$5 Reggie Monday and a Dough Mermaid

I last posted on Tuesday. Wednesday was crazier than Tuesday (with the exception of late-night). Thursday was completely nuts, in part due to an article in The Pantagraph about D.P. Dough. Friday was more of the same, minus the ridiculous post-bar rush. Saturday would have been nice, except that I ran all the deliveries until 5 PM, and a few thereafter. Driving delivery is designed to fray the nerves, especially when you are trying to read a receipt and dial phone numbers while in motion (I finally gave up and did it before leaving the store).

Are we creating something similar to a crack epidemic? It's very possible. I may in the coming weeks profile a few of our most devout junkies, probably starting with Hookah Steve (from IS Hookah Lounge) or the infamous local celebrity profiled below. Also, Normal's Finest have taken a shining to the D.P., as have multiple shifts at the Bridgestone-Firestone plant.

With the first week more or less complete, David and Double-D (real name Bradd) prevailed upon me to close the store early on Saturday night in anticipation of a slow late night due to the Easter holiday. I didn't feel guilty about the decision until Buddy Holly (a guy doing a survey for me as part of his small business field studies course) wandered in a half hour after we'd killed the oven, saying he had 10-12 guys hungry for 'zones with him. Then, to make me feel even worse, Hookah Steve called at 1:30 AM expecting his nightly Mangus.

All the same, it's probably a good idea to take a break from the 19-hour days and actually get some sleep and catch up on the mountain of paperwork that has accumulated while I've been slinging 'zones across town.
We'll be selling Reggie Zones for just $5 each from 4 PM til close on Monday, when ISU takes on Dayton in the NIT at Redbird Arena. Go Birds!

Oh, and some dude stood in front of our window today and frantically wiggled a Prime Time box while I was eating my nightly 'zone...belated retaliation for the mooning?

Anyways, enjoy the work of so many aspiring artists who couldn't find anything better to do during the one hour where we actually weren't busy...

The Mooning Marauder...REVEALED!

The mooning man of the hour has shown himself, and sat down for a photo op with D.P. Dough...on the condition of anonymity...

The Moon Man says "Cheeze"...or "Mangus"

Moons Over My Roni

Well, after almost 19 hours of work I can officially say I survived my first full day of D.P. Dough. It wasn't anything special - steady, but not spectacular - until late-night when some true believers came in. I now have a million different ideas for new zones and marketing slogans/t-shirts, and also one indelible story. Now, let me preface this by saying that I feel bad that this should happen to anyone, because no one deserves such treatment - and God forbid it ever happen to us - but I can't help but find the humor in the following episode:

One especially passionate D.P. Dough aficionado was going on and on about the wonders of the zone, suggesting a marketing campaign based on the slogan "penetrate your hunger with D.P. Dough". I went to the back of the store to pull out the steak we were prepping (very important, since some of our fans were VERY passionate about their steak-infused 'zones), while he and the other drunken revelers continued their meandering conversations. The next thing I know, I am told that the owner of Prime Time (competitor across the street) had come in and scolded one of our more passionate customers for running across the street and mooning Prime Time. It has not been confirmed whether his butt ever actually touched their window, but his sentiments were conveyed quite clearly either way. I guess it's a proud feeling to have a store that people are so enthused about that they go to ridiculous extremes to express their devotion; that said, however, I kind of hope this is as extreme as it gets (some D.P. Dough fans are big on European soccer and the concomitant hooliganism it entails, so we'll see).

Anyways, a memorable finish to a successful first day. The scary part: this was only Tuesday...

Good to Go!

We open at 5 PM tonight with a limited menu, and will have our first full day on Tuesday. For once, there's nothing much else to say...

T-Minus Three Days (Monday Liftoff)

Well, for all those of you (all of one person, if I remember correctly) who voted that we'd open after Spring Break, congratulations. We just missed being able to open this weekend, but on two fronts. The Health Inspector came back today (Friday) and said we're basically a day away, so they'll be back Monday morning and will allow us to bring food in immediately thereafter. They expressed profound confidence in our ability to pass on the re-visit, given how close we already are to being prepared to open. A funny moment: when the inspector asked me what I was looking for from them, my one word response was "Mercy". Thus, this compromise was reached, where we agree to have everything they've required taken care of by Monday morning and they, in return, gave us the tentative green light to order food for Monday delivery.

Then, of course, there is also the matter of the building inspection. All of the related inspectors have been through the store, with the exception of the plumbing inspector; unfortunately, all plumbing inspectors state-wide were beckoned to a conference in Chicago today, and were thus unavailable to visit the store. Hopefully their Monday return will be mostly a formality, and we can get a 30-day temporary occupancy permit to take care of any concerns they may have.

The toughest thing right now for me is getting a handle on all the smaller details of opening the business, from buying staplers to making sure that we get cash on hand for the register. I also have to write my first schedule, which has been brought to my attention on multiple occasions, usually by the curiously employed.

I have a ton of ideas for marketing the product and concept, but of course must get the doors open first. The spring does afford quite a few opportunities, though - and opening on St. Patrick's Day makes for the interesting possibility of selling green 'zones on the first day of business...it's under consideration. We're already thinking forward to holidays like 4/20 - some D.P. Doughs have created what's known as the "Hydra" Zone, where we throw cheese and every green ingredient into the 'zone. I'm not sure we could sell it for $4.20, but if we did a half-zone variety...

Anyways, I'm off on tangents again. Enjoy the countdown, and I'll try to post another update or two before the big day.

The Final Countdown

As you can see from the picture below, there's not much left to do, with the dining room nearly painted and all the equipment in place or arriving any day now (all smallwares stuff, like shelving and storage containers). I'll be heading into the store shortly, and I'm hoping that the roofer has showed up to seal off the enclosure out back (he was supposed to have had it done last Thursday), so that the walls can be hung and finished and that the whole thing can be flashed (connected) to the building and the cooler. I am also hopeful that the fire suppression system is installed and operational, so that I can get my oven started at long last. The plumber also has to hook up the ice machine (it's already in place atop the Pepsi unit), and the HVAC guys still need to wrap the condenser coils in heat tape so that they don't freeze and break once the cooler is turned on.

The dining room; picture of the cash counter coming soon.

It may sound like a lot, but it should all be happening in short order; it had better be, since the Health Inspector returns tomorrow, and has already told me I wasted his time once - and I promised it wouldn't happen again.

We still have a little bit more shelving to hang and a final cleanup to undertake, but it really shouldn't be too bad. Also, we are in the process of installing the lights over the awning, but have to get up on the roof to test them out for proper positioning.

In the meantime, little mosquitoes keep buzzing around my head, like getting a bunch of missing parts in for some of the equipment, setting up dumpster service, and finally at long last establishing our campusfood account (the guy I deal with was on vacation for the last week). On top of that, our point-of-sale system is not recognizing credit cards, but that's our installer's problem to help us solve.

So, it may sound like we're still far away, but things are more or less coming together nicely and I'm still optimistic about being open by mid-week.

Stay tuned...

A New Look

I found out today that the store will have a decidedly different look once it's all said and done. After months of thinking we wouldn't have to do much to make the store approach ADA compliance, we have found out that a landing with a ramp spanning the full width of the store will be required. Thankfully, this should not impact the opening, as a temporary 30-day occupancy permit can be granted to allow us to open while sorting all of this out. But at some point during those thirty days, I will have to build the ramp and landing. This will hurt.

On the plus side, the building inspector is going to try to take as much of the pain out of it as possible, going so far as to seek some funding from the Town to help offset the costs. Even with that financial assistance - which is by no means guaranteed - this will still hurt, if for no other reason than it distracts me from trying to focus all my energies on getting a new restaurant off the ground.

In other news, I have hard confirmation that the oven will be ready for testing on Friday morning, and appointments are lined up to fire it up for the first time. The Health Inspector came by today and deemed the visit a waste of his time because we had not made much progress as far as cleaning things up and moving towards a state where food could be received since he last visited a few days ago. I apologized, and we'll try to have him come back soon, perhaps Monday or Tuesday.

I have decided to be bold and set a new target opening date: Wednesday, March 12. This will give us ample time not only for the contractors to finish up their final work, but also for adequate cleanup and preparation of all the necessary equipment for operation. We should also be able to get some food into the store in this time, as well. That will open us up just in time for the tail end of Spring Break, and leave us more than prepared to handle the rush and the students return in droves a few days later. I wonder if we can throw a ramp in front of the store before they get back...

Another day, a million more minute details. We received our replacement faucet for the hand sink that was leaky on arrival, while True Manufacturing is going to send us some missing brackets for our prep table. Still to be addressed are six missing screws for our ice machine. For anyone looking to open a restaurant, things might just be simple if everything arrived with the complete set of attachments. Oh, and equipment vendors stock most items you may need, but many are either special-order or out of stock; this leaves you with a multitude of mystery boxes littered all across the store - making it almost impossible to ever truly know if you got everything you pay for (it's good to trust your rep if you're buying a lot of stuff).

So, to recap, for all of the employees who read the daily postings, don't worry about scheduling just yet, because next Wednesday seems a world away. But at least it will allow me to get everything in order for a smooth and relatively stress-free opening (fingers crossed).

I promise this will be the last time we push back the opening...I hope.

Getting Close

I'm not sure why I've gotten out of the habit of taking pictures of the store as progress continues, but it's probably because it's a mess in there right now. It won't be for much longer, but until today we had everything scattered everywhere, with contractors tripping over each other and people regularly sliding equipment out of the way to get where they were going. The weather is not inspiring me to take the last of my unused wood back to the Home Depot, but I'll have to get on that shortly.

In the meantime, the Pepsi guys came and did their install early this morning, which meant that Mark and friends (the contractor's guys) had to scramble to set our counter in place just in the nick of time so that the machine would have somewhere to sit (the counter was supposed to have arrived last Thursday, but of course didn't arrive until this morning). Thankfully, the Pepsi guys were patient while we ran around like headless chickens putting it all together; if they hadn't been, I wouldn't have had soda until next week at the earliest.

I also discovered another unpleasant cost of doing business - it costs $437 (!) to apply for a permit from the Health Department. It makes someone think very carefully about going into foodservice in this town, that's for sure. But it's not like I can back out now. In any event, the Health Inspector is now cleared to pay us a pre-final inspection visit on Wednesday; if he likes what he sees, I will have orders ready to be placed within minutes of his departure for Thursday delivery.

Of course, that's also assuming that the building inspector stops by before then - I know he's coming by this week, but no one knows exactly when that will be. As I learned in Wayne's World 2, it's nearly impossible to pull anything off without an occupancy permit, and the building inspector holds the key to that.

In other details, we should be good to fire up the ovens as early as Thursday, so long as I can get the people who know how to do so out around then. The rest of our equipment will be coming in on Tuesday, including the ice machine to sit atop the Pepsi dispenser. We will be madly scrambling to paint the dining room after the water service gets turned back on once the Town of Normal finishes installing our new water meter. Other than that, the main work remaining involves some touch-up of the drywall and the hookup of the outdoor walk-in cooler, as well as the roofing and sealing of the enclosure connecting it to the rest of the building. Most critically, the plumber still has to bury the grease trap behind the store, which won't be easy given the weather; the grease trap is fitting snugly between the gas line and the edge of the property, so they want to be extra careful and wait for the best weather possible - which in this case will be 32 with 3-5 inches of snow cover. Worst...winter...ever.

Anyways, I'm trying to be better about keeping people informed - mostly because I'm tired of telling people we'll open on a given day, not having it happen, and then fielding phone calls about why it didn't. On that vein, more soon...