I haven’t opened a restaurant in nine years. As you get closer to the opening it gets unbelievably hectic and tense. Problem after problem crops up that you never anticipated or budgeted for. Contractors don’t show up, or they do the wrong thing. The dozen or so permits and licenses become more and more difficult to come by, and you encounter more red tape in a month than you would in a decade. You go to sleep with budget numbers floating in your head and wake up thinking about the width of an aisle or an electricians bid. Did you sleep at all? And in the end… I have to admit that I love it. I am a pressure junkie and the rush of trying to solve all the problems, keeping people together and motivated, and most importantly – and the most difficult under the circumstances – keeping your creative juices flowing to build the best facility that you possibly can. It is invigorating to me like it must be to a bungee jumper or an actor on opening night. So when it sounds like I’m whining about this problem or that – I’m not. I’ve found that a little whining is good therapy for me.

I will catch you up on some details this week but last week was pretty much a disaster. We’ve only 9 weeks or so until opening and the rain was not kind to us. It cancelled concrete pours, it caused about 10 major leaks with consequent damage in the building, and the worst storm night caused Arizona to declare a state of emergency which caused Tempe to cancel their City Council meeting which had my pending liquor license listed as item #3 on the agenda. Nice. My architect still has not secured a permit to begin construction on the outside of the building (therefore the leaks) and my electrical bid came in almost exactly twice what we budgeted.

There were good things though. I got to focus on the interior. Chrissy and I made a swing through some antique stores and bought about a dozen vintage light fixtures. My sister sent me some wooden pews from the drugstore soda fountain in Syracuse that we used to go to as kids (perfect for the lobby waiting area!) We finished deciding on and ordering the remaining pieces of kitchen equipment. We passed inspection on the kitchen plumbing and filled in the trench. I awarded bids to a paint company and a technical wiring company. We scored two awesome stained glass windows thanks to Chrissy’s mom Barbara. Kim – our designer developed an awesome new tile design for the lobby and bar area which we’ve been really having trouble deciding on until now. But as far as where we are right now…. I think I’ll give you another quickie video tour this week. You won’t believe your eyes because it looks way worse than the one I took a few months ago, but I still believe we’ll get this done by the end of March.

I am friends with Geoff Stanisic who owns the Mongolian Grill Restaurants and he dropped in the other day so I showed him around. After a ten minute tour of the carnage I told him the opening date and watched for his reaction. He nodded thoughtfully and said “No problem” and I breathed what was probably a visible sigh of relief. That bit of positive reinforcement was better than my daily whine.