So Much To Do...

A state of paralysis may be setting in. Overwhelmed by all that remains to be done, we all (myself, David, and DP Brett from Ohio - visiting for two weeks to make sure the opening goes smoothly) moseyed over to Lunker's for a ritual Tuesday night Guinness.

The old man made it back to town tonight, and was surprised to find me at the bar watching the DVD of the Cubs' 13-0 shellacking of the Padres in the 1984 playoffs, when we really should have been applying primer to the dining room walls.

Nevertheless, things are shaping up nicely, and I at least managed to accomplish a few things today. Most important among them was the squaring away of the smallwares package I'll soon be purchasing from Serv-U. Nothing is more difficult than determining the number of containers you'll need for a store that is not yet open, but that's what I had to do. I also found out that I'll have to make due with only 18 dough trays until they can get more in stock.

I also met up with my woodmaster Joe, who will be constructing a type of counter never before seen in a McLean County restaurant for the front of the store - Health Inspector permitting. I can't mention what it will entail, since that would spoil the surprise. We spent probably a good hour going over specific layouts and potential alterations - true to form as ever, I'm an expert at wasting time.

Most importantly, sliding over to Champaign to pick out the smallwares afforded me the opportunity to remind myself why I'm going through all this trouble - I ate a Speed Zone. I may someday get sick of 'zones, but it may take awhile.

As for the actual build-out of the store, the weather officially postponed our target opening back from the optimistic Saturday target. The cover of wet snow made it impossible for the contractor's guys to start building the enclosure that will connect the walk-in cooler to the store. Instead, they finished up the drop ceiling, with the HVAC guys connecting the last of their vents to the massive blowers overhead. The electricians spent the day yelling back and forth to each other as they strung wire along the roof. Meanwhile, David and I discovered that the phone company left us with four lines that are not run into the building in a way that we can work with. Thus, we may have to have our electricians take care of it, or call Verizon and have them do a more complete install and $125/half-hour. You can see why I'm really hoping we don't have to go that route.

Anyways, I promised myself that I would make up for the sleep I keep sacrificing when my phone rings at 8 or so every morning by getting to bed early tonight. More soon...

Flooring...and Flooring...and Flooring

The title explains why it's been forever since I last posted. I've been spending all of my non-Steak n Shake nights at the store putting down underlayment for my as-yet-untiled floor. Thankfully, that is soon to be remedied, as we will be tiling this weekend. Remarkably, there is still an outside chance we'll get open in time for the March 1 Unofficial Pub Crawl through the streets of Uptown Normal. Of course, that goes on the assumption that we can get the place built out and inspected by Friday, because only I and other idiots work weekends. We also need decent enough weather in order to get my dumpster pad poured and the enclosure connecting the walk-in cooler to the store built.

As for the aforementioned flooring, I definitely got myself into more than I bargained for. Thankfully, my dad and David (restaurant manager) saved my ass. They are both handy and thorough, and by extension are able to make sure the job is getting done right, and that I can be put to some good use, as well. See the pictures to get a better idea of what we're up against. We had to lay 5/8" thick chipboard in the kitchen to bring that floor up to the level of the dining room. Once we did that, we had to go over the whole restaurant front to back with Luan hardboard 1/4" thick underlayment to set a nice even base for the tiles. Before we could do this, we had to fill in all cracks with Durham's Rock Hard, which is by far the world's coolest substance because it goes from liquid to frozen solid in less than five minutes. We also had to replace or re-glue all broken or loose tiles, as well. And before we could underlay, we had to sweep and mop over the old tile - we had to change the mop water every two feet because it had been so long since the floor had been cleaned. So the rest is easy, right? I wish! We now get to thoroughly sweep over the underlayment, prime it, wait a few hours, apply leveling compound where necessary, chalk out where the tiles will lay, and then hope to God we've done things right so that our tiles don't start cracking or randomly popping up once we're open.

I'm still glad we're doing this, though. If we hadn't, we'd be at the mercy of flooring professionals who likely work the same 7-5 hours that all union laborers work. Our working nights and weekends - while the place is empty - is a major reason why we're not further behind schedule right now. I admit that I took on flooring myself solely to save money, but it turns out that the time gained is probably even more important than that.

Anyways, I have a ton more to report, but need to get off to the store and floor some more. All sorts of things are coming together next week - I hope. Wish us luck as we TRY to get open for that pub crawl!

The Old Man looks like a broken Transformer, but definitely came in handy.

If you don't have a clue about flooring, it's a good idea to hire a manager who is a black belt with a jigsaw - especially when you have to cut pieces like this.

Invisible No More

Sometimes something very simple can do a lot for the psyche; an awning is one such thing. Even though it only took the pros at Twin City T & A (the "T & A" stands for "tent and awning", for those who may have other ideas) a little over an hour to install the awning, the effect of their work is profound and instantaneous. Unlike the battle-scarred illustrations that have graced the store's windows for far more months (approaching five) than originally had been intended, the awning goes up at just the right time - roughly two weeks ahead of opening - to create excitement, but not wear out its welcome.

The store finally gets its facelift.

As for those worn and weary window illustrations, one bit the dust today. Naturally, it was the one that had graced the door, and had thus been subjected to significantly more abuse due to repeated opening and closing. We finally ripped it down today - part of the Dough Man's head had blown away - and replaced it with a collage of menus, with our driver recruitment flyer in the middle (see below).

Dough Man finally bit the dust after a long, hard winter, giving way to...

...His crude makeshift replacement.

We may not be out of the woods yet, as far as facade improvements are concerned. My design and lighting expert Kevin Collins will be out on Thursday to put up my window vinyl lettering if everything works out; he'll also let me know if the awning is hung too high for the lights we'll be installing to extend overhead. Of course, the lighting equipment package still has to arrive for progress to be made on that end - of all things to hold us up, the brackets that should have been here weeks ago have still not arrived and, worse, Kevin hasn't been able to track anyone down to get some answers.

One way or another, with the awning up I'll be able to have a photo included in my postcard mailer that's scheduled to go out in April. Depending on how much we can get done on Thursday, Kevin may end up using Photoshop to provide an accurate depiction of the finished product.

On more immediately pressing matters, we are madly scrambling to find flooring tile - commercial grade VCT, specifically - for this weekend. I had falsely assumed that the big-box retailers would carry at least a basic white offering in a quantity sufficient for our needs. Apparently not. Right now I've got David searching far and wide in Chicagoland for someone who stocks what we need (he's up there for Valentine's Day). What my old man doesn't know is that I'm going to need him to go out to wherever we can find some tile and make the purchase with his credit card (I'll be immediately reimbursing him, of course) on the way down on Friday. He warned me about the lead time on flooring materials last Friday, but even then it probably would have been too late to order anything custom in advance, since the average lead time for commercial tile appears to be around two weeks.

Before I get too depressed about that, it would be wise to change gears and mention that I had another speaking engagement on Tuesday night. This one went more smoothly than the previous attempt, for a number of reasons. Most importantly, I took the time to organize my thoughts chronologically, taking the audience along for my journey beginning with the day I graduated; I didn't run out of steam and lose my train of thought after just ten minutes like I did the first time. Of nearly equal importance was the fact that everyone who was there wanted to be there, as they are part of the Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization (CEO). I generally got the feel that people were a lot more interested in what I had to say this time around. I made it a little bit more interesting, too - I showed my brother's commercial from Champaign and distributed menus to all who attended. I had a solid Q&A session afterwards, and quite a few of them wished me best of luck and said they'll stop by when I open.

A Hint of Recognition: Publicity for my speaking engagement

So anyways, before this week is out, I have to figure out the flooring logistics, get my campusfood.com account set up, confirm my package expansion with Verizon and decide whether to purchase internet and cable TV through them, review workers comp quotes and choose the best one, pay a bunch of people, and not forget about Valentine's Day. Should be fun!

Coming Together

It's been a very productive week. A rundown of the positive developments:

• THE CONCRETE PAD HAS BEEN POURED!
• Todd (landlord) is ready to sign the bank documents
• I just saved $6,000 on my insurance (without switching to Geico!)
• The drywall is hung
• The HVAC guys are almost done
• The dreaded flooring odyssey is going incredibly well (thanks to D. Flood)
• I got a free pen in the mail with the store's name and address
• The awning and lights go up this week - I hope
• The walk-in arrives on schedule on Tuesday
• I finally got three months' worth of mail delivered to the store - including a few bills
• THE GRAND OPENING IS STILL ON TARGET!

A few pictures to better illustrate the ambient joy being felt right now...

My very own pen!

The jigsaw puzzle floor prep job of D. Flood and his mighty Skillsaw.

D. Flood and his trusty sticky construction adhesive gun hard at work.

State of the Store 2/8/08 - Rear View

State of the Store 2/8/08 - Full Frontal

Building the Box

It looks like I may finally be able to save some money. The HVAC contractor had it priced in as part of their work to assemble my walk-in cooler unit outside the store; however, I have also arranged for my equipment vendor to put it together. The latter knows that this job will take less than two hours, most likely, and has priced it accordingly. I am very curious to see what the HVAC guys had budgeted for this task.

In a positive development, my squeaky wheel act will end up landing me a three-phase A/C condenser - at no additional cost, as best I can tell. The oversight was on the part of the HVAC guys who had been appraised from the start that I was going with three-phase service to the restaurant; they simply didn't connect the dots and line me up with the right condenser. Thankfully, they've been very accommodating in getting this changed, and it'll all work out. It just serves as yet another reminder to scrutinize everything as best you can in order to ensure that things get built according to plan.

I also received clarification on why the hood was two feet larger than we had originally planned. Apparently, in order to generate the amount of airflow that code requires, the hood had to be that size. So, somewhat happily, it was just an initial miscalculation rather than an egregious error on someone's part.

David and I did our first team interview yesterday with a driver candidate who we quickly hired. I must admit, it's nice having a right-hand man to keep the conversation going when I get stuck; he also gives me someone to constantly bounce ideas off of. The lonely process of starting a business feels decidedly less so right now.

Today I'm continuing to tie up the neverending loose ends. Most critically, I have to get a copy of the bank documents with revised appendices to Todd (landlord) so that we can finally get them signed and gain access to the entirety of my funds at long last. I've also signed up online for internet and cable television service. I'm hoping that they do not differentiate between homes and businesses, because I have heard that in some cases businesses are required to pay more - something I don't pretend to understand. Regardless, when I input my address on the website, it came up with the same offers that apply to my apartment, so I'm hopeful that this will be the case.

I have to call Verizon soon, as well, to make sure that I can get my phone package expanded to three lines plus a fax. If it's not ridiculously expensive, I'd love to have caller ID, so that I can immediately input people's phone numbers without them having to dictate it to me.

Continuing down the path of good vibes, I am thrilled to report that I am on track to have my matching funds request granted at the design review commission's next meeting on Monday afternoon, and that work will proceed immediately thereafter on the facade of my store. At long last, I will have visibility that extends beyond directly across the street. Most encouraging is the fact that I will likely receive reimbursement checks within two weeks of submitting my receipts to the Town. Given that I'm dealing with a bureaucratic entity, I had suspected it might take a matter of months for funds to be released. This certainly has a profoundly positive effect on my cash flow picture.

In the meantime, my finances were further aided by Microsoft's bid to acquire Yahoo. This is only an issue because I have been taking my sweet a** time liquidating my portfolio of stocks to fund the business, and was rewarded by a stock (Yahoo) that had sunk to historic lows suddenly coming close to breaking even. I immediately sold; even though I expressed some regret when the stock went a little bit higher over the next few days, when you're starting a business and have a fortunate break come your way, you don't try to squeeze every penny out of it, but rather feel very thankful and cash out before things collapse again and it's too late.

So, it's hopefully shaping up that I will be able to scrape by with enough cash to allow the business to get its feet under it over the next few months. A commitment from my grandmother (the classic angel investor) to loan me a few thousand dollars (the emphasis on loan is due to the fact that she intends to be repaid, and I intend to make good on that pledge) will definitely help, and my parents have said that if push came to shove, they'd look into seeing whether they can help at all. I never intended to be in this position, of course, but things worked out to cost more than we'd originally planned, and I've cut expenses in all the places where it made the most sense to do so. I have no qualms about going to family for those marginal funds that could very well make all the difference in helping me survive the first few months of operation - any capital you can get your hands on is key when getting a business off the ground. As it's been said a million times before: CASH IS KING.

The concrete is still (I hope) scheduled to be poured behind my store tomorrow (Thursday), in anticipation of the walk-in cooler's arrival early next week - it should be shipping today. I'll keep posting on developments as they progress.