Here is a wire service news story which some may find interesting:
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Essay contest winner to receive bakery
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PAYSON, Utah (AP) -- April 23, 2004 -- Somebody who has a way with words has a chance at walking away with a sweet deal.
The owners of Roe's Bake Shoppe on Main Street are sponsoring an essay contest and the winner gets their business.
"We wanted to keep it going, it's really the heart of this little town," said Paul Penrod, 39. "So we thought, how could we keep it going without having to have all the overhead? And we thought, 'Let's give it away."'
Penrod, a former accountant, and wife Lolly bought the 60-year-old bakery with its brick facade, high ceilings and oak floors in 2002 and remodeled it, but the stress of full-time baking "wasn't what we expected."
The couple tried to sell the store but didn't have any luck. That's when they settled on the more unconventional approach.
Aspiring bakery owners have until July 1 to submit an essay of fewer than 300 words explaining "Why I want to own Roe's Bake Shoppe" along with a $100 entry fee. The winner will be chosen by a panel of 25 downtown merchants.
The Penrods figure they have to get at least 2,000 entries to be able to pay off their loans and give someone else the opportunity to "carry on the tradition" in this small community about 30 miles south of Salt Lake City.
"They'll end up with a beautiful historic building, a bakery, and priceless recipes that have been around for years," Penrod said.
Penrod acknowledges he and his wife don't have a backup plan in case they don't hit that magic 2,000 number. He'll just keep on baking until the morning when he can sleep in.
"We'd have a mob if they didn't get their doughnuts in the morning."
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For those not familiar with this kind of "contest": every now and then one will see one of these "contests" which usually are created by someone who is trying to get rid of a piece of real estate that just won't sell. It's more like a lottery than a contest, but private lotteries are illegal so the process is recast as a contest with a non-refundable "entrance fee". If not enough people enter, the organizer may just keep the fees, may refund the fees, or may award the property to the winner and take the loss. This needs to be spelled out in advance, off course.
This particular contest is unusual because it involves an operating business and not just a piece of real estate, and because there are real third-party judges and not just the organizer and his wife.
It's also unusual because AP decided that it was newsworthy. Such "contests" generally are not. Possibly the bakery aspect of the story was considered to be appealing.
If nothing else, the story indicates the difficulty of building a viable bakery business on a small town Main Street.
Cheers, The Old Bear