Karen that's one thing that scares me about opening up our own shop. We DONT know all there is to know about bikes. Neither of us are vintage bike lovers, so we would have probably had that deer in the headlights look if you had brought it to us. BUT we are going to try our best to gain as much knowledge as possible in all things bike before the shop opens.
We are both going to school- yep bike school- tho I call it bike "camp" since we will be there for 2 weeks.
And one thing I've learned over the years is it's ok to say "I'm not sure, but I will find out"...

We do hope to hire a good wrench with oodles of experiece, but i hear they are hard to come by... sigh..

But yeah, we can't be all things to all people, so we are just going to do our best. When you think about it, there are so many facets to the industry. It would be hard to be a complete expert in all of them.

As for the women in the front, huckers in the back... Heck I don't see anything wrong with it, as long as overall the shop is inviting. We have a big BMX scene in our area, so I'm going to devote some square footage to them. At least your shop is trying to target women riders. Most don't even bother.
As a shop owner it's tough to strike a balance and keep everyone happy.