Buying a lifestyle business for retirement: why it so often goes wrong

By Neil Solomon · 4 min read

Imagine you are staying at a small bed and breakfast. The owner brings out breakfast. The garden is quiet. A thought comes: I could do this someday.

I have had that thought many times. I used to be a restaurant guy. I have owned several restaurants and smoothie shops, I tried to get into coffee, and I own an Airbnb. More than once, at a bed and breakfast, I learned the owners wanted to sell, and I looked at the numbers.

I ask two questions of any business. If I were not the one operating it, how much would I pay someone else to do it? And if I got sick, what would happen to the business?

Here is the first question with round numbers I made up. Suppose a coffee shop sells $400,000 a year. The National Restaurant Association's 2025 data put typical pre-tax profit at 4.0% of sales for limited-service restaurants and 2.8% for full-service ones.

A coffee shop with $400,000 in sales (an illustration)

This assumes the 4.0% is what remains after paying everyone except the owner. Real shops differ.

The ones I priced came out about the same. A published planning model of an eight-room inn shows about $99,000 for an owner who fills the innkeeper's job. If a manager is hired instead, it shows about $29,000 before taxes.

Websites that sell business plans quote profit margins of 20% to 30% for bed and breakfasts. I did not find those numbers in the inns I looked at. They made little, or lost money, once someone was paid to run them.

The second question is about illness. If the shop survives only when I am there, a bad week or a surgery could stop it. A business that needs one person every day stops when that person cannot come.

I understand why the picture is so strong. Many of us spent decades in business, and the work told us who we were. A shop, an inn or a smoothie bar looks like an answer to the question of what comes next.

I call that question the dead zone. It is the stretch after you stop, when you are not sure who you are without the work. If you have not had one in 20 or 40 years, it can hit hard.

The research is mixed. In a study of retirees in 27 European countries and Israel, depression was 9% to 11% lower in the three years after retirement. An earlier review of studies found about 20% lower. Retirement helps many people.

The same study found that suicidal thoughts among men were about 54% higher two years after retiring, with a wide margin of error. Reviews of the research list loss of routine, purpose, identity and daily contact as things retirement can take away.

So an average hides some of us. I struggled in the dead zone, in my body and in my mind. I gained weight and lost weight. It took years. A doctor or counselor is a good first call if it feels heavy.

When someone tells me they want a restaurant, I say that what they want is a party. They like taking care of people. Give that part freely, and leave the business out.

Once you own the business, staff call in sick. An inspector arrives to check the rules. The manager does not show up to open, and a review calls you a horrible person. Most of us did not start for that. We started to be kind, and some of us also wanted to escape the worry of not knowing what is next.

If you want to buy a coffee shop and work there, that is fine. First ask whether it would earn money with a paid manager and without you. If it would, buy it, and work every day if you love it.

If it survives only when you work every day, you may come to hate it. Then you look for the next buyer, or you close it. I have seen this with bed and breakfasts, restaurants and many other lifestyle businesses.

The worry of the dead zone can be met in other ways: friends, therapy, travel, exploring. What helped me was patience and curiosity. For 40 years I always had an answer. I did not have one then, and I think it is okay not to.

Where do you feel the dead zone, or expect to? Tell us in the comments. Someone may find your story helps them.

Sources we read

Odone and others, Transition to retirement and risk of depression and suicidality, SHARE longitudinal analysis, 2023. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10597131/

Same study, Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, abstract and results (men's suicidality 2 years after retirement). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37165784/

Impact of retirement transition on health, well-being and health behaviours: overview of reviews, Social Science and Medicine, 2025. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027795362500379X

National Restaurant Association, 2025 Restaurant Operations Data Abstract (median pre-tax income 2.8% full-service, 4.0% limited-service), as reported by NuMarket. https://numarket.co/blog/restaurant-profit-margin-how-to-protect-it-when-costs-rise

Financial Models Lab, Bed and breakfast owner income model (8 rooms, 55% occupancy; planning model, not audited inns). https://financialmodelslab.com/blogs/how-much-makes/bed-and-breakfast

Dojo Business, How profitable is a bed and breakfast? (example of the 20% to 30% margins quoted by business-plan sites). https://dojobusiness.com/blogs/news/how-profitable-is-a-bed-and-breakfast