Time to regroup...

The process has gotten into somewhat of a rhythm; We take some time to research "the next step", then we gather the pieces of the puzzle, put it together and it doesn't quite fit, go get a few of the pieces corrected, then all in a rush a bunch of movement happens and we are done with that step. Last week, we were figuring out how to do the Peddler's Faire legally (what are the health department requirements, City of Martinez etc), this week we tried to get all of the pieces of that puzzle put together, plus ongoing relationship building with clients and potential clients, AND still keeping tabs and monitoring the progress on the restaurant and encouraging that where we can.

So now that we have a kitchen, the NSF tent/canopy and feel relatively confident we can put out a safe delicious product... what is NEXT on the agenda?

Making sure the booth is visually attractive. To this end we bought a very nice lightly used all black enclosed canopy ($350), 10 lexans (used $10 each) to showcase food in ice, a laminator ($20) to make signage, some printable stickers ($12) to label food, a banner ($150) and the clear plastic food containers. We already had a few things too. I don't expect to make a lot of money this time because of all of the initial expenditures, but hopefully we can start doing a regular thing at local farmer's markets and other street fairs that will be worthwhile over the longer term while we wait for the kitchen/restaurant to be completed.

I still need to finish all the signage, call Weaver and order coffee, call Semifreddi and order bread and nail down my purchasing/product needs before next week. We will only be in the kitchen for about 8 hours so we really have to nail it. We will hit the farmer's market on Thursday night for produce.

I need to stay on top of the restaurant thing... I think we are going to go ahead and build out the kitchen while Stan figures out what to do about the ADA and earthquake retrofit. At least then I can use my own kitchen and start prepping my own products for sale to the wider public. I found one more piece to the equipment puzzle (A vacuum sealer) yesterday, now the only hard to find item I need is a smoker. My teachers had been willing to let me buy theirs, but it is a complicated process for them to sell it to me and I don't think it will be completed before the school semester ends and they go home for the summer (CURSES!). So now that piece of the puzzle is a question mark again and I really need a smoker.

I put a ton of stuff up to hang and dry yesterday, including hot beef American Wagyu coppa and hot capicolla. I also put the pastrami into cure for next weekend. Stein and I need to prep the chicken sausages for T-rex next week. We were going to do it Sunday but I have a client who wants some for Saturday so I may do at least one today or tomorrow. I also need to make some croutons with the copious amounts of bread given to me by Semifreddis, plus the cherry mostarda for next week (need candied citrus).

So on the agenda today:

• Prep all of the signage for the booth
• Make a purchase order for all items on the menu
• Call David about progress on the restaurant
• Try to organize some of the equipment in the front room and see if any of it can go to storage
• See if I can find vacuum sealer bags
• Decide which salumi is going on the Charc platter for the fair
• check out cheeses for the platter (maybe be naughty and hit Berkeley with Wendy today and check out the cheese board)

I am sure I will thin of more stuff I need to do... but it is a good start!