Apartments Above Restaurants and Such

I live in a very small town and we have apartments above businesses Most have outside stairs (side or back of building); a couple have stairs inside but leading off from the store vestibule. I would imagine that taller buildings would have elevators for the apartments just as they have service elevators - in the back of the building or in some obscure corner.

I've lived in a couple of buildings like that, and known others who have. The ones I'm familiar with have separate entries for the apartments, and are walk-ups. If you look at Google street view of (for instance) NY neighborhoods with tenement buildings, you'll see doors in between the shops/restaurants, which are the apartment entrances. When I lived in NY, I knew very few people with cars -- garage parking is extremely expensive and street parking is a pain in the a**.

They might be able to share a parking lot with others renting apartments just behind the place of business. These apartment buildings enclose a sort of courtyard. Can be accessed near the side of the restaurant or shop through a garage door or gate that closes off the corridor leading out to the common space. It's not always this convenient though.

la-gamine said:

I live in a small town and have only experienced the big city through hotels and tourist attractions so I'm lacking in this area. I know people in big cities have apartments above shops, restaurants and bars etc. but my question is, how do they get up to them? Is there a separate elevator or staircase or something like that? Also, where do they park assuming they have a car?

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Are you talking about a particular city? There tend to be certain conventions particular to particular cities, though some stuff is obviously generic.

Yes, there are separate entrances, depending on what you're talking about.

There are, mostly in smaller places or smaller buildings, a back or side entrance or staircase or whatever, to the dwelling above the shop/restaurant.

In larger cities, like NY, the shops below buildings may or may not be actually connected to the buildings you see. I mean they are, but they're not in the same way. In some places there may be a store with two floors of housing above. In NY, there may be a block with shops all along the avenue, and, say, three different buildings above, one with an entrance on the avenue, mid-block, one with an entrance on the side street, one on the other side street. They're all sort of technically above the shops, but most of the apartments in the side street-entrance buildings aren't above the shops, just the ones on that side.

Be careful with the car depending on the city. Some cities, very few people have cars. People who do will park on the street or in garages.

Some cities more people do, and there are parking lots and stuff behind stores.

And for your descriptions, also remember the business will have an impact on the flat above and the flat on the business below.

Music, late night noise, smell of food rising up (especially in older buildings with lots of small gaps) to the point the flat can be permeated with the smell. Lots of rubbish generated and possibly left cluttering the flat exit.
Conversely small children thundering around a flat, bashing toys and yelling above an employment agent trying to have a conversation with a client.

Alessandra Kelley said:

Inside the vestibule are mailboxes and doorbells and intercoms. There's usually a landing a few steps up with a locked glass-panel door which can be "buzzed" open from the apartments. There is a further staircase inside.

People with cars park them on the street.

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How do guests get into the lower- level doors?

We had a similar situation where I lived in England, but the buzzers were outside the front door. Also, since it was a small building, there were no mailboxes in the tiny entry, just a ledge on top of the gas or electric meter where all the "post" was stacked by the first person to pick it up off the floor each day (postman put it through a slit in the door). It was kind of annoying because we got dozens of letters for people who had moved away.

The buzzers on the street were annoying sometimes because not only were we above a milkshake shop and a late night burger shop, we were next door to a pub, so random drunk people liked to "greet" is at 3am, etc. my husband started taking the phone connected to the buzzer off the hook when we went to bed every night.

Sorry for all the random info, but thought some could be helpful!

A_Read said:

How do guests get into the lower- level doors?

We had a similar situation where I lived in England, but the buzzers were outside the front door. Also, since it was a small building, there were no mailboxes in the tiny entry, just a ledge on top of the gas or electric meter where all the "post" was stacked by the first person to pick it up off the floor each day (postman put it through a slit in the door). It was kind of annoying because we got dozens of letters for people who had moved away.

The buzzers on the street were annoying sometimes because not only were we above a milkshake shop and a late night burger shop, we were next door to a pub, so random drunk people liked to "greet" is at 3am, etc. my husband started taking the phone connected to the buzzer off the hook when we went to bed every night.

Sorry for all the random info, but thought some could be helpful!

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The vestibule has an unlocked door to the outside, but there is a locked door to the stairs and/or elevator. Anyone can get into the vestibule.

la-gamine said:

I know people in big cities have apartments above shops, restaurants and bars etc. but my question is, how do they get up to them?

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Running jump or climb on the dumpster...

Seriously, it depends on the building. Separate stairwells are normal, elevator if the building is three stories or above in many areas. Look at any building and you'll see a door next to the restaurant/store to get into the upper floors. Parking can be on street, in alley, in parking lot or wherever.

The apartment directly above a restaurant will always have cockroaches. Fact of life. It will also smell like cooking food.

Jeff

Usually there's a separate door next to the store facade that leads upstairs. No elevator, they're usually walk-ups. You would have to park on the street.

I had a friend who lived above a fish shop. That was rough. Even after being there for just an hour or so I'd have that fish smell in my clothes.

I've also seen a few cases where the building was original single-purpose and was converted to mixed-use. In those cases, there's been only one apartment upstairs, accessed via a staircase located in a "staff only" area of the business downstairs, such as a stockroom.

That's very rare, though, and happens mostly in areas that were originally residential, but have been overtaken by expansion of the city core.

If you need parking for one car, simply state that a parking space 'came with the apartment,' whether behind the restaurant or in a nearby parking garage. It's true one might pay a premium for that sort of thing, but if the apartment is 'older,' that space might have been there for many years and is attached to the rental property.

I've seen enough 'fix up property TV shows' to know this happens; also my sister lived in a brownstone in Boston for a while and a parking space 'came' with the apartment for no additional cost. (The bottom floor of the brownstone was a tailor's shop.) She also had a friend who lived over an Italian restaurant (in Boston) and she had a parking spot behind the restaurant.

As a kid I lived in an apartment over a shop. The apartment was accessed via a stairway sandwiched between that building and the one next to it. An iron gate prevented undesirables from accessing the stairway.

Separate entrance, and the apt. may need a lot of air conditioning.