Huge Change Nobody Will Notice

Two months ago a real estate agent called me out of the blue.  The owner of the bar's parking lot was ridiculously behind on her taxes as well as having other obligations and was finally ready to put the parking lot up for sale.  The owner wanted to give us the first chance and buying it.

Since then, we've been working with the owner to purchase it.  Today, escrow closed and the parking lot is now ours.

This is actually a very, very big deal for at least one very good reason.

If the bar ever burned down to the ground, we would be unable to rebuild it on the current land.  This is because of current building codes requiring clearances between a building and the property line.  Currently, those clearances do not exist but we're "grandfathered" in.   If we had to rebuild from the ground up, we'd have to make the bar more narrow and further back from the sidewalk and a bunch of other things that aren't very awesome.

As a result of that possibility of looming disaster, our long term goals have always included purchasing the lot and legally merging the two properties into one.  It may sound a little vulture-ish (and maybe it is) but I was watching and waiting for the taxes to become so past due that the lot was put up for a tax-lien auction.  And that was going to happen next year.  But, not any more.  The crappy vacant lot next door is now ours.  (Why do I keep buying dilapidated properties???  :) )

Now, with the acquisition of the parking lot, we can merge the properties into one and avoid having that potential looming disaster over us.

Don't expect too much to change with the parking lot in the short term.  We've priced getting it repaved and it runs from about $5,000 to put what amounts to a Band-Aid on it and make it pretty to $17,000 and $30,000+ to do it right. (Holy Crap!)

So, there it is.  One of the "Big Things" we mentioned at the beginning of January.

Why I'm Not a Sign Painter

You remember that awesome job I did of putting the address numbers on our front door?

Well, I've done and made it "better"  I made a stencil of our logotype and (tried) to stencil it onto our front door.  It's sort of a temporary solution until we get our sign finished.  (The sign is lit up now, but there's still nothing on the one side of it and still says "The Den" on the other.  It was supposed to have been ready for this weekend but when you come down for Bear Frenzy, you'll see that it clearly was not.  Oh, well.)

Regardless, here's the "terrific" job I did on the stencil.

It's a nice idea but it really looks like crap up close.

At least it looks halfway decent from a distance:

Karl will be fixing my shitty stencil job later.  For which we should all be glad.

Happy Birthday!

Hey!  We've been open for four weeks now and some of you have been asking, "Where's the blog!?"  (That's why I posted the earlier really, really short blog post.)

Well, we've been obviously busy getting the bar up and running smoothly and we're pretty close to achieving that.  In fact, today is the first time I've actually had two days in a row I haven't had to be at the bar to do something.  And, frankly, I don't quite know what to do with myself....

We've been asked how business is and it's going as expected.  Yes, really.  My pull-a-number-out-of-my-ass sales projections from four months ago have been met or vastly exceeded every week since we opened.

There is still much to do, too.  First and foremost, getting a sign out front so people know we're open.  We still get people coming in saying, "I didn't know you had opened yet."  We think a sign out front will help a great deal with that.  After that is probably getting music out on the patio.  It's just too quiet out there.  We don't want loud music outside but we need *some* background music out there.  Then we got to trim the tree up a little; it'll eventually lean on the power supply wires again and that makes us nervous (as well it should).  And then we gotta get our walk-in cooler working right; I don't think it *ever* turns off.  And then we gotta get a cover over the outside "hallway".  And then we gotta get the front window better insulated.  And then....  And then..... And then....  It's never gonna stop.

We're still working on getting decorations up in the bar.  We've got to find places for the mirrors and other assorted stuff.  Seems everybody loves the diamond plate aluminium on the bar, too.  And that makes me happy.

Coming Along

Things are coming along nicely.  There have been a few additional surprise delays that have the potential to throw off our carefully constructed schedule.  Mainly delays that could cause our inspections to take a day or two longer than expected.  We're trying to get it right the first time now rather than doing what we think will pass and correct it later if asked.

The light fixutres are up and the A/C registers are in and the walls are mostly painted.  It really is starting to look like a bar!  And our LED pool table light looks quite nice!

The insurance adjuster has been out for the vandalism and I believe we're only waiting for a final determination which I expect to be favorable.

This weekend, we have friends coming by to help paint the rest of the place.

Next week, there's more clean up work to do and orders to place and inspectors to call and a bunch of small touches to finish up the job.  And I think you'll find all the diamond plate you see on our sites will begin to make a little more sense.  (It looks pretty darn cool if ya ask me!)

(And, ya know what?  I kinda envy you guys (and gals) who will walk into the bar and get the impact of all these changes all at once.  I've (obviously) been living with it for months and months so I've seen it change over time.  We really think what we've done with the place will impress you.  At least we hope it does.)

Workin' on the Fence Line

We've begun the final work on putting in the rest of the replacement fence.  Last week, we got the materials to complete the fence.

Karl has wood

I should probably help with the concrete rather than just taking pictures...

Here's what it looked like before we started doing anything.

(Someone really oughta paint this place.)

Then, on Monday this week (after our visit to City Hall), we dug the post holes and set the posts.

Dig, Bryan! DIG!!!

What?  I'm diggin' here!

Karl beginning the Anvil Chorus.

No, he didn't miss.  This was after he hit the metal thing with the other metal thing.

The pickets will be nailed up soon. The concrete hasn't quite set well enough just yet.

Were We Raised in a Barn?

Over the weekend, we got the siding put up.

First, the old falling away, burned stucco was removed:

The going theory is (I haven't bothered to verify for certain) the bar used to be some sort of housing for agricultural employees back when it was built. We believe it was built in the 1950's. The somewhat bizarre door-shaped and window-shaped framing lends credence to that theory so we'll go with it.

And, now the siding:

This isn't quite what we expected even though it matches exactly what our engineered plans show. We thought it would be vertical rather than horizontal. We're not complaining -- the siding is a lot more secure than the plain wallboard you see in the "Before" picture -- but it really does make the bar look like a barn. A bright, sunshine yellow barn.

Next on the list: Buy paint that isn't bright, sunshine yellow.

(The grey paint on the door is covering even more graffiti. It was just a tag and nothing like the graffiti that brought ABC 30 out earlier.)