YAY!!!! Earthquake Retrofit is DONE!

So the most complicated part of the reconstruction is done, whew! David talked to Stan this morning and the plans for the ADA fix have been submitted to the Building Dept. Sooooo maybe we WILL open in Sept!

Why Opening a Restaurant is such a special adventure....

So as regular readers will know, Stein and I found the perfect smoker last week! I'd been looking since February of last year with no luck. It has to be electric, it has to be a very specific to work in the space. It really basically had to be an Alto Shaam. Go US for finding the smoker!

This is one piece of equipment among 40 pieces of equipment I need to open my business.

So we move the Shaam into the space and check out the plug... which of course is this weird three pronged 220 plug. So now we need to find an electrician who can come wire a special outlet for the plug. Stein's wife is a boat electrician and she thinks she can probably install it, but it is not what she normally does so she asks for some guidance (the person giving her advice happens to be wrong, but we don't find this out until after it's installed).

So we get the outlet and install it. Then the bad advice comes to fore when we flip the main and their is a flash of ozone, and then darkness. So then we need to find out which of the breakers outside is ours. None of them are marked, it's Sunday and nothing is open and they all have ancient locks on them. Needless to say, it was a LONG day.

Then we go to plug in the smoker and... it is the wrong outlet. Apparently there are like 2 billion of these 3 pronged 220 outlets and we grabbed the C073 instead of the C073.25 and so... after all that, Alicia had to go back today and put in another one! Thank god for El Tapatio and their very strong margaritas. Which we did imbibe in after leaving TCS.

Today got this via text from Stein and his lovely bride. POWER WORKING To Smoker!!!

And this, my friends is why it takes 8 months to open a 720 sq ft restaurant. Every flipping appliance has a special outlet, or needs hot and cold water running to it. OR needs a special floor sink. OR needs to be hooked up to the grease trap. It's not like you can just buy a thing and plug it in. OH NO. Some appliances have TWO different plugs, and the two different plugs actually need two different shaped outlets and are different voltages. I kid you not. Your plugs at home... all standard. In a restaurant... a whole rainbow cornucopia of different shapes, sizes, prong counts, prong shapes and voltages.

Like finding a needle in a haystack...

We've been looking for a smoker since last October. Once we were in the space it became a requirement that it be 1. electric (so we don't have to put it under the hood, and it doesn't need a special gas hook up and fire suppression system) and 2. small (the kitchen is TINY) and 3. That it could cold smoke (so the heating element and the smoking element are on separate controls) and so the ONLY smoker we really could use was the Alto-shaam holding oven with smoker.

In all of this time only ONE came onto Craigslist, it was $1800 and was sold in hours. So yesterday another one came on Craigslist in great condition (only four years old) for $2100. I didn't have that amount of spare cash on hand so I asked some friends if they would be willing to help me out and they said yes!!! TOTALLY saving my bacon (pun intended!). So today Stein and I trekked into San Francisco and grabbed the smoker... It is the piece of equipment I've been looking for the longest, and it was almost the last thing I found. It is so beautiful!

We also dropped off the Charcuterie for Savour this morning. I am so proud of our salumi!

This week will be a lot of salumi production, both for a catered lunch on Friday and my favorite San Francisco client. Apparently everyone LOVES the blackberry berber catsup. We will try to put in some whole muscle salumi as well.

All I really want to do is put my meat in your mouth...

Sausage innuendo is THE BEST!

I feel like things are kind of stagnant again on the restaurant front. I think Contractors live in a different time/space continuum when it comes to how long a "day" or a "week" might be. The Retrofit Guys said they would be done on Friday. I went in today and several new beams have been brought in, and the floor has been torn up. Like... there is a whole new project that was started? Something? I am not sure? It's all just confusing insanity.

I went in today to finish up the Comp-u-pay paperwork, which hands over payroll (accounting and disbursement) to people qualified to disburse that competently. I still cannot believe how large the steel beams are! Our front is only maybe 14 feet wide and now 3-4 feet is taken up with beam! Beam that still needs to be sheetrocked in! Of course it is impossible to get information out of Stan, who is no longer really responding to our calls.

But we found the EXACT smoker we need!!! I just need to find $1200 to go grab it, which I feel pretty confident I can do. (fingers crossed)

This weekend was pretty awesome, we catered a beautiful wedding, delivered more Charc to Tony Baker at Montrio's Bistro and got an order from Savour (which we will deliver to Napa tomorrow). It is interesting to note there is a huge demand for cured meats. Stein and I are trying to gauge as best we can what we can afford to sell to restaurants vs. what we need for Compass Star. It is so difficult to gauge when we don't have a clear idea of an opening date. I think we will need to do about 25# a week for Montrios, and probably 12-15# for Savour. Plus another 15# a week for ourselves. That's a lotta salami. We really need to explore some of the hot smoked varieties so we have a few super accessible salumi that only take a week or so to make. We are going to put in some Spanish style chorizo this week.

I feel like a bird about to jump off a cliff... can I fly or not? I set up my life post-divorce to work towards this goal. I went to school, worked in the industry and moved to open my business in the time frame where I was getting both alimony and child support. Alimony ends next month and the stakes are huge. My business will likely open within weeks of my needing to take on a much larger financial responsibility for myself. I own a home, I am a head of household with three children, I have three room mates who count on my being able to pay the mortgage... I have a lot of responsibilities.

And a lot of restaurants fail... in fact most do. I've done everything I can to avoid the common traps. I have almost no debt. My overhead is a fraction of what is normal. I have a very conservative business plan based on 80 covers total per day (evenly split between breakfast and lunch). I have a true partner in Stein who is willing to work hard for future rewards without seeing them up front. I am getting great advance buzz. We are picking up clients for regular income slowly but surely, and they are really cool places to be showcased.

I cannot control how fast the construction is done BUT I suspect it is moving forward at a decent pace now. I feel pretty zen about my leap of faith... I think I should be more afraid of financial ruin but I am just eager to get started and show the world my food.

COOL!!

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Tid Bits...

Tid bits... were this awesome sampler platter that my mom used to order for us at Dave Wong's in Stockton. Dave Wong's was this fantastic American Chinese place that had a side deli with the best "Garlic Chicken" ever, deep fried to greasy perfection with moist chicken and perfectly crunchy crust. Tid-bits were deep fried green beans, crab puffs dipped in toasted sesame seeds and I think foil wrapped chicken. They opened a new place shi-shi place in even northerner North Stockton. I didn't like it very much.

I love the old Chinese Restaurants in Stockton. There was one with private rooms, the little accordion door would shut behind the stooped old waiter and the big round table with the lazy susan in the middle. Primarily Cantonese food... via 3 generations in America.

Stockton... I loved it there. Unpretentious but trying, with the largest inland shipping port on the West Coast winding like an artery out to the bigger world. Stockton always felt like an older woman from the wrong side of the tracks with a lot of soul and twinkle in her eyes. Lazy docks bumping against mossy shores, deep gray clay under pete soil. Sunshine and BBQs and flip flops and mangy beaches covered with bloated river plants. We dug for clams with our toes and sold them for bait to grizzled old fisherman on dilapidated aluminum boats. A gallon baggie for $2.00.

This week Stein and I are prepping for a wedding in Santa Cruz. I really like the menu, simple but elegant. We got the stone fruit for the mostarda at the farmer's market. We tried the peaches and apricots and cherries, so full of mid summer flavors, before we bought them. Today the slow delicious process of shopping for just-the-thing went in earnest.

I want granite serving platters similar to the ones we used at Wente. They were elegant, natural and kept food cold. Such a simple thing. So we found a small purveyor online and toddled over to their Concord store. A small Asian man showed us around the discard pile of granite. It was all cut very straight and I asked how we could get the jagged natural edges I was looking for and he held a slab over his head and dropped it, shattering it... PERFECT!

Then we scoured some local stores for the pillars to hold the smaller pieces over the larger ones (I promise pictures later) and found just the thing at Big Lots. I felt triumphant!

Tomorrow prep goes into high gear. It is going to be fun!

Retrofit and Life in General

Went down to TCP today and the road was marked off with caution tape while they were working on the retrofit. I peeked in and saw the steel beam has been put in place. They had to put it in thru the roof. I am sure this was really upsetting to my landlord, who has positively freaked out every time something has had to come in through the roof, or any holes have had to be cut into the roof. I am only thankful it wasn't one of the people we'd hired as it is so upsetting to him and I am never sure what to say. It seems obvious to me why holes must be cut in the roof for ventilation systems... oh well, at least we are closer to the end than the beginning.

I dreamed last night that I was in my kitchen and everything had been cleaned and was all shiny and ready to go. Oh how much I long for that time!

I took a picture of the steel beam, it is HUGE. I can see why it was not a good idea to start the ADA stuff until it was in, I suspect the door is going to need to be in a totally different place from where we thought it might go. I have given up trying to plan floor layout until the dust settles. HOWEVER the good news is, the retrofit is projected to be done this Friday, including covering the beams with sheet rock! YAY!

Since I met the contractor Stan has hired to do the ADA work and gotten his business card, I think we should be able to call him some time next week and see what the time trajectory will be on him completing his work, then we will just have to finish the floors and get the kitchen permitted! (sort of, I am sure there is more, but those are the biggies)

Here is a picture that was posted on the Montrio's Bistro web site of the Compass Star salumi they are carrying (pictured are the finocciona, andouille and Nduja). We are SUPER excited about how pretty it is. I think Chef Tony Baker does plate composition courses for other industry professionals.

Stein and I went out to check on the newest batches of Salumi in the curing fridge. It is a new one for us so we need to constantly monitor to make sure there is no bad mold residual in the workings and the good molds take hold. It is extraordinarily wet. Like I've never had a fridge that maintains humidity like this one. This is AWESOME for salumi... but it is going to totally mess with my drying times. We always let clients know what our lead times are (typically 2-6 weeks for simple stuff, 3-12 months for more complex items) and stuff is drying a lot slower and I am not having to mist anything with water... there is no way the Capicolla is going to be done in two weeks though. But that is the downside of making a natural product :)

A nice slow drying process yields a much better salumi without the dark red overly dried out ring on the edges of cut slices so a wet fridge is great. Big manufactures have to control humidity as much as temperature.

I've been trying to get through this blog all day (it feels like great progress is being made on my projects)... but I keep getting distracted. Stein and I filled out the paperwork for Compu-pay today (which is my payroll company), I also printed out all of my hazardous chemical information and put it in plastic sleeves in a binder and got some of the prep lists put together for Christy's wedding this weekend. I am pretty stoked about the food and I think people are going to be really pleased. (knock on wood, of course)

As always there is not enough money to do everything, and I had to pay for my business insurance today ($575 for a half a year), but I am pretty happy about the progress on one of the more complicated aspects of the remodel. It is starting to feel like the future is blank vellum... I will soon dip my quill to ink the next chapter of my life.