until life happened. So after more than 20 years, when I got the invitation to be part of Southern Urbanism I saw it as a fabulous opportunity to contribute to the conversation from the perspective gained in all these years.

But this year is not like the others.

America doesn't turn 250 every year, and our cities and towns have been shaped by all the history that has happened in that quarter of a millennium. The material to cover when it comes to American land use at 250, and the cities that have resulted from 250 years of decisions is endless.

What America has created in those years is unparalleled. It has settled, discovered, invented, solved, built, and changed the world. It has taken man to the Moon and back, cured diseases, made summers bearable, enabled transportation, logistics, and created alternative universes.

Southern Urbanism is publishing a series honoring America in its semiquincentennial, and I'm grateful that I got to curate and present it to our readers. Over Independence Month (yeah, I'm making that a thing) we will be tackling the issue of the American Dream. What is it? Is it alive? Are we still building it? Do we still believe in it?

Happy to be in the company of great thinkers and writers, with fearless leader Aaron Lubeck and teammates Eli Smith Billy Cooney and Nick Larkins.

Presenting Southern Urbanism's 5-Part series on American Land Use at 250

06/08/2026

As downtown revitalization professionals, we all love places like the porticoes of Bologna, the Marais, or La Rambla. But their charm didn’t come from a corporate office building or a top-down master plan handed off to a construction company.

Those iconic spaces were built painstakingly over centuries. They grew through an organic process of trial, error, neighborhood pride, and most importantly, local wealth created by local merchants.

The good news? This kind of vibrant, community-led success is completely replicable. By understanding and promoting the exact local culture and values that built those world-class spaces, we can revitalize our own commercial districts today.

We are currently filling our last remaining slots for our upcoming Downtown revitalization training program designed specifically for local place managers and business owners.

Learn how to build up the local culture that drives organic, lasting downtown activation.

👉 Secure your spot before slots fill up:

A new Service by Storefront Mastery

05/07/2026

The only way to get better at a skill is to train and keep going despite all.

In our industry, we have a goldmine that helps us get infinitely better at serving communities. And no, it’s not AI. That’s a different conversation.

It is collaboration. Whatever we do, there’s a way to do it better, impact more people, extend our reach and our work.

I’m grateful to have found people like Andrew Martineau, Evan Snow, Rik Adamski, Erik Reader, and Marci Goodwin, who amplify my storefront work exponentially. I trust I amplify theirs as well. Together we offer a spectacular path to downtown development.

The Storefront Renaissance League is a hub for good ideas. The main one is “you can just do things”. Each one of us tells different stories of doing, building, and creating. And most of all, serving.

Now we are offering a fabulous opportunity to hear those stories and create your own. Register for our webinar on Eventbrite:

From Stalled to Active: Storefront Strategies for Uncertain Times.
Friday May 22 at 1pm Eastern/12pm Central.
🔗 Link in comments.

05/03/2026

Let’s go

04/27/2026

Anchors are the holy grail of local businesses. The one that will bring balance to the local economic forces by attracting the most foot traffic and driving the most sales.

In which I hint at what makes anchors anchors. Hint: it’s when what you sell enables people to sell something else. This might sound confusing but it shall all be revealed by reading my new post👇🏼

Walk a Main Street that city officials describe as rebounding and you will find a very similar inventory.

04/26/2026

More complex local economies are not built overnight. They are built with patience. The basic tradeoff is time for output. A more roundabout process delays consumption now, but it usually yields a larger output later. Downtowns that endure the long and winding building process will see greater rewards.

But… are we willing to do what it takes to set our downtown up to reward patience and attract better businesses?

Walk a Main Street that city officials describe as rebounding and you will find a very similar inventory.

04/21/2026

From Kitty Hawk to the SR-71 Blackbird to the Moon landing, the story is always the same. Americans take something impossible, wrestle it down to earth, build it, fly it, and then make it simpler, faster, and better.

The SpaceX rockets have also evolved tremendously in only a few years. They looked at a machine that worked and asked: what can we take away and still have it work better? That question, “what can we remove?” is the most American engineering question there is.

Our Zoning and Building codes should not be exempt of those questions. They are machines, and they are killing us. We should blast them to the Moon.

See my new Substack Post, literally, How To Blast Your Zoning Code To The Moon.

Interstellar lessons for streamlining local codes and reclaiming American cities and towns.

04/20/2026

This whole thing started from a place of pure desperation. Back when the lockdowns hit, I watched incredible, hardworking business owners terrified and scrambling just to secure PPP loans and aid to keep their lights on.

I needed to find a way out for them.

That’s how Storefront Mastery was truly born. Our very first class was at the Montclair Center BID, and the magic that happened in that room and others in other towns still stays with me.

One restaurant owner realized that since dining in was forbidden, she could send an "experiential package" along with her takeout, boxing up the joy and comfort of dining out and sending it directly into people's living rooms.

A home decor store owner transformed her shop into an escape. She designed the in-store experience as a trip to discover beautiful treasures, and in doing so, she became a vital, comforting anchor for our community during the long recovery.

Over the years, as I worked with dozens of business owners, this guide evolved. I watched owners stop seeing themselves as just shopkeepers and start seeing themselves as the hosts of downtown.

They realized their business is actually a hospitality business, holding the power to turn even a split-second interaction on the sidewalk into a fabulous, unforgettable moment.

We refined how to help you find your unique voice. We explored customer journeys. But with this latest iteration, I did something that goes against the grain of what most consultants do: I designed a system to make my own creative job achievable by you.

Welcome to Version 7. This version is a massive push for DIY. You do not need a design background to use this guide. I took everything I know and built a completely autonomous system. It is a step-by-step system for turning your storefront into your most powerful business tool.

Through four acts: Reading Your Building, Finding Your Truth, Making the One Big Decision, and Building the Details, this toolkit puts the power entirely in your hands. It’s designed to help you use your storefront as a sign, a clear call to action, and a 24/7 marketer.

Look at all the previous covers, from the minimal viable prototype of 2019 through the actual product I used during lockdowns and on to the current one.

They represent 7 years of pivots, late nights, tears, the resolve of downtown managers to help their local businesses, and the absolute, unshakable resilience of those business owners.

Introducing version 7. Get it. Be awesome. 🚀

Link 👉🏼 https://storefrontmastery.gumroad.com/l/DIYStorefronts?layout=profile

04/17/2026

I've spent 15 years helping downtowns and small businesses create storefronts people actually want to walk into.

Now the tools are available for anyone.

The Gumroad store is open:

→ The 10 No-B.S. Rules for Successful Storefront Design — $27
→ The Storefront Transformation Guide — $49
→ How To Choose The Perfect Sign — Free

storefrontmastery.gumroad.com

If your storefront isn't pulling people in, these will help.

04/13/2026

You’re either too poor to touch your old building… or rich enough to know better than to “improve” it.

I learned this the hard way, years ago, while renovating a 120-year-old adobe building next to a Franciscan convent from the 1700s. Adobe is alive. It moves, breathes, and cracks exactly where it needs to. But bolt on rigid modern materials and the whole thing fails beyond repair.

That’s exactly what’s happening in historic preservation today. A well-meaning bureaucratic middle layer of people with no skin in the game has done to the practice of Historic Preservation what a stainless steel roof structure would do to an adobe wall. And it's failing catastrophically.

My new Substack on why the system is broken, and what may actually fix it.

Would love your thoughts, especially if you’ve ever been through the brain damage of renovating an older building.

[Link🔗 to full Substack article in the comments]