Violet’s Garage History

Rendering of Violet’s Garage

Property History

When 100 Honeymoons, LLC acquired this property in 2000, the building was used as a warehouse. The remaining land was covered by the uneven, cracked foundations of three structures destroyed by the 2005 hurricanes. The 6000 sq ft building consisted of two independent spaces. The 4000 sq ft area was originally occupied by the Coca-Cola Bottling plant’s bottle loading facility. So the property has some historical significance for Kissimmee.

George Holmes Prather, moved to Kissimmee from Clinton, S.C. in 1902. Among several other business ventures he founded, he opened the Kissimmee Coca-Cola Bottling Company in 1909. The Prather family sold their Coca-Cola franchise in 1969 but continued to bottle Dr Pepper and Grapette until 1972 at this site. 100 Honeymoons purchased this in January 2020 from Prather Properties, LLC whose family had owned it for 100+ years. The trucks were repaired in the garage next door, now known as Broadway Pizza Bar. The original bottling plant itself is long gone.

Inspiration

For this first phase of development, 100 Honeymoons, LLC is building a mixed use complex including an art studio, brewery, outdoor seating, event space and outdoor mini-park area similar to the concept shown in the 2020 Historic Downtown Kissimmee CRA Update. (p. 66). The Violet’s Garage concept was inspired by other area properties such as Plant Street Market, Boxi Park, Celery City Craft Beer Garden and even a far away destination in Dallas Texas called Stroker’s Dallas. Violet is Christi Kapp’s “artist name”

In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, Kissimmee was one of the fastest growing port towns in the US. This site featured an Inn called “The Broadway House”, a cobbler, a stable, and a lumberyard. Many old coins were found from this era during the exterior site work.

The interior of the existing 5800 sq ft building is being renovated from warehouse space into three different retail, office/studio and restaurant/brewery/bar spaces. The outdoor 4500 foot expansion adds rentable retail/food vendor space. The overall design reflects inspiration from buildings found in Historic Downtown Kissimmee from the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. Both interior and exterior will include Coca-Cola inspiration as well.

100 Honeymoons LLC

100 Honeymoons, LLC is managed by Tom and Christi Kapp. The Kapps have actually been working on the vision for Violet's for a really long time. It used to have a different name - "The Destination @Art In Motion.” They realized the location wasn't quite right and neither was the name... so that is how/why the destination is now being built on Broadway in downtown Kissimmee instead of the original location of Art In Motion LLC on Ross Ave in Kissimmee.

From a press release in 2010... "The first joint project the Kapp’s undertook was to hand-build a monster garage-workshop in their back yard to work on bikes. They figured that if they could hand-build a monster garage, they could get along well enough to get married. They made a “rule” that they would have to go on 100 honeymoons prior to getting married. The bike shop dream started on one of their 20/100 honeymoons (but that is a longer story). They quickly learned that starting a legal motorcycle shop in your backyard was logistically impossible given zoning restrictions and 10 layers of regulation. In January 2007, they rented a spot in Kissimmee and founded Art In Motion LLC. Art In Motion became a Federal and State of Florida licensed motorcycle manufacturer so that their custom bikes would have VINs and customers could get insurance & financing. They built motorcycles and shipped them all over the world. See link for some of them. Unfortunately, the recession was now in full swing by 2009. As they watched their bike builder friends and competitors go out of business, a business strategy change was a necessity. They were not willing to let their dream go so easily! Fortunately, at the V-twin expo in 2008, they got a spark of an idea from Rick Fairless, a custom bike builder in Dallas, and owner of Stroker’s Dallas, but tweaked the concept to be their own, since Rick already took the hippie theme and ran with it!

What you can see being built, is just a fraction of what is in Tom & Christi’s vision for the venue, so keep up with them on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/violetsgarage) for more changes and improvements all geared towards building community, and supporting both the artistic and biker lifestyles. And expect a nod to Austin Texas in more way than one.

January 2020 - Before