May 2010

Paint on the wall

in

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The painters moved in yesterday and quickly made our painting party from a couple of weeks ago look very amateur. These guys whipped right in and had all these walls primed, taped, painted, finished and they were gone before I even knew they had left. 

Shwanito

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Good day, bad day, good day.

This is one of those days that I'll remember vividly if we ever get around to opening up another restaurant. 

It's amazing how quickly a good day can go to shite and back again. 

During a fairly innocuous meeting with our equipment sales rep he wanders over to our walk-in cooler area to have a look. He soon requests a tape measure and I can see a look of consternation take over. We measure the interior space where our walk-in, which is on a truck from god knows where, will be installed early next week. 

paint party

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On Sunday some folks came out to help us with some of the few tasks we could gang up and conquer with minimal skill sets. 

Less than 30 days...

in

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It's less than 30 days until the 2010 World Cup in South Africa kicks off and it's 30 days exactly until the United States takes on England in their opening game of the tournament...

Things are rolling

in

Things are finally rolling in terms of construction. The permits were approved on Monday and today the first crew showed up to grind the concrete floors. These guys did not have an easy job as there was some old nasty tiles and lots of glue that had seeped into the pores of the concrete foundation over the years. But fueled by some Ozo Coffee that Justin had brewed up complimentary early this morning, these guys were still going strong when I returned to check on them after 8 hours on the grinder.

The Walls Came Tumbling Down

in

We thought the landscaping was pretty exciting and were still gloating when I got an email on Monday morning telling me the demo was starting three days earlier than expected. I ran over to the space to drop off the permit and there were sledgehammers flying, crowbars prying and sheetrock splintering at 8am. 

Not much to say here except this suddenly got very real. There's no turning back after this.

Here's a couple of photos from before for comparison. 

Patio redux

in

When I first saw that this Chinese restaurant space was up for lease back in November I kind of gave it a, "eh, can't hurt to check it out". The windows were a little dingy, the blinds were sort of half open and it was hard to see in. My enthusiam, if I even had any at that point, waned even further.