Last week we met with the land owners. We got a lot of information and a lot of promises and a lot of hope... but we didn't have a lot of progress. It turns out we have a problem.
Yes, we are in the process of changing spaces. The space is a better location, but we will not have the outdoor seating we were hoping for. But, if everything works out (which, we have no reason to believe it will), we may get something even better than outdoor seating. We will not share what that may be at this time for fear of jinxing the endeavor.
We will meet again with the developers this week or next week, depending on schedules. That meeting should determine, for sure, the terms of lease, square footage, and so forth. That will be a happy day.
And then the week and month following should be a lovely combination of stress and progress.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
We're moving forward... really.
It may seem as if nothing happens around here, but, honestly, we actually work hard. Our two largest obstacles (floor plan, and lease) are close to being realized. We received an initial floor plan before turkey day, which Shawna immediately marked up and returned for updates. We expect an update any day now. The wretched part about the floor plan is that the estimates the designer gives us hinge entirely on the terms of the lease... which, obviously, we have not obtained yet.
Today we did get some reaction concerning the lease. A fellow with significant clout at the developer was spoken with and a time set for a lease meeting. This has happened before and resulted in a canceled meeting. But this time it is with a different fellow. Hopefully a different result will ensue. Once that is complete it's off to the bank to beg for money, and then off to find some willing contractors to make quick work of our little plot.
Yesterday, we had a rather festive time. In the evening a pastry chef we are, so far, well pleased with dropped off a platter of his wares that we might get an impression of his baking style. Mmmm. Fantastic. It's amazing how we randomly run into all these fantastic contacts we have.
All in all, things progress. There is so much stinking paper work involved with every dadburn process it gives one urges to harm things. Overwhelmed is a pretty normal feeling these days. If we just keep our heads about water, though, we should be good.
Ugh.
Today we did get some reaction concerning the lease. A fellow with significant clout at the developer was spoken with and a time set for a lease meeting. This has happened before and resulted in a canceled meeting. But this time it is with a different fellow. Hopefully a different result will ensue. Once that is complete it's off to the bank to beg for money, and then off to find some willing contractors to make quick work of our little plot.
Yesterday, we had a rather festive time. In the evening a pastry chef we are, so far, well pleased with dropped off a platter of his wares that we might get an impression of his baking style. Mmmm. Fantastic. It's amazing how we randomly run into all these fantastic contacts we have.
All in all, things progress. There is so much stinking paper work involved with every dadburn process it gives one urges to harm things. Overwhelmed is a pretty normal feeling these days. If we just keep our heads about water, though, we should be good.
Ugh.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Many Updates
It has been ages since this blog has been updated, and for good reason—there has been little information to share. For the past month all has carried on in a boring manner—we baked and grocery shopped. That's pretty much it. Now however, things are moving rapidly. It is time for the build-out to be kicked into gear, and who knew there were so many intricacies involved? The city and county have honorable goals, I'm sure, but those goals inhibit progress above anything I've witnessed. So, a lot of the work is simply to learn what hoops to jump through.
A few weeks back we finally got our design fellow in to see the building. He took measurements, asked questions, gave advice, etc. He is currently engaged in preparing a preliminary restaurant design for us. Hopefully we will have it soon. Once we get it we then need to review it and decide on any changes. Then it all happens again. Until we are satisfied. Good luck with that, huh?
Once the floor plan is done we will be able to move forward with city and county permits. These are extensive processes that involve many signatures, many agencies, many pointless documents, and, after all seems complete, many weeks of dumb waiting. Ugh. If our government was more efficient in its processes I doubt it would be the largest employer in the nation. Sigh.
It appears, from talks with the developer of our building, that build-out completion is no longer targeted for late December. It seems the grueling process will drag on until late January now. Disgusting. We already have our business cards made, too! But what can you do?
Another bit of news is that we no longer deliver to Bikini Coffee. This is a twofold blessing (though it wouldn't seem so): first, we didn't make enough products to actually turn a profit; and second, Bikini's management's form of communication was hand-penned notes written on various coffee shop paper products. Phone calls were not returned. Emails were rarely acknowledged. Essentially, we now will save money and headache. Not that it wasn't nifty to have a customer, but, honestly, some things aren't worth the effort.
So, now it's all effort on build-out and OLCC (which is another governmental pile of pooh we shall not venture to describe for lack of time in the day). The first and most essential thing is the floor plan which we hope to have this week. Once that is in hand the ball begins to roll whether anyone is prepared for it or not.
An update will come when we get the floor plan.
By the way, our business cards are amazing and fantastic!
A few weeks back we finally got our design fellow in to see the building. He took measurements, asked questions, gave advice, etc. He is currently engaged in preparing a preliminary restaurant design for us. Hopefully we will have it soon. Once we get it we then need to review it and decide on any changes. Then it all happens again. Until we are satisfied. Good luck with that, huh?
Once the floor plan is done we will be able to move forward with city and county permits. These are extensive processes that involve many signatures, many agencies, many pointless documents, and, after all seems complete, many weeks of dumb waiting. Ugh. If our government was more efficient in its processes I doubt it would be the largest employer in the nation. Sigh.
It appears, from talks with the developer of our building, that build-out completion is no longer targeted for late December. It seems the grueling process will drag on until late January now. Disgusting. We already have our business cards made, too! But what can you do?
Another bit of news is that we no longer deliver to Bikini Coffee. This is a twofold blessing (though it wouldn't seem so): first, we didn't make enough products to actually turn a profit; and second, Bikini's management's form of communication was hand-penned notes written on various coffee shop paper products. Phone calls were not returned. Emails were rarely acknowledged. Essentially, we now will save money and headache. Not that it wasn't nifty to have a customer, but, honestly, some things aren't worth the effort.
So, now it's all effort on build-out and OLCC (which is another governmental pile of pooh we shall not venture to describe for lack of time in the day). The first and most essential thing is the floor plan which we hope to have this week. Once that is in hand the ball begins to roll whether anyone is prepared for it or not.
An update will come when we get the floor plan.
By the way, our business cards are amazing and fantastic!
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Eerie Silence
Sorry folks, for the great expanse of nothingness. All loyal readers have probably been lost due to boredom. We will try to rectify that situation, but help may be needed.
With the election upcoming and the economy flying into the side of the mountain I think several folks have been a tad distracted of late. A ton of blogs and vlogs I frequent have failed to update in the last two weeks. It's a mite creepy. It's like everyone has found a cave to hide in to await the end of the world. Except celebrities. There seems to be ample trash on them. What a weird world we live in.
Sweet Thing, however, does not desire to hide. Yeah, the economy is essentially toast for a while. And now may not be the optimal time to begin a business. But Sweet Thing has banked upon our country's inherent love of sweets and its desperate addiction to coffee. It's nuts what people will sacrifice in order to maintain their daily ration of sweets and coffee. Not that we are complaining.
This week will see headway in shop layout design and, soon thereafter, the beginning of construction. We have a design sketched, but official measurements and cad drawings will be taken and created this week. Shawna's dream is becoming more real—it will officially be on paper soon. We'll see how well that translates to reality. No doubt it will translate well... the time required to do so is the only thing in question.
Shawna has been in talks with potential clients. It sounds like one will be on board after the first of the year and the other (hopefully) before. We are a young company. We have one client. We are not expecting to gross a million in a month. But none-the-less, after the enjoyable creation of a spreadsheet, it appears one more customer could put Sweet Thing into the black. Impressive.
Bag O' Muffins
A while back we took a delivery to Bikini and on the way back to the car were accosted by a drunk Australian. He stood on the street corner engaged in jovial conversation with a few of his inebriated buddies. We stood at the street corner also, and silently waited for the light to change that we could traverse the street. The man, in his happy, drunken state, fixated on the contents of the clear tote we carried.
"Are those muffins?" He asked. (Now, you must recall this man was Australian. So, despite the normality of the words written here, the speech was not normal. As is the case with the Australian dialect, all vowels have somewhere between 5 and 25 vowel sounds per vowel. Imagine a man attempting to speak with a two inch marble in his mouth. That would sound about right. I will not attempt to regurgitate the speech in writing as it attacked the ear. I will leave that to your imagination.)
The man did not wait for our answer. He continued on in exuberance. "It's a bag of muffins!" For some reason muffins excited him. In his excitement he did not realize that a bag is a sight different from a tote. We'll forgive him though. The man then excitedly ran out into traffic. He waved his arms frantically overhead. His cigarette glowed with the motion. "Everybody stop!" He continued in his dreadful accent. "Bag o' muffins coming though!"
We obliged the idiot and crossed the street. Had shock not affected our sensed we would have granted him a muffin, to be sure. Sadly, our senses had been affected and thanks we did not proffer. It is doubtful he desired thanks, though—his posse's raucous laughter trailed us all the way to the car. They thought it was a grand lark.
Perhaps this visible muffin business is a marketing tactic we could utilize at a later date.
This is all for now. There is little to scrawl about these days as things appear to have adhered to some sort of schedule and have become mundane to say the least. So, if there is anything I've failed to touch on that you want to hear about please let us know.
With the election upcoming and the economy flying into the side of the mountain I think several folks have been a tad distracted of late. A ton of blogs and vlogs I frequent have failed to update in the last two weeks. It's a mite creepy. It's like everyone has found a cave to hide in to await the end of the world. Except celebrities. There seems to be ample trash on them. What a weird world we live in.
Sweet Thing, however, does not desire to hide. Yeah, the economy is essentially toast for a while. And now may not be the optimal time to begin a business. But Sweet Thing has banked upon our country's inherent love of sweets and its desperate addiction to coffee. It's nuts what people will sacrifice in order to maintain their daily ration of sweets and coffee. Not that we are complaining.
This week will see headway in shop layout design and, soon thereafter, the beginning of construction. We have a design sketched, but official measurements and cad drawings will be taken and created this week. Shawna's dream is becoming more real—it will officially be on paper soon. We'll see how well that translates to reality. No doubt it will translate well... the time required to do so is the only thing in question.
Shawna has been in talks with potential clients. It sounds like one will be on board after the first of the year and the other (hopefully) before. We are a young company. We have one client. We are not expecting to gross a million in a month. But none-the-less, after the enjoyable creation of a spreadsheet, it appears one more customer could put Sweet Thing into the black. Impressive.
Bag O' Muffins
A while back we took a delivery to Bikini and on the way back to the car were accosted by a drunk Australian. He stood on the street corner engaged in jovial conversation with a few of his inebriated buddies. We stood at the street corner also, and silently waited for the light to change that we could traverse the street. The man, in his happy, drunken state, fixated on the contents of the clear tote we carried.
"Are those muffins?" He asked. (Now, you must recall this man was Australian. So, despite the normality of the words written here, the speech was not normal. As is the case with the Australian dialect, all vowels have somewhere between 5 and 25 vowel sounds per vowel. Imagine a man attempting to speak with a two inch marble in his mouth. That would sound about right. I will not attempt to regurgitate the speech in writing as it attacked the ear. I will leave that to your imagination.)
The man did not wait for our answer. He continued on in exuberance. "It's a bag of muffins!" For some reason muffins excited him. In his excitement he did not realize that a bag is a sight different from a tote. We'll forgive him though. The man then excitedly ran out into traffic. He waved his arms frantically overhead. His cigarette glowed with the motion. "Everybody stop!" He continued in his dreadful accent. "Bag o' muffins coming though!"
We obliged the idiot and crossed the street. Had shock not affected our sensed we would have granted him a muffin, to be sure. Sadly, our senses had been affected and thanks we did not proffer. It is doubtful he desired thanks, though—his posse's raucous laughter trailed us all the way to the car. They thought it was a grand lark.
Perhaps this visible muffin business is a marketing tactic we could utilize at a later date.
This is all for now. There is little to scrawl about these days as things appear to have adhered to some sort of schedule and have become mundane to say the least. So, if there is anything I've failed to touch on that you want to hear about please let us know.
Monday, September 22, 2008
A Couple More Things
Just a quick entry to say a couple things.
Yesterday the message was relayed to us from a co-worker of a friend. Said co-worker (who happens to be female) shared that Bikini Coffee in downtown Portland has the best rice krispies. Ever. And they are so big.
Fantastic. We can now begin our official adoring-public count. I'm sure the count is larger than those who actually comment on the goods, but we shouldn't assume too much―it makes us look conceited.
Yesterday the message was relayed to us from a co-worker of a friend. Said co-worker (who happens to be female) shared that Bikini Coffee in downtown Portland has the best rice krispies. Ever. And they are so big.
Fantastic. We can now begin our official adoring-public count. I'm sure the count is larger than those who actually comment on the goods, but we shouldn't assume too much―it makes us look conceited.
Also our logo is finished. Here it is in all its glory. Pretty, huh?
Seattle Coffee Fest
The Seattle Coffee Fest was something to witness. All kinds of booths hawking all kinds of coffee related items strewed the fourth floor the of the Seattle convention center. Bakeries, coffee suppliers, coffee roasters, cafe designers, tea suppliers, smoothie people, energy drink people. Ugh. It was endless. There was even a glycerin insole booth. Everywhere one turned there was a smiley person with some sort of energetic pitch ready to accost.
At first the experience was freakish―too many happy people in one place is unnerving. We soon understood why the energy in the place appeared endless―several booths were handing out free shots of espresso. Ugh. Needless to say, we soon joined in the sickening glut of energy. What fools.
One booth had an aura of listlessness, though. And ironically, it was some energy drink booth. Amusing. A bleary eyed fellow with silver hair to the shoulders and a short beard stood behind the booth. "You wanna try this natural energy drink, dude?" His torpid appeal would have lulled a rabid dog to sleep. He was a stereotype straight from the seventies.
"Sure." We might as well try it. One can never get enough energy, right?
His left eye, half covered by a droopy eye lid, twitched as he handed us a sample. I don't recall his exact words as we took the samples, but I'm sure it went something like, "This is healthier than blueberries. It makes you feel better than a Guns & Roses concert. And it grows on a fifty foot tall tree, dude." Or something like that. Whatever it was, I'm sure it was informative.
There were two things we did while at Coffee Fest that were especially useful. First, we watched a documentary on the history and reason behind Cafe Feminino―the place Shawna wants to buy our coffee from. It was very interesting and nice. The coffee may be more expensive than others, but I'm sure the fuzzy feeling that comes from helping out impoverished folk is worth the cost.
The second useful thing we did was taste My Chai's blends. The teas were fantastic. If the syrups are half as fantastic then we made a great decision for a supplier.
As was mentioned, we sucked down shots of espresso, smoothie mix, and chai tea all day long. And through necessity of perusing all booths before leaving, we also managed to skip lunch. Too much coffee and too little food is a great combination for crankiness. We were all a bunch of cranky-pants by the time we finally began the journey home. Thankfully, everyone slept the three hours home. Well, except for the driver. But he enjoyed the peace and quiet.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Anonymous Alcoholic Needed
A week ago the task was given to locate and obtain the best vanilla possible. Vanilla is common in baked goods and Sweet Thing is not interested in mediocrity, so for the best we searched. According to reviews of many baker people on many websites, the best vanilla extract was found. A sample is currently on its way here. But through the research required to find the best vanilla extract, it was discovered that one could make his or her own vanilla extract if desired. Who knew? It was also discovered that real vanilla extract is at least 35% alcohol (37.8 -- or something like that -- is optimal). This fact would require us to purchase vodka in order to create our own vanilla extract. This brings a blaring fact to light: we know nothing of vodka.
Internet information only gets one so far. As far as what makes a good vodka beats me with a stick. So if anyone out there has made vanilla extract before and wouldn't mind granting advice, we would be thankful. Or if anyone just happens to have vast amounts of vodka knowledge on hand, that may help too.
Yesterday we took a field trip to Rose's Equipment here in Portland. It is a big honking warehouse of new and used restaurant equipment. We wandered through three stories of really big ovens, refrigerators, and sauna-sized mixers and wrote down items we would need. It was a load of fun. For some reason ridiculously large things intrigue people greatly. After we had completed our tour, our salesperson introduced us to a nice fellow with James Dean hair. This big-haired fellow walked us through how he could help us with kitchen design, equipment placement, etc. Rose's employees really made us feel they could help us and would go out of their way to help us. Customer service is a powerful thing.
Today we are going to finally set up the business bank account. Woohoo. That makes us more official than before. Grants and loans will be completed soon after and then we'll really be rolling.
Shawna keeps her focus wonderfully. She has a vision and works toward it constantly. Some of us have the ability to fraternize with doubt when there is no visible progress. Not Shawna, though, there ain't nothin' gonna get in her way. Thank goodness for people like her. Now that mammoth sized equipment has been seen and floor plans are in the foreseeable future, even doubters have begun to share her elation.
Tomorrow we will take another field trip up to Coffee Fest in Seattle. It's actually a three day event, but who has three days to blow? We hope to get in on three classes and learn everything about the coffee industry as we tour through all fifty billion exhibits. Sounds reasonable to me. We'll see, though.
Internet information only gets one so far. As far as what makes a good vodka beats me with a stick. So if anyone out there has made vanilla extract before and wouldn't mind granting advice, we would be thankful. Or if anyone just happens to have vast amounts of vodka knowledge on hand, that may help too.
Yesterday we took a field trip to Rose's Equipment here in Portland. It is a big honking warehouse of new and used restaurant equipment. We wandered through three stories of really big ovens, refrigerators, and sauna-sized mixers and wrote down items we would need. It was a load of fun. For some reason ridiculously large things intrigue people greatly. After we had completed our tour, our salesperson introduced us to a nice fellow with James Dean hair. This big-haired fellow walked us through how he could help us with kitchen design, equipment placement, etc. Rose's employees really made us feel they could help us and would go out of their way to help us. Customer service is a powerful thing.
Today we are going to finally set up the business bank account. Woohoo. That makes us more official than before. Grants and loans will be completed soon after and then we'll really be rolling.
Shawna keeps her focus wonderfully. She has a vision and works toward it constantly. Some of us have the ability to fraternize with doubt when there is no visible progress. Not Shawna, though, there ain't nothin' gonna get in her way. Thank goodness for people like her. Now that mammoth sized equipment has been seen and floor plans are in the foreseeable future, even doubters have begun to share her elation.
Tomorrow we will take another field trip up to Coffee Fest in Seattle. It's actually a three day event, but who has three days to blow? We hope to get in on three classes and learn everything about the coffee industry as we tour through all fifty billion exhibits. Sounds reasonable to me. We'll see, though.
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