Sneak Preview a Success Despite Massive Equipment Failure

So Saturday was the big day; we served our first paying customers (though to call most of the customers "paying" is a little bit of an exaggeration; coffee was free and lattes cost a buck) and there were no significant hangups. Okay, there were some pretty significant hangups.

On Tuesday of last week I plugged in the coffee machine. It has a normal looking plug, except one of the prongs is positioned sideways. That often means that the machine doesn't run on a normal current, but requires a more beefed up 220 electrical line. This particular machine, however, does NOT require such a powerful amperage. And if there's one thing I know about electricity (and in reality I know maybe five things), it's that if you plug something into a really powerful outlet and it's designed for a much less powerful outlet, you will, to use the technical term, fry the shit out of it. Which I did. Let's hear it for ignoring the directions. And the tag on the plug. Let's hear it for literacy. Fuck. On Thursday I got a new circuit board from the manufacturer and on Friday I got an additional (but different) circuit board. Both were installed and now the machine can make hot water but it won't brew coffee. Which isn't so helpful when you're a coffee machine. So it needs some professional servicing which I hope will occur tomorrow. But we made do on Saturday and used French presses and we were covered for coffee.

The espresso machine is in a world of hurt. I've had two licensed technicians charge me nearly a thousand bucks to "fix" the thing, yet by 4pm yesterday after a mere five hours of use, she was down for the count. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do about this situation. I suspect I'll end up returning her to the place I got her. And then suing the guys maybe? Ah, we'll see.

Other than the equipment going to crap, I think that Saturday was really successful. More than a hundred people came in, and dozens of those people were total strangers. People seemed to like the coffee and the atmosphere, and I've been getting a ton of positive feedback from the neighborhood. Thanks to everyone who came out yesterday, it was a great feeling to get so much support on the first day.

I expect the we'll be open for real on Wednesday morning.

So check us out then.

Or before if you like, I'll probably be around.

Holy Christ

The past week has been ridiculous. I think I've worked like a hundred hours. Yesterday was a seventeen hour day.

The good news: The Health Inspector came today. I'm approved to go get my food license. Assuming everything goes okay tomorrow morning at L&I, the cafe will open this Saturday.

Until then, I'll be working on the place most of the time. Stop by. Say hey. Have some coffee.

Lies, Excuses, and Complaints

I strongly oppose laying flooring of all varieties. I spent about five hours today laying vinyl tile and I covered about a quarter of the floor. It's not so much the floor laying that gets me down, it's the fact that my hands and arms were sticky with floor glue and now they're less sticky but smell more strongly of turpentine. Tomorrow I'm going to lay the rest of the floor. Maybe.

Oh, what I said the other day about opening on June 2? Total crap. I've moved my appointment with the Health Inspector to Monday, so I won't be legally able to open until Tuesday. Figure I'll have the place open for limited hours toward the end of next week and the grand opening celebration will take place on June 9. This is, for those keeping track, not Cinco de Mayo. So sue me. Unless you're the city of Philadelphia, in which case I'd really rather you not sue me. Thanks.

In other news, the place is half red and I've got a big pipe running through the ceiling.

Oh, and as of last night the Beauty Shop Cafe is air conditioned. Please don't tell anyone that the a/c unit is held onto the building with seven screws. It would probably make them nervous, which would be needless.

Pictures coming soon. And I mean it. Probably.

I've definitely had a splinter in my palm since Thursday...

and I just pulled it out.

Oh, and we're going to be open a week from today.* Just thought I'd let y'all know.

* This is assuming that there are no unexpected hiccups involving the good people who run Philadelphia. Just thought I'd add that little hedge.

Working hard, or hardly working?

Wow, I've been remiss in sharing my progress with the world. Sorry Jenn.

So I'm at the cafe pretty much all the time these days. And things are moving in, like, big ways.

I built a bar (with much help from Josh W., without whose help I'd have been pretty much screwed, and some additional help from my Dad). Pretty much all my walls are built, the plumbing is done, to a large extent. In fact, the bathroom is pretty much all the way there, with the exception of silly details like a paint job and a door. I laid a rubber floor behind the bar (which was entirely terrible), built a window seat, did some serious painting (well, priming, really), and got a bunch of my equipment. My espresso machine was in the back seat of my car for a few days until the guy who's servicing the thing picked it up the day before yesterday. Apparently, my La Marzocco needs a little love.

Oh, and my massive binder of crap for the health department got approved. So there's some seriously good news.

There are only a few possible pitfalls that could really hold me up at this point.

1) There's too much work to do and not enough hours in the day (which, of course, is backed up in a big way by the fact that I'm sitting here typing crap)

2) The plumber has to run a pipe through the ceiling, through the apartments above the cafe, through the roof. The second floor apartment might become a problem because my landlord doesn't want a pipe sticking out of the floor and going into the ceiling in the place. He says it's not aesthetically pleasing. Don't know what he's talking about. So I need to figure out a way to get that pipe through that place without having to move a door. Which could be costly.

3) The good people at Licenses and Inspections could decide that I shouldn't be building stuff without a permit and shut me down until I get said permit. That would be inconceivably bad. I hope to deal with that situation tomorrow. Wish me luck.

4) I melt while working. It gets f'in hot in that place. And no, I can't put in A/C until I get some/most/all of the dust outta there.

Moving right along.

So much to address.

I got me my money. I feel like the Hamburglar after that time he broke into McDonald's and ate seven dozen hamburgers. That's to say, I feel very satisfied, but the experience has given me a lingering case of indigestion. Ye, let it be known far and wide, from mountaintop to valley, that dealing with banks, in general, sucks, like, a whole lot. There, now that it's out there, I'm feeling much better.

Construction continues to crawl along. I've spent a lot of time in the bathroom this week, laying a subfloor, laying tile, cutting a toilet hole in the floor, perfecting the kind of half-assed drywall, etc etc etc. Did I mention that the only light in the bathroom is a halogen work lamp that goes from zero to one thousand degrees in fifty two seconds? So it's warm in there. But it's moving along. Plumbers are set to come in early next week, which is great because it means that I'll be able to, for example, wash my hands while working. And maybe pee. I'm pretty excited.

I think I'll lay the subfloor in the rest of the space in the next couple of days. And finish that dastardly spackling effort. And figure out my logo, build a bar, build a couple more small walls, buy an air conditioner, paint the place, solve the crisis in Iraq, eat a sandwich, buy $15,000 worth of coffee equipment, install it, take a nap, think of all the details I've not yet considered, deal with them, and open my doors. Should take, say, two or maybe three days.

See you at the grand opening on May 19th (???)...

Nineteen Days?!?

According to my original time line, I'll be opening the cafe in nineteen days.

I spent six hours drywalling and spackling today and somehow feel like I didn't make so much progress.

I still don't actually have the cash I need on hand (next week or I'm going to burn down every bank in Philadelphia).

I still have not submitted my massive pain-in-the-ass plan to the Health Department.

I keep getting distracted by things like baseball games, underwhelming hipster dance parties, and Myspace.

Cinco de Mayo's not looking so good.

Now I'm thinking maybe Doce de Mayo?

Which would not necessarily preclude hiring a Mariachi Band, for the record.