I know the food/restaurant business is a hard business to get into and maintain, mainly because of saturation. However, a food niche might be worthy of investment.
Such as; a low-carb food store. Not a typical health store, that carries imported tofu and what not. But with all the crazed Atkins diet people, eating 7 lbs of bacon instead of a slice of bread, there's a whole new market for sugar free/low carb/carb free foods.
I'm not an Atkins diet fanatic, I just watch my sugar intake as a rule of health anyway, but I recently spent $58 on 6 low carb bagels and loaf of bread. ($13 for the items, $45 to ship) ...They tasted like cardboard to boot! But, point being... people are going crazy for the foods online, and I'm sure they would buy even more offline, in a store that specializes in just that.
Bottom line is, there aren't many investments you can make in offline businesses, that have phenomonal kick backs, immediately. Mostly anything, is going to be a long time investment. The best advice you can take about running a small business or whatever, is to be as involved in it as you can be. If you want to put money in something and walk away, by all means, buy real estate. Which you also have to maintain and deal with tenant issues for.
If you get into anything retail, do as much of the work as you can, for yourself. Hiring teenage help and/or minimum wage workers, to do what you can do for yourself, is a sure way to lose money right away. I dread going to stores anymore, shitty service from dead end job employees and/or kids that really don't care. You get what you pay for, and the only one who truly cares how much money you will make, is yourself.
Research as much as possible. Unless you have money to burn, know what you are getting into 110%
