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.

A New Way to Keep Cool (Part 2)

Yeah, April Fools!  No, there is no pool on the patio.  But that was probably fairly obvious with my Mad Photoshop Skillz™.  But, check out what you may have missed in the blog post itself:

• Did you wonder why the post was so long and awkwardly written?  Check the first word of every line.
• Althougth Ricka is a real name, it's very uncommon.  And it's usually a girl's name anyway.  Anyway, take the spaces and punctuation out of the cabana boy's name and you get::  Ricka St. Ley = Rickastley = Rick Astley
• Did you get a feeling that you'd seen some of the phrases before?  You have.  There were several 80's song titles worked into the post.  They're high-lighted below.
• Oh, and one final little bit of embedded-ness (is that a word?):  You, too = U2 = Group who sings "With or Without You" = one of the song titles worked in.

Happy April First!  (Well, now, April 2nd...)

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Never before in Fresno has such a thing been even attempted and you're
gonna be amazed. Fresno has been really, really kind to us and we want to
give something back. Last night, we have installed a swimming pool to help
you stay cool in the coming heat of summer. We tried hard and stayed
up all night last night putting the finishing touches on the patio and we've
never seen such a dedicated group of people. Turn 'em loose and they're
gonna tear up the town, I'm sure!

 

Let your eyes wander across this picture. See the palm plants placed to shade
you in the glaring heat of summer. Imagine yourself cooling off as you glide
down the stairs into the pool. Be sure to read the signs telling you what you should
never do.  Unfortunately, the City is very particular about what a pool owner is
gonna have to do to keep it open.  Especially in a bar.

 

Run! Play! Swim! You can do whatever you want to do in and all the way
around our pool! But, you'll have to be drinking your beer from plastic cups
and throw them away in the garbage cans by the pool. But, the bartender won't
desert you out there.

 

You can call the cabana boy over and have a drink brought to you. We've
never heard of cabana boys at Faces in Sacramento, but, be assured, we're
gonna have 'em for you here. Our new cabana boy, Ricka St. Ley, will
make the trek into the bar, place your drink order with the bartender and bring
you your drink. Complete with a little paper umbrella. So, please don't
cry with joy. We think, no, we're absolutely, one-hundred percent sure, you'll
never see a pool in the patio at any other bar in Fresno. We think it just ain't
gonna happen.

 

Say hello to relaxing evenings by the pool with all of your (and our) friends and
goodbye to nights at home watching re-runs of 80's video video shows.  You'll
never have to do that again so you can give it up. What's more, we think we're
gonna have shimmering blue lights and dancing bartenders for you, too!
Tell ya what else on Friday nights, we'll have videos and have Rick roll you out
a cocktail or two while you wait for your friends to show up.  There's no need to
lie; just tell 'em, "I'll be there with or without you."

 

And, time after time, you, too, can jump into the pool.  (But no diving; you'll
hurt yourself.)  Please leave all glass out of the pool area.  We are doing this for
you, our customers.  Enjoy the pool!

A New Way to Keep Cool

Never before in Fresno has such a thing been even attempted and you're
gonna be amazed. Fresno has been really, really kind to us and we want to
give something back. Last night, we have installed a swimming pool to help
you stay cool in the coming heat of summer. We tried hard and stayed
up all night last night putting the finishing touches on the patio and we've
never seen such a dedicated group of people. Turn 'em loose and they're
gonna tear up the town, I'm sure!

Let your eyes wander across this picture. See the palm plants placed to shade
you in the glaring heat of summer. Imagine yourself cooling off as you glide
down the stairs into the pool. Be sure to read the signs telling you what you should
never do.  Unforutnately, the City is very particular about what a pool owner is
gonna have to do to keep it open.  Especially in a bar.


Run! Play! Swim! You can do whatever you want to do in and all the way
around our pool! But, you'll have to be drinking your beer from plastic cups
and throw them away in the garbage cans by the pool. But, the bartender won't
desert you out there.

You can call the cabana boy over and have a drink brought to you. We've
never heard of cabana boys at Faces in Sacramento, but, be assured, we're
gonna have 'em for you here. Our new cabana boy, Ricka St. Ley, will
make the trek into the bar, place your drink order with the bartender and bring
you your drink. Complete with a little paper umbrella. So, please don't
cry with joy. We think, no, we're absolutely, one-hundred percent sure, you'll
never see a pool in the patio at any other bar in Fresno. We think it just ain't
gonna happen.

Say hello to relaxing evenings by the pool with all of your (and our) friends and
goodbye to nights at home watching re-runs of 80's video video shows.  You'll
never have to do that again so you can give it up. What's more, we think we're
gonna have shimmering blue lights and dancing bartenders for you, too!
Tell ya what else on Friday nights, we'll have videos and have Rick roll you out
a cocktail or two while you wait for your friends to show up.  There's no need to
lie; just tell 'em, "I'll be there with or without you."

And, time after time, you, too, can jump into the pool.  (But no diving; you'll
hurt yourself).  Please leave all glass out of the pool area.  We are doing this for
you, our customers.  Enjoy the pool!

After The Lighting Changes

Well, I figured out how to take a reasonable picture of the bar to show the difference in the lighting I mentioned in the previous posting.

Before



After

 The pictures are taken with nearly the same camera settings.  The only difference is the shutter speed for the "after" was 0.8 seconds vs. 0.6 seconds for the "before".  And, to be fair, the "Before" picture was taken with all the lights on at full brightness.  It's somewhat misleading on how bright it was.  But it was still pretty damn bright.

We'll Leave A (Lot of) Light On For Ya

I'll just put this out there up front and then I'll talk about our reasoning behind both what we started with and what we've very recently done (last night, in fact).

In response to customer comments, we've made the bar darker; it's now at least half as bright as it used to be.

One of the first complaints we had about the bar was variations on "It's so bright in here!"  At the time, we didn't quite know what to do about it.

I know it seems like a simple problem to fix--turn off some lights.  We tried turning off some lights around the beginning of August.  Unfortunately, all that did (in our opinion) was made parts of the bar really bright while others stayed really dark and it just looked weird.  In fact, one time we tried turning off some of the lights, a customer said something like, "They must be turning off the lights to save money"; a completely different reaction than we thought we'd get (especially since most of the lights are LEDs).  The lights went back on as we considered other options.  (In hind sight, we probably might have tried leaving those lights off to see if opinion changed.)

Over the next several weeks we made adjustments to the lighting in the bar.  We removed the rope light from under the bar over the diamond plate, added a valance over the rope light on the wall behind the bear flag, lowered the light level from the track lights over the bar, and turned off two of our brightest signs.

Here's what we were thinking in our lighting; both originally and with the newest changes in roughly chronological order of when we made the changes.

We were (and are) very happy with the way the diamond plate looks on the bar and kinda wanted to both highlight it ("Ooh, shiny!") and add some indirect lighting to the bar.  So, we put up the rope light under the bar on the customer side.  It's bright white LED lighting so it doesn't cost a lot to run.  I was very pleased with the way it looked and I *really* wanted this rope light to work out but it added too much ambient light and now it's gone.  I cried a little.

(Actually, this rope light has just moved to the other side of the bar--the bartender side--I think it works out a lot better back there than on the customer side.  Besides, it lights up the bartender's crotch nicely.)

We also turned off the beer sign near the front window.  It's a nice enough sign with a color-changing effect but the damn thing was like staring into the sun and couldn't be made any less bright.  It's now turned off.

Last week--and this is something that we'd been thinking about for a while but just finally got around to it--Karl added a valance on the wall opposite the bar which, basically, blocks the rope light there from glaring you in the eyes. (Now, about the only way you can see the rope light is if you stand underneath it and look up.)  It's now what we think is the right amount of light on that wall.

We've also reduced the light coming from the track lights over the bar itself.  (They're on a dimmer; if they're still too bright when you come in, let the bartender know; turning them down may have just slipped his mind.)

And the most recent change last night was the turning off of the Bud Light sign on the west wall.  This was the first sign our distributor brought to us and we've loved the sign from the beginning.  It's the right colors, the right size, it's LED, it's dimmable.  In other words, everything we wanted.  But, after turning off the sign for Halloween last month and the Bears' black out party two weeks ago we realized that leaving this sign off makes the bar look--well--more like a bar and less like the world's tiniest indoor football stadium.

We're a little embarrassed that it took us this long to make these changes but they've been made now.  If you've stayed away from us because you our lighting had blinded you, give us another shot.  If it's *still* not quite to your liking, there are still more changes we can make so let us know that it's still not quite right.

If you come in during daylight hours, there's a good chance you may catch us with our front curtain open and you may not see all these changes.  But, that should only happen in the less-than-scorching and less-than-freezing weather of Fall and Spring.  (We close it by the time dusk comes around.)

(On a related note, we really, really do want to hear what our customers think of the bar.  If something's not quite right, we can't fix it for you unless we know what it is.  So, please, let us know.  We have our online suggestion box on our website where you can give us your anonymous suggestion or complaint if you think we'll not like you any more if you say something.)

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.

Legal Extortion

A little more than a month since we opened and there is still absurd turmoil behind the scenes.  Most notably, Music Licensing Fees.

Before I get into my extreme displeasure (that's a gross understatement) with having written checks to the big three (ASCAP, BMI, and Sesac) let me say that I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with paying for the rights for something I use.  Being something of an artist myself (music, graphic design, photography, etc.) I'm more than happy to pay someone for the use of something they created.  In fact, I *WANT* to pay them for it.  In no way do I want to screw other artists out of money they are due.

However, ASCAP, BMI, and Sesac do just that.

Music Licensing Fees are little more than extortion.  And here's why.  These companies take a survey of music played on the radio in the US and distribute licensing fees based on extrapolated total airplay from that survey.  Sounds alright, eh?  But there's a problem.  They only sample a whopping 1% of *all* radio airplay.  (To be fair, sampling much more than that would be an overwhelmingly daunting task.)

If an artist's song is never played in that 1% of sampled airtime, they will never, ever see a check from these companies.  And that's where The Phoenix comes in.

Because of its size and thanks to the Sonny Bono-introduced "Fairness in Music Licensing Act" from, I believe, the mid-1990's, The Phoenix is exempt from paying music licensing fees provided we only use music off the radio or over the television.  And that seems fair.  I'm fine with that.  But, when we throw in karaoke or CDs or Internet Streaming music, we "have" to pay.  (And paying for internet streaming music seems redundant; the internet stream has *already paid* these companies.)

The chances are very, very good that the music we use during karaoke never see the light of day on the radio anymore much less in that 1% sample these companies survey.  When was the last time you heard "The Sound of Music" on the radio?  Or "My Way"?  Or, "Born Free"?

In other words, these three companies take money that is owed to an artist and give it to someone else.  Rob the poor and give to the popular.

And the demand for money from these three companies amounts to mafia protection money.  These companies sometimes send in spies to make sure a business isn't using unlicensed music that is in their company's catalog and then threaten the business with fines totaling thousands of dollars for *EACH AND EVERY* song that hasn't been "properly licensed" from their company.  So they "advise" businesses to pay the "reasonable" license fees to avoid being threatened with a business-closing lawsuit.  In other words, Mafia Protection Money.

If these companies sue a business and win, they won't send the money to the artists whose copyrights were violated; they'll use the money to sue other businesses.  So, even if these companies win, the artist is *still* screwed out of money that is owed them.

There's a story on the Interwebz of BMI trying to sue an artist for using his own copyrighted arrangements of traditional Irish music in his performances.  It was astounding.  BMI claimed they owned the rights to all Irish music; even Irish music in the public domain.  The artist eventually won the suit but it was a long time getting to that point and lost the artist at least one client and major source of income and goes to show the lengths (and arrogant stupidity) of at least one of these Big Three.

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.

Hi, Mike!

That is all.

Heavy Sigh... Deep Breath....

Wow.

Today's the day.  Nine long, painful months speckled with joy have lead up to tonight.  In case you've been under a rock, The Phoenix is opening tonight at 4:00pm with Karl and I behind the bar.  (Mostly Karl.)

I don't really know what to say now.  I don't think I'm too often at a loss for words (some of my blog posts are a testament to that) but I'm not sure what to say at this point that hasn't been said before.  So many people have to be thanked for making this possible for us:  David, Red, Ray, Bradley, Vern, Paul, Lalo, Richie, Dwight, and George and probably more than a few others that I'm forgetting.  Thank you all.

It's been an amazing ride.  And one I'm not sure I'd want to get on again; but we'll see.  Thank you for coming along with us; it has meant more to us than you might possibly know.

It's All on Us

I have an item on the schedule for tomorrow.  When I made the schedule, I figured we'd be ready for it this weekend; the weekend before our opening day.  It was "Panic."  Well, as of last night, we were ahead of schedule; we had a panic last night with our water heater for the bar not working.  But, a quick run to Lowe's solved the problem.

And, among the other items for this weekend was "Address Health Department concerns".  That's something else we don't have to do.  The Health Department inspector was satisfied that we had met all her requirements and signed off on a "Temporary Permit to Operate".  And, combined with the earlier sign-off on our building inspection, we have finally cleared the last Magical Hoop™ to opening.

We.

Are.

Done.

Now, it's all on us to get the bar ready for Monday at 4:00pm when we fling the doors open and welcome the patient throngs of people at the door.  (Ok, there will probably only be one or two at four pm...)  And there's much to do.  There's a lot of cleaning and putting up televisions and assorted A/V equipment and getting all that inventory sorted and properly tagged and probably a few more things I'm forgetting after today.

The tremendous feeling of unfathomable relief after so much consummate anguish is often overwhelming.

Why Us?

Maybe it's just the sheer number of contractors we've had to have dealings with.  But we're running about 75/25 good to bad.

Our electrician, Max, has been spectacular.  He will be getting business from us in the future.  If you need an electrician, ask us; we'll give you his contact information.

Our roofer was great.  Depite delaying starting on our roof for about a day, he was fantastic.  Cleaned up all his debris and left the job done right and both Karl and I completely satisfied.  (We're happy to give you his contact information, too.)

Our drywall guy was great, too.  Came in on a Saturday to do some work and, over all, did a nice and professional job.  (Need drywall?  Let us know; we'll give you his info, too.)

Our A/C guy was darn good, too.  His crew went above and beyond what they were supposed to do and helped make us satisfied customers.  (Yeah, you know....)

On the other hand, our roofing framer (you know, the one who left us without a roof for a week in the rain...) I simply can not recommend at all.  He can't even be counted on to hammer in a nail properly.  (Literally.)

And, now most recently, our refrigeration guy for the walk-in cooler.  He doesn't follow (or doesn't remember) directions well.  He tromped around on our roof in the heat potentially damaging some of the brand new shingles beyond repair.  (Roofer guy is coming to take a look at it to give us his opinion; hopefully tomorrow.)  Claims to never leave a job without being paid right then and there for the work.  (The first I'd heard of it was when he was demanding payment in full after the job was done.)  Seems to have been offended that I found several problems with his work (which, if he had done it the way he had been directed by Karl, wouldn't have been a problem).  He freaked out when we called him today asking about the damage to the roof threatening to come back and rip the condenser unit off the roof.  (Which, by the way, is now ours since we paid him for the equipment yesterday.  In other words, he threatened to steal my equipment; not exactly professional.)

And perhaps the cause of most concern is the fact he did not return our phone calls for three days.  (Granted, one of those days was a Sunday.)  We had expected the unit to be ready on Thursday.  We called on Thursday afternoon and left a message.  Left at least two messages on Friday; no call back.  Same for Saturday.  And one message on Sunday.  Finally, on Monday, he called back saying that he'd be able to come Tuesday to install the unit.  Communication does not seem to be this guy's strong point.

Honestly, I think the poor guy is just completely, utterly overwhelmed by having been handed the business by his father.  He doesn't seem to have the business sense needed to run a business well (or at all).  He volunteered that he had lost his credit because of the economy.  I think the guy has a major cash flow problem and a major problem with listening to his customers.  (Is it my fault he doesn't follow directions or take care to not damage the roof he's tromping on?)

Regardless, all the stuff needed for the fire repair has been done.  (Aside from a little plumbing work I'm going to have to do on the roof tomorrow.)

You read that correctly.  The fire repair is complete.

We have the county Health Department coming on Friday.  I know we'll have some concerns to correct.  Most likely having to do with clean up of the dust and assorted construction debris.  And we'll take care of that over the weekend with a final inspection to take place on Monday.  (Now that I'm reading all of this, I think I should have them come on Monday instead....  Meh!  I'll think about that tomorrow!)

Finally Crossing our Fingers

It's been a long day.

BUT, we have our final building inspection scheduled for tomorrow. (Well, today now.)  I expect to have a few corrections -- there almost always are -- but nothing show-stopping.  And, depending on the corrections the inspector potentially wants, we may get signed off tomorrow!

We still have to get the Health Department's approval and I have a call in to them to get that scheduled hopefully for Friday.

Then, if that all goes well, we'll clean like mad over the weekend, fix whatever the Health Department needs done, get reinspected on Monday and throw open the doors at 4:00pm Monday!

Could this long process finally be *that* close to being over once and for all????

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.)

Mobile Blog Improvement

Just noticed this morning that Blogger has made improvements to the way blogs on the site appear on mobile devices!  This blog is now much easier to read on them!  Technology marches on!