The Quest is ON!

So, now that I have a lease, a space, a Sous, a concept and two months free rent... it's time to knuckle down and gather all of the small details together. I ordered a $11 decal that says, "THE COMPASS STAR Coming May 2011", business cards for Stein and I, a first run of menus (that need to be redone) and Monday I spent the day in San Jose looking at a good used restaurant supply place for equipment.

Originally my investor wanted to write one check so I was trying to find everything in one place. Some items are super easy to find used everywhere... range, refirigerators, sandwich prep stations, chairs, tables, deep fryers. ALL super available. Stuff that is REALLY hard to find used and cheap are a smoker, a front cold display merchandiser, the vaccuum sealer and the under counter kegerator.

We saw a decent mechandiser at the place in San Francisco for $2500, this was the CHEAPEST one I'd seen. Most in this price range also have stuff like "Red Bull" in giant letters written all over (when I don't have any plans to sell Red Bull). So Wednesday I saw a $700 merchandiser on Craigslist and it was super simple, white and just what I am looking for. So Todd and Vander helped me go grab it. Then we went to the Meadery for some brews and Mike (the proprietor) mentioned he had a two keg under counter kegerator up in the rafters he would be willing to sell me. I'd seen them for about $1100, but mostly it was hard to find them new. So Mike said I could have that one for $750.00 AND he would store it there until we needed it. Whew! Second hard to find item down!