Clean-up on Aisle 10

I'm not sure we should let this child anywhere near our restaurant. You're lucky I didn't have the camera when she had a forkful of spaghetti the size of her fist that she was trying to fit into her mouth.

This and That

We were very tempted to send Claire back last night. She started having a dry cough around 11 pm and it didn't let up until 4:30 am. It wasn't painful, she wasn't crying, but every few minutes it would come through the monitor and keep Dan and I from falling asleep. Multiple infusions of water and milk did nothing to stop it, and just led to a very wet bed this morning.

So, I played hooky today. I couldn't face work on that little sleep, and I wanted Claire to have a good nap at home instead of going to daycare. We still sent Nathan over, and I managed to get a lot done today for the restaurant.

1. www.palmettorestaurant.com is registered, and I'm already sending email from it. I was worried that once we filed LLC papers, some cyber-squatter would scoop it up, so I'm glad to get that out of the way. And I like amy@palmettorestaurant much better than myname1@twcny.rr.com which I can never even remember.

2. Sent out some emails to those of you who have generously suggested they could help. We'll see how Roxy does on a Logo, try to get some Joy Bristol painted pies on the wall, and we can already thank Christy for the handholding while getting the domain name.

3. Claire and I met with the Director of Economic Development for the town. Claire spent the whole time tearing everything out of my purse, but other than that it went well. She's going to help us apply for loans from a local Development Initiative. And, she's lived and worked there a long time, and knows a lot about what will work in the area. She loved the business plan, and will really advocate for us.

4. Spent some time fiddling with a POS system demo. The POS market leader charges about $15,000 to set-up and maintain a system, so I'm hoping that this less expensive option from Dell will meet with Dan and Ryan's approval.

Dan just came home, so I have to fill him in on the day's progress.

Palmetto

Back of the House

This is the room I fell in love with. The billiard room, used for mid-size parties. See the dark lines on the ceiling, those are circles strung on string that were used for keeping score. One wall has a cue rack with about a half dozen cues still on it.


Dan in his new home.

Aaaagh, Nooooooooooooooooooo, hideous.

Land of mis-matched furniture. Formerly a bowling alley in the basement. That's a scary place BTW, but with tons of storage and a wine cellar.

Front of the House

I need better photos. Ryan was using our camera and it wasn't on the right setting for indoor. Here's the grand entry, and we're off.........

This room is off the main hall. It WILL NOT stay this color. This room leads into the bar and we'll use it for casual dining and small meetings.

Where everybody knows your name. Twelve tap lines for beers. Hello, microbrews.

Aaaaaaaaaaagh, Noooooooooooooooo, Why are those murals there?!?!?!? Otherwise, we like the paint color well enough.

Finally, the main dining room. From this angle, it looks kind of small. It's not. It's HUGE. I don't know why it is full of the crappy tables and chairs when there are hundreds of the leather chairs floating around.

Still fussing about the name

We're still going back and forth about the name. Claire's got tarnished a bit because Ryan tends to think of ladies names being more closely related to diners and family style restaurants. There's a Caroline's diner in Potsdam, and a place called Phoebe's (Steaks and Italian) in Canton. We want to stand out from those

Although I'm glad we kept the name Claire's on the Business plan, because the guy running the meeting has a grand-daughter named Claire Grace, so that started things off well. This is at least the second Claire Grace I've heard of, and that was nearly the middle name we chose as well, since Grace is Dan's Grandmother's name. I really hope that Claire isn't a fad name the way Amy was in the early 70's.

Dan likes Benne right now, which is a type of bean used in southern coastal cooking. But I think that people will think it's meant to be the Italian and that we don't know how to spell. I was thinking of something with three or trio in it, since there are three of us running the restaurant. Tupelo came to me during the night a few days ago, I've had "Tupelo Honey" in my head ever since. The former owners have a Beatles fixation, and named it Glass Onion, with a music shop they own in the next town called Stawberry Fields. Maybe we should do a Van Morrison theme and open a bar named "Moondance" and a "Brown Eyed Girl" coffee shop.

I'm trying to pull myself away from the computer and do something non-restaurant related for awhile. I've spent hours and hours over the last two days bookmarking sites on POS systems, furniture, banks, uniforms and on and on and on. Must stop before brain explodes.

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

I think I've come down finally. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. We're (almost definitely) going to get the restaurant. I think if we'd gone in last year it would be a shoe-in, but they're feeling burned after renting to a guy who was only in business for 10 days before skipping town with bad checks and arrest warrants in his wake. It's people like that who make it hard for real restaurateurs to get funding. Anyway.....

The rent is going to be on very easy terms, and we basically get to keep (or not keep) every bit of furniture, plateware and cooking equipment that is already there. Huuuuuuge savings for our start-up costs if we don't have to replace things. I'll have to take the camera next time, but I'll walk you through.

To the right of the main door are two small dining areas that will be our lounge. They're separated from the bar by pocket sliding doors and one of them has a fireplace. Lots of windows everywhere, wood floors, gorgeous tin ceilings. The bar is a beautiful long mahogany piece with an honest to god copper top. Never seen such a thing before. Most of the tables are heavy with dark wood, the chairs have black leather cushions, with brass tacks.

To the left is a large dining room that has been used for functions. Occupancy Max is 300. Right now there is a raised stage that's carpeted, I'd like to pull that up, but I may change my mind. More gigantic windows, 6 feet maybe? This will usually be the main dining room, but can be used for functions with the restaurant shifted to the lounge for the night.

The kitchen is not too big, but Dan says it's enough. And there's a gigantic server station that could be used as a prep area too. Okay, that's the ground floor.

The tour continues upstairs with the billiard room. I swear, I just about fainted when I saw it. Floor to ceiling wood paneling, wood floors, tin ceiling and a little area in the back that will have a wet bar (currently MIA). There are another three rooms in various stages of repair. One will be an office for me and Ryan(have I told you about Ryan yet?) I'm not sure about the other two, one may be set up as a sitting room for people who want a break from events in the billiard room.
There's a third floor too, and attic, which are not fit for public consumption.

The basement has the remains of a 4 lane bowling alley, which is now just a land of broken furniture and banquet tables. One of the previous owners wanted to set up a second kitchen for baking down there, and that may be do-able sometime.

Bathrooms are an issue though. I, like DG, am a stickler for a well-maintained restaurant bathroom. The main floor has a women's room and a co-ed/handicapped room. But wherefore is the men's room? Our tourguide said it was the one in the basement, but we'd prefer that for employees only. It's also hell and gone from people at the bar. There's one on the second floor, but it's outfitted as a residential bath, with a shower, clawfoot tub and bidet. Let me repeat that, a bidet. WTF?

We have to do a bit of painting. They have some gawd-awful fake windows looking onto a seascape in the bar. Blech. And there are bits of chili peppers here and there. But other than that, we can really open very quickly. I think we'll push to be open in time for May graduations, then take care of other issues (like the bathrooms) in the summer when it's slower. And try to get the catering business ramped up in time to do Christmas parties.

Brain exploding. Bye-Bye

Boring

I'm here, just have nothing to write about these days. More on Friday after our meeting with SLU about the restaurant.