So, my husband and I had a “staff meeting” the other night to talk about a new target opening date.
To put this into context, our staff meetings often take place in the middle of the night while we lay in bed unable to sleep. We stare at the ceiling and quietly freak out about this whole project…a good night’s sleep is a distant memory for both of us.
Getting this venture off the ground has been far more of a challenge than we anticipated. So much of our time, energy and brain power has been devoted to navigating the permit process that we weren’t able to turn our attention to working on the business until fairly recently. We were emotionally exhausted by the time we cleared all the hurdles.
Not to mention, the old saying, “Whatever you think it’s going to cost, DOUBLE IT”? Yeah, that’s 100%, totally true.
Anyway, we were talking about what might be a realistic plan to get this place open.
At one point, I thought we would be able to open on or around January 7. I gave myself a buffer of a couple of weeks before I scheduled any live music, just in case something went wrong. Not surprisingly, something did – our temporary liquor license wasn’t issued until January 8.
Still, our first show on January 23 was rapidly approaching and neither one of us felt confident about where we are with staffing, inventory or training.
On the plus side, three of our friends who are former bartenders at the Dinosaur BBQ all agreed to give us a hand with training and helping out in the early weeks. This is a MASSIVE weight off my shoulders. While I do have a background in hospitality, it’s been a minute since I’ve been behind a bar on a regular basis. Plus, the list of other things I need to address is pretty overwhelming. Having this extra help will free me up to tackle everything – or at least try.
But, I’m still testing recipes for baked goods and soup and I haven’t totally worked out the logistics of using an offsite kitchen to make everything. And then there is the barista training and the terrifying prospect of facing an early morning crowd looking for their java fix and not being able to pump it out fast enough.
So, we decided the smart thing to do is open the business in two stages.
The bar will open on Thursday, January 17 from 4-10pm. We’ll be open for evening hours only on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and again the following the week from Wednesday through Saturday. We will not be open during the day, and on the days we won’t normally have evening hours (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday) we will be closed. We want to get our feet under us, work out the kinks and have the time to make corrections. We’ll open the cafe for early morning hours on Monday January 28 at 7am and in February we’ll be on our regular schedule and open 7 days a week.
During our “soft opening” dates we’ll have our evening menu only available – cheese plates, charcuterie and hummus platters. Baked goods, sandwiches and soups will be added on the 28th when we begin our daytime hours.
While this probably isn’t the ideal way to open a new business, we feel strongly it’s the right thing to do. We have no desire to fall on our faces and we’d rather start off with limited hours and offerings than to take on too much with a staff that isn’t quite ready for the onslaught. First impressions are everything, right?
We do hope you’ll join us for opening night on the 17th. We’ve got live music from our talented friends Tim Herron and Colin Aberdeen from 6-9pm plus complimentary hors-d’oeuvres. We can’t wait to show off our new space!
