Meet the Contractor

For those of you who have hired a contractor before, you will know what this means. But for those who have not... here goes.

I made an appointment several days before and it was for 2:00 in the afternoon. At 2:15 Bryan asked me if I had his phone number and (Grr) I didn't. Thanks to a neighbor of the bar's I was able to look it up. (thanks Kool Designs!) I called and the response was... "Oh no I completely forgot!" (Grr) Bryan and I quickly rearranged our schedule and made a new time of 3:30 to meet. We had to go to a place that closed by 3:30 and be back.

While gone we recieved a call from the contractor. But wait; not the contractor, he loaned the phone to his father who didn't seem to know a lot about cell phones. (Grr?) However, he was very polite about dialing the wrong number and that goes a long way.

As Bryan and I were headed back we realized we were now going to be the ones who were late, so we called. He replied that it was OK and that he was about 10 minutes away now so no problem.

Yes, we were still going to meet him. And despite my grumbling he turned out to be great, and just very busy.

We went through the inside and out of the building and he asked all the right questions. And I felt he knew the right answers. But does he have the right price?

But while we were out in the parking lot, the three of us were talking and a little pickup truck pulls up. Guy steps out, takes a couple of pictures, starts shaking a can of spray paint right in front of us, and starts toward the billboard supports. All three of us were shocked; "Oh, no you don't" and "you gotta be kiddin' me." And then the guy begins to spray! Over the graffiti. Turns out he was from the billboard company and was there to paint out graffiti not create it. He turned out to be a good guy too.

Look Ma! No Water!

One of the biggest surprises yesterday was the lack of water pooled in the bar.  Here's a picture.

You can see a tiny bit of water on the floor there but earlier it had been much larger.  Both of us had been expecting some large pool of standing water from the 8" of rain Fresno had received recently.  But, as you can see, it didn't stick around.

There has been some damage to the interior walls from water but not nearly as bad as we had feared.

The Doors

The openings for the door on the bar are of irregular size and doors have to be custom made to fit.  So, yesterday, we paid a very pleasant visit to a door manufacturer in Fresno.

As we casually strolled through their showroom, we chatted and debated the nuances of what we want in the doors.

The side door which leads to the patio needs to make one feel casual, yet refined.  It needs to convey a feeling of relaxation.  The front door needs to impart a feeling of welcoming and invite you in without being pretentious and cold.  It is the very first introduction of the bar to you, the customer.  That front door needs to make you feel --

Oh, who am I kidding!?  They're just doors.  They have hinges on one side and a handle on the other.  They keep things out when we don't want them in.  We did select the door style we want, though.  It's not much more than a solid chunk of metal and wood and that'll be fine.

Road Trip!

After the rains we've had lately, I think it's time to take some action on the giant hole in the roof of the bar.  (Yeah, I probably should have come to this conclusion much earlier.)  Later today, Karl and I are heading down to the bar to see what can be done about the, uh, sky light.

We have ideas about what to do and we certainly don't plan to be able to keep out all of the rainwater.  Keeping the vast majority of it out will probably be a great benefit.

We're also checking out new doors to put in.  No, they won't be nothin' fancy.  But at least they'll be better than what's currently keeping people and critters out.  (The City has required both doors be replaced.  Even if they weren't requiring new doors, I think I'd do it anyway.)

The clean-up of the stage will continue as well.

There's probably a few more things we're gonna be doin', too.  I've just forgotten what they are. Now, where's my coffee?

Ooh, My Bleeding Brain

Yesterday, I got the work I needed to do on the inventory list done.  I would have written yesterday that it was done but, well, I was tired of looking at the computer screen.  I know it's not terribly exciting to read about but I'm glad it's done.  It was a lot of looking at the list of inventory we already have and comparing it to what the supplier catalog had and getting the right information into our financial software.  We only have an order catalog from one supplier so I'll have to do this again at some point for the others.  And all of this is so we can keep reasonable track of what is selling and what isn't.

Of course, if you have a favorite (or hated) beverage be sure to let us know on our website's Suggestion Box so we can make sure we carry it (or get rid of it).  Really.  I mean it.  If we get enough suggestions (or hate mail) for a certain beverage, we'll go ahead and get (or dump) it.

Picture Storage

Hey!  It's more photographs!

Three pictures showing the bar without the storage containers.  We'd wanted to get pictures of them actually being taken away but it happened fairly quickly last week and we couldn't locate the camera quickly enough.  So, here's the view of the "new" parking lot.  (We may need to fence off the portion where the containers are since it may not be able to be used for actual parking; another city requirement.  But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.)

("Karl!  Stay out of the dumpster!  You don't know where it's been!
Ok, maybe you do know where it's been; all the more reason to stay out of it!")

"Anybody see my penny?"

Karl "cleaning up".

Notice the Posting?

Here's a lovely photograph of the liquor license transfer notice posting in the front window.  We've since taped up the corners so it actually looks "right".  I guess it's the only Christmas decoration we get for the bar this year.

Karl Has No Pissy Attitude

Here's our mostly empty storage unit into which we moved all the stuff we wanted to keep from the storage containers at the bar.  It no longer looks like this.

Come to think of it, I haven't seen Karl for several days....  Maybe he's stuck in there...

Karl doesn't have a pissy attitude

New Profile Picture Picked

To prove that I'm not some extra terrestial, I've uploaded a picture of myself on my profile now.  Y'all can see (and mock) what I look like!

This Week's Projects

Here's hoping y'all had a nice Christmas or a wonderful Winter Holiday of Your Choosing Should You Choose to Celebrate Anything This Time of Year or a Pleasant Ordinary Day Should You Choose to not Celebrate Anything.  It was nice around here; didn't really do anything other than nap, take a stroll, cook, and watch football.  The day off was nice.

Just a quick update on the projects I'll be working on this coming week.

• Our Facebook Page.  It's empty.  It's dead.  (But, honestly, it's a business page for a business that isn't open yet.  Maybe it should be fairly empty.  Regardless, I'll be looking into it.)
• Continuing the tedious work of finding all the order numbers for the inventory we have and will have and entering in all that data into our financial software.  (For some reason, this project makes my brain bleed.)
• Post pictures previously picked for posting.  We've got several pictures to post.  They're large (even at the smallest size my camera will take) and still on the camera's memory card.  I can't just leave anything alone--it's kinda gotta be "perfect"--so I can't just resize them and post 'em.  I gotta fix the color, remove backgrounds, crop, blah, blah, blah.
• Post profile pictures for Karl and me.  (See above.)  I think it's about time you know who we are.

Well, that's what I have planned.  We'll see how much of it actually gets done.

All Your Fingerprintz Are Belong to Us

Part of the liquor license application is to get fingerprinted.  (I suppose to make sure I'm not John Gotti's long lost son or something.)  Got that done in lovely downtown Sanger yesterday.

Walked into the Sanger Police Department (once we found which poorly-marked building it was) and told the officer behind the tiny window of thick glass we were there for our LiveScan fingerprinting thingy.  He escorted us back through the break/training room (where several officers were just hanging out; I guess Sanger isn't all that crime-ridden), down a somewhat claustrophobic hallway, and to a heavy metal door.

When he opened the heavy metal door in that claustrophobic hallway, I saw the cinder block walls painted in a lovely shade of baby blue.  While the lovely shade of baby blue was, well, lovely, it didn't lend any sense of comfort and joy.

Through the heavy metal door and into the still-baby-blue concrete block room with the holding cell.  It was festive.  Ok, not really, but I'm trying to put a good face on it.  Suffice it to say I'm glad I haven't seen the holding cell from the other side of the locked cell door.

The officer did our fingerprint thingy and sent us on our way.  (If Karl has ever done something really awful he'd better have only done it with his left index finger; it's the only one that just didn't look complete.  Maybe he pointed in a threatening manner at President Bush.  Perhaps broken into the CIA with only his tongue and randomly punching numbers into a keypad.)

And with bringing that completed paperwork to the ABC in Fresno, all of our paperwork is done.  For the liquor license, anyway.

The Perfect Coffee Mugs

I'm always on the lookout for things that I think would set The Phoenix apart from other bars.  Today's discovery is coffee mugs from the Cafepress store of Someecards.com that I've happened to fall onto. They have, in my opinion, a bunch of mugs that would be perfect for the bar.  They have the right attitude and irreverence and humor.  Only problem is they're $15 each.  I wish they were cheaper because I would love to use some of them for the bar.  Unfortunately, I pretty well know they'd be too irresistible for some folks to leave at the bar and I know I can't get a decent enough bulk discount for the relatively small quantity the bar needs.

Plain, solid-color coffee mugs it is.  (Maybe I can take a Sharpie and write the sayings in my crappy penmanship onto the mugs....  Maybe not.)

The Stage and the Storage

Thursday the metal storage containers were taken away. I am a little sad and a little happy at the same time; but, because the code enforcement guys noted them, they had to go. ("No choices!".) As the guy picked up each one, they were pulled at about a 45 degree angle onto a flatbed truck with a winch. I stood way back because it looks very scary. I don't like seeing something that big dangling over my head. OK they weren't actually dangling, but they were a long way up. (I think he also got about 150 lbs of gravel from the underside of the storage units)

At first, we may not have a stage like The Den had (right now, our focus is getting open) but I think we will have just as much fun. I look forward to karaoke and singing just as badly as I always have. And that's not the only thing we have seen on that stage we wish we could forget.

"Official Notice! No Salesman Will Call!"

As Bryan mentioned yesterday we posted the notice in the window. I am head over heels for this. This is one giant step in the right direction. I can't wait to open.

In other good news, we don't have to send letters to the entire neighborhood like I thought we would. For anyone who doesn't know, the letters have to be sent to anyone in a 500 foot radius of a new bar so they could comment (i.e. complain) to the ABC. (After all, The Den had that one neighbor who didn't seem to like karaoke and I didn't really want to hear from them.) I wanted to send what looked like junk mail. On the outside of the envelope I wanted to put "Official Notice" or "No Salesman Will Call". (Both are true by the way.) Even the Alcoholic Beverage Control people laughed when I told them what I wanted to do. But I don't need to send to anyone.

BTW anyone who goes by and looks will see what Bryan's and my middle names are. Yikes!

Free Money From the Government?

At least I hope so.

Turns out, the bar is in the Central City Commercial Redevelopment area.  That means we may be able to get matching funds from Fresno's Redevelopment Agency to help with the rebuilding!

I have a call into the agency (ok, really, an email that they've passed onto someone else for me) and am awaiting a reply.  This could be some remarkable good news.  (I suppose I shouldn't get my hopes up too high, though.)

Rain Rain, Go Away!

...And don't come back on any other day or at least until the roof is complete.

Ok, ok.  So that doesn't rhyme too well or even match the song.  But the sentiment is there.

Believe it or not, the rain has not caused too much havoc on the the bar despite the large hole in the roof.  Thanks mostly go to the concrete floor and the location of the hole in the roof.  We'll have some minor repair work to do to the drywall because of the rain damage.  While a little annoying it's not too bad.

Liquor License Application In Early

I suppose not everything is delayed when starting a business with as much construction as we need to do.

Yesterday morning, the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (the A.B.C) called and wanted to know if we could come down and submit our application rather than on Thursday as originally scheduled.  Hell yeah, we can.

So, we piled into the car and drove to Fresno, wrote another large check, and got the application in.  We then posted the required notice at the bar where it must remain for 30 days.  Now, if everything worked out right, the earliest we could open would be January 21, 2011.  Clearly, that's not going to happen.  But it's nice to know that it could.

Storage Moved from Storage to Storage and Stored

Woke up at 8:00am to the sound of pouring rain.  That's not too bad normally, but today we were going to empty out the storage containers at the bar and move all that we were going to keep to the storage unit a few blocks away.  Who wants to move in the rain?

So, at 8:00am it wasn't looking like today was going to be a whole lotta fun.  (When is moving ever actually fun?)  But, we had several friends coming by to help move so we couldn't really cancel and it had to be done.  What better time than the present?

But, there was good news.  It looked like the weather was going to be cloudy and maybe a little wet all day but not necessarily raining while we were moving!

So, we go get the truck rented and start moving everything out.  Three hours later, we're done.  Three hours.  Many, many thanks to David, Ray, Richard, and Dwight for their help!  We couldn't have done it without you!

The (No Longer) Secret Plans

Another long day today.  But we got the plans submitted into the City of Fresno.  And now we wait.  When will the plans be ready?  According to the guy behind the counter at the plan check desk, "next year".  Which seemed to amuse him quite a bit.  But what that really means is that they won't get the plan check done next week and they're on "furlough" from the 27th of December to the 30th.  Regardless, it's done.

Met briefly with the Code Enforcement guy we're trying to make our friend, too.  Code Enforcement wants a lot of stuff done and we're more than willing to do it but the original deadlines are either past or coming up in about two weeks.  (They originally wanted work to begin by December 27th; that's obviously not going to happen.)  But, the guy we met with seemed nice and seemed pleased that we came to him with the receipt for the plan check and that we're keeping him informed.  He could charge us $100 an hour for working on the "case"; hopefully, if we just keep him updated on what's going on, they'll waive most if not all of that fee.  (Anybody want a "We love Code Enforcement" bumper sticker?)

Meanwhile, back at the storage locker at the bar, we're preparing to move pretty much *all* of the stuff (that we want to keep) out of there and into the storage unit we have up the street.  That's happening on Saturday.  Yep, in the rain.  Joy.

Shuffling Stuff

Phew!

Got all the stuff we really want to keep from getting stolen out of the storage locker at the bar that keeps getting broken in to.  So far, it looks like we're down 4 to 6 of the taller metal bar stools that had been used on the patio.  Tons  of Christmas and other decorations moved out, too.  (Probably end up donating a bunch of 'em.)

I don't really mind that people are getting into the storage to get out of the rain and cold--I'm perfectly fine with providing some shelter for those who don't have it otherwise.  What I do mind is the mess they're making back there.  We'll probably end up starting to demolish the stage to remove the sense of privacy that exists back there.

Site plan? They want a site plan?

About 1:00 this afternoon, we got word that the difference in the trusses on the calculation sheets compared to the ones in the engineered drawings doesn't matter much for this purpose.  So we hop into the truck and make our way to Fresno.  (It's a good hour's drive.)  A little nervous and a little excited all the way.  Get to Downtown, park the truck in a space, feed the meter $0.50 for forty minutes and hoof it to the third floor of City Hall to the Planning and Development department.

I sign in and we wait about 20 minutes.  Our name is called and we walk to the counter.  Plop the plans onto the counter and have my check book ready to write yet another check.

But NOOOOOooo...  Hold your horses there, Bryan.  The guy at the desk is telling you you need to have a site plan submitted at the same time.  What!?  A site plan?  Why is this the first we've heard of it?  Why didn't you say that to the engineering dude who was down here Friday when you told him all you wanted was a check from me?

What!?  You want a site plan showing handicapped parking spaces, and a marked area showing the path to the front door?  The building is not handicapped accessible!

Well, needless to say, that pissed me off.  I thought we'd sail right into plan check without a hitch since the engineering folks said all the City wanted was money from me.

Anyway, ended up out in Madera for a visit to the engineering folks.  Hopefully, they'll have it all straightened out tomorrow with the guy at the desk.  (Who, by the way, is the same person who told their guy that the only thing needed was money from me and, who, by the way, was the same person who told me different today!)

I don't mind jumping through hoops--it's good exercise--but at the very least, stop moving the hoops.

Ceiling Renderings

Well, I fired up the ol' 3D software and made these awesome 3D renderings of before and after on the ceiling!

Here is one Before and After:

And here's another.

Ok, so maybe they aren't so awesome (obviously 3D software (even from Google) isn't my forté); but I think they give a better idea of what you're going to see once the bar opens.

(In the event it wasn't obvious, the top image in each pair is the *before*.)

The Secret Plans

Here is Karl pretending to be a spokesmodel modeling the plans.

Karl loves the plans:
 

Construction Schedule

I *think* this is our rough schedule of what will happen during the reconstruction. 

On Monday, December 13, we will be submitting the engineering plans to the city for what's called "Plan Check". We then wait for the building permit to be issued.

Karl and I think the Plan Check phase will take about three weeks. Which, after the City's time off between Christmas and New Year's Day, plops the building permit being issued about January 3, 2011. (Hopefully, they'll get through the plan check more quickly than that but we're not holding our breath.)

Some parts of the demolition need to wait until the building permit is issued but after that demolition should take between 7 to 10 days. Why so long? The contractors are carefully pulling off (well, as carefully as demolition can be at least) the old roof trusses by hand and not by some giant (but really cool) demolition machine with a claw. We like that.

Shortly after demolition is complete (we think it should take about 7-10 days after the permit is obtained depending on the contractor's workload) the trusses for the new roof come in and another crew comes in and puts them up. (Which should take another 7 to 10 days)

Then, the actual roofer comes in and puts the new roof on. (Having done roofs before, we think this should take about a week.)

In between all of that, we have electrical work to be done, lights to install, changes to the patio that the city wants us to do. We're going to be busy for the next two or three months!

So, adding in about a week per job of down time while we wait for contractors and various other unforeseen circumstances that we, uh, didn't see coming, we think we'll be open around the beginning of March. Obviously, we'll keep you updated on this blog. (And probably our social network sites (Twitter, etc.) once they get up and running.)

It's Ours!

Just got a message from our escrow agent. Escrow has closed and we can begin construction.

We don't yet have a schedule other than a (very) rough one we'll be posting later tonight. The demolition of the old roof and some of the other required-by-the-city items is scheduled to begin almost immediately and we can't wait. (Well, I suppose we have to wait but that doesn't mean we like it.)

Welcome!

Hi, there!

Welcome to The Phoenix's blog!  We've decided that updating the status of our rebuilding will be easiest from here, so here we are!

You're welcome to make comments on anything you read here.  Feel free to share these posts with anyone you care to.

(We wanted "thephoenix.blogspot.com" but it was already taken!  BOO!)