I haven’t posted an update in a while, so I thought I would stop for a minute and give everyone a quick rundown of where we’re at in Listening Room land. We were hoping to have 443 open sometime in October, but sadly we just couldn’t make it happen. We have made some good progress though.
Our plumbing work is just about complete – the grease trap is installed, our sinks are all hooked up and the water purifier for the coffee machines is in. The new hot water heater has been installed and the last thing our plumber needs to do is install a new toilet in the ladies room – one of our old ones cracked.
Our special permit was approved last month, which allowed us to get our sign permit. My friend Corinna at Absolute Sign & Awning has installed our vinyl lettering and she’s fabricating the metal holder for our projecting sign on the corner of the building. I can’t wait to see it!
Our liquor license has been submitted and our public notices are scheduled to run in the New Times for the next 2 weeks. Our sales tax ID has come in. We are both getting fingerprinted this week, once that happens I believe we are allowed to obtain a temporary license if there are no major concerns. The liquor license application is a massive beast of paperwork (though still easier than the Syracuse special permit license), so getting that out last month along with all the required documentation was a pretty exciting day.
We don’t have a kitchen at 443, so we were excited to learn about the Syracuse CoKitchen, which is located just a few miles from us near the Assumption Church on the north side. The CoKitchen is a licensed “commissary” kitchen that can be rented as needed by food trucks, restaurant startups, or anyone else needing the use of a commercial kitchen. We’ll be baking our own cookies and muffins there, as well as preparing homemade soups.
Our health permit has been processed and we’re good to go pending our final inspection just before we open. The health permit was surprisingly the easiest of the bunch, other than discovering that ALL health permits expire on January 31 – and the fee is NOT pro-rated. This is especially sucky for us because we have to get a permit for 443, but we also have to get one for the Syracuse CoKitchen. The kitchen is already licensed, but everyone who uses it needs their own as well. If we open in December or even early January we’ll have to pay for 2 full year permits and then turn around and pay for 2 more for February 1. Crazy, right? But we can’t open without them, so our hands are tied.
Next up with the city is our public hearing with the Zoning Board of Appeals on November 15. We are on the agenda, so I’ll attend the meeting and answer any questions they have about our project. Our building is zoned commercial, but the apartment houses behind us are not. We got a waiver to allow bands to play, but we have to go to the Board of Appeals to get another waiver to allow us to have a small stage to put them on. We didn’t realize this was an issue because the other bars who have operated here had a stage – so ours is partially built already. Our neighbors behind us are separated by our parking lot and theirs, so they won’t be able to hear an acoustic band playing in the cafe whether they are elevated or not. If the board decides to grant us the waiver, then we’ll have to wait until their next meeting in December for them to adopt a resolution and at that point, we can move forward.
Of all the weird hurdles we’ve had to jump to get this business open, the stage issue definitely takes the cake.
In the meantime, I’m meeting with vendors and experimenting with recipes for muffins, soup and panini-style sandwiches.
It’s not the worst job in the world…other than all the dirty dishes.
We’re planning to get our deli meat from Liehs & Steigerwald and our bread will come from Pasta’s Daily Bread. Because we’ll have such a small menu, everything needs to be top notch. I’m working with a food service company, and we’ve got an insurance rep, payroll company and trash removal company locked in. We’re getting ready to place our first small wares order (gulp!).
I think that’s it for now…send good vibes our way for the Zoning Board of Appeals hearing – we need our stage!!
