Demolition Photos and Signage Sneak Peek

First of all, gotta give big thanks to Brian, Allison and Lila, who all came to help out on renovations and cleaning this week! And also Erin, Amanda, Donny, Shaina and Ryan, who dropped in to lend moral (and liquid) support! Anyone who feels the urge, please drop by for a visit - it's very motivational. We are so lucky to have such cool pals as you.

Another cool new pal is Jonah, who is designing the logo and signage for the store. The sketches below are VERY preliminary, not final at all, but I feel the need to share them with you anyway because I'm SO PSYCHED:


Aren't they great?!?

Most of my week was spent cleaning grimy, rusty shelving, while Chris and Brian started pulling down the excessively low and completely unnecessary dropped ceiling in the front. It's opened up the space quite a bit and given us access to the weird homegrown electrical wiring hidden behind it. There's a little more demo to do, then a lot of rebuilding.

Brian, Chris and their trail of destruction:




We also had an expert come look at our walk-in coolers this week. I warned him, "They're kinda crazy," but he assured me he'd seen it all. Yet even he was amazed by these, and said they must be at least 75 years old. The interior cladding is wooden bead board and tacked-on sheet metal. The cooling units look like 10-foot long car radiators and although the keep the boxes cool, they leak water like crazy. So Chris is going to clean out and reclad the interiors, and we'll probably have new cooling units installed. Another cost I wasn't anticipating, but it seems pretty necessary.

The condition of these walk-ins is just one of the many things that make me wonder how the previous owners ever passed their health department inspections. They must have bribed someone. Because there's no way a dripping, rusty cooler over a crumbling cement floor is an OK place to store food. The sprinkler system over the oven looks like it's being held up by a shoestring. And the water in the steam table had definitely not been changed for months. Excavating this store has been a good reminder of what NOT to do - not that I need it.

All in all, it's been a busy and productive week. I'll leave you with a photo of Chris relaxing with the sausage shooter - I mean, stuffer: