Category: Cafe

Churchy stuff

Can’t do anything re the shop today or tomorrow. I have shitpiles of unavoidable work re the AGM.

 

There’s a biscotti batch in the cooler at the shop, and I brought home the lentil soup.  Jeff is tearing a hole through the split pea with ham soup; it really is awfully good.

We found really cheap split green peas at the warehouse place on Kingsway but strangely a 20 kilo bag of lentils is the same cost as what we pay at Galloway’s, so that was weird to find out.  We also found lots of consumables for cheap, including coffee cups, glassine bags, etc.  Snow Cap trading has everything we need in terms of baking supplies in bulk, and then some, and we found a place for plastic containers for muffins for people who want to buy a half dozen at a time.

The website is pretty much done, we’ll be adding menu items slowly and carefully.  We still haven’t settled on a bread supplier but Costco will do for the time being.  I roasted up another hunk of beef.

Katie got up at 4:30 to go pick up Jessica from her midnight shift at SaveOn and they are going to hang out today.  That is true friendship. Spoke briefly to Keith yesterday and told him he must come over and watch Real Humans, the phenomenal Swedish sci fi show.  Cannot recommend it highly enough.

Three days go by like nothin’

Yesterday we were at the shop all day and baked in the pizza ovens.  They make really good muffins and that’s good because we can fill an oven with morning muffins and it will reduce prep and cook time immensely.  Then if there’s going to be a biscotti bake we just leave em on.  Katie’s got other stuff to do and I am at the shop again, REVELLING, REVELLING I tell you, in the abundance of hot water.  Sanitizing powers ON.

Katie and I ripped through all of the crap we will never use in the storage loft and an amazing amount of junk went to Value Village.  That also made it easier for the tradespeople to do their thing (it took a day and a half longer to get the job done, but all I do is phone him and ask him for a revised estimate of his arrival, and he never, ever ducks my calls, so I am very sparse in my “Where the hell you at man” calls.)

The wee man arrived with the new hot water heater and a rather ascetic helper and he took the old one, whose continued functioning was a rather amazing thing on the basis of the pitting and rust and the mess the fittings were in, away (part of me is thinking that the wee man saying NO NO NO lose this one and get a bigger one, you’re not saving money and you’re making trouble – was good damned advice).  They had to use axle grease and shoe horns to get the sumbitch in, but it’s in and making lovely hot water, oo, yes indeed.  Soon he will come back and fix the rest of the walk in cooler compressor (it works but needs cleaning and sound isolation) and then once we have the special order light fittings for the lights, that’s it, we have no more problems to fix for the health inspector and we’re just waiting on fire and building.

Paul and Katie got up on the roof and there’s no obvious leaking but Katie says the tar is too soft.

I took pictures of the potholes to send the landlord.  Wish I had a buck for every time I’ve turned my ankle back there in the ‘parking lot’ which is actually more like a ‘hole farm’.

I have put the previously existing comfy chairs out front, free to a good home, and Katie washed and I put the covers back on our new used chairs,  They are Ikea second hands from a restaurant supply place that we heard about at church on Sunday, if you can credit it, and they turn out to be super nice and having the solution to a major throughput problem we were having.  But soon we will be able to run 350 pieces of toast an hour through a toaster.  With the Bunnomatic being able to make five carafes of coffee in just over half an hour I don’t think we’ll have a problem keeping up with plain coffee, and we have the espresso machine for the fancy schmancy stuff.

 

Lentil soup is on.  I got banking and church stuff to do today, which I am NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO, but haven’t I complained enough already?  Everything is coming together nicely for a 15 APRIL  start.

Iain M. Banks is reported to be dying of gall bladder cancer.  Fuck cancer.  He’s one of the best writers in any genre and he had another twenty years of awesome Culture novels in him and now he’ll be lucky to finish his most recent effort.

pOp has had a rough couple of weeks compressed into one brief hospital stay.  He’s back home, and none of the rest of it is anybody’s business.

 

 

Sundry and various

Yesterday I made the dough for biscotti, got the sign down and out the door on to Signfast’s truck and believe me that thing is AWKWARD to shift around, ran coffee through the Bunnomatic for the first time (it’s okay but we gotta make sure the sprayer is set right and we have to turn the machine on the instant we get in in the morning or we won’t have coffee for about half an hour or more), got the back fridge working with the help of my wee man. a temp sensor (which he says was located in the wrong place which is why the thing was rusted as a car on blocks), watched the amazing amount of foot traffic that goes by the store, learned that there is a coffee shop going in to the Community centre (which obviously made me sad), got a schoolin’ about what to do with the waste heat from the compressor which made me very thoughtful but means that the shop will be cooler in summer and warmer in winter, got proper knobs for the gas ovens, swept the shop, did all the dishes, made myself a sammy with the chicken breast from Grimms (I think we should order from them, their meat is really good), found out from the City of Burnaby that we do NOT in fact need a permit for our sign (I had been concerned), arranged other inspections or got them in train with the City, transferred some money into the biz account, got stuck in the worst…fucking…traffic ever while getting the last items out of Katie’s apartment, talked briefly to her former co-tenant Randy, who dished dirt on a friend’s drunken ass ex in a most entertaining fashion, found out that the Dandy Warhols are playing the Commodore June 22 AND IT’S A PLAY THROUGH OF THIRTEEN TALES FROM URBAN BOHEMIA one of my fave albums ever and I’m STOKED,  had an extremely emotional conversation with Jeff during which he was extremely supportive and calming (thank you, and bless you) and no I’m not going to talk about it on my blog, watched a couple of episodes of Third Watch, and watched Eddie bring in a baby mouse, which after a brief discussion about what to do with him (Izzy living here after all) Jeff put back outside much to Eddie’s disgust.  Candidly I shouldn’t even have suggested it because Izzy is a hand tamed snake and wild critters carry all kinds of interesting diseases. Day before yesterday learned about a Swedish sci fi show called Real Humans which is awesome even with subtitles and which I want to see the rest of soonish. Today I learned that Margot is turning into a dog.  She now circles once (forwards OR backwards, which is beyond words entertaining) before lying down, and she still comes to greet and say goodbye when we go places. Jeff got her to almost fetch the other day, and she chases the floppy flyer (fabric frisbee style thingee).

Today back into the shop to wait for the sign and work on various things that you can’t work on when all the shops are closed. Katie’s at her friends place in New West but I wasn’t expecting her to come home, she was partying with the buddies who have been so supportive to her this past year.

Apart from the church stuff, which I would like to chuck over a back fence, and the lawn, which needs mowing, I’ve never felt better.  I’m even recovered from the move.  And it doesn’t matter that my todo list looks as it does.  Gradatim, baby.

Meat slicer achievement unlocked

Yesterday:

meeting with church auditor

booked locker for Katie to move her stuff into

confirmed reservation for van.  Katie got her dad to volunteer as well, and Jasper from church is also helping.

Grimm’s meat man came by with samples for Katie

I used the meat slicer to slice two roasts and more or less cleaned up afterwards

the wee little man did not show, but I didn’t actually expect him to

Katie made raisin bran muffins which Jeff pronounced good.

Then I swung by the shop to pick Katie up cause she sounded pretty burned, and drove her home because she needed to.  Tomorrow she cleans the old apartment, so I will be at the shop all day to receive tradespersons (signage, refrigeration, hot water heater).

Now that we both know the shop will NOT open on April 1, we are concentrating our efforts on work flow and processes.

 

Lady Miss Banjola explains it all for you

Pharmacy rant part 3  – regarding expiry dates.  Once you land on the site click the link to expand.  IT’S REALLY USEFUL for anybody who takes meds, and that’s all of us.

Managed to get in and out of church without tripping any wires, having fed Kira and picked up the mail, then fed Katie and Jeff brunch at The Heritage, went into the shop and figured out lighting and signage, Jeff figured out that in my tidying efforts I knocked the cable modem off line, but it’s all good.  Then a quick stop at the King Eddy for a baby mouse for Izzy, who once again is starving, then running Katie home for coming up on the last times, since she’s moving in on Wednesday.

Tomorrow is gonna be killer.

Doors again

Hung around the house all day yesterday waiting for callbacks from plumbers, and nothing.  Around two I realized that nothing was going to happen and spent quite a long time in a nice warm tub and completely disconnected from my troubles.  This morning I am reconnecting with them, ie I have to go to church.

 

I don’t know exactly when church got to be such a drag, I mean a way bigger drag than it is joy, but I backspaced over the next two hundred words, and that’s a good thing.

Now I’m going to feed Kira, pick up the church mail,, go to church just long enough to pick up a document that needs signing and to drop off the sign that accidentally got left out last week and then I’m going to come home and commune with my to do list.  I am sure it will be a lovely service, but I am not wanting to take my aggrieved idiocies to church today.

The dishwasher’s running and Margot has been fed some kitty malt and turned outdoors.

Despite how remarkably unfit for real life she is, Margot knows what day it is.  She picked the morning of the vernal equinox to come outside for the first time in 2013. She rolled around and made her cat with laryngitis noise while Katie watched in startlement.

 

Hope switch located, turned back on

Paul didn’t even let me get twelve seconds into mah woeful tale before he said, walk first.  So we went to Deer Lake Park and saw:

 

  1. wood ducks x 3 plus mallards lazily walking along the path and grazing at the side
  2. hummingbirds x 2
  3. towhee
  4. the saddest crow in the world, behaving in a fashion I can only describe as inexplicable.  It sat on a sign, bowed its head and cooed sadly like a pigeon.  Repeatedly.  Like, so many times that Paul and I were starting to freak out.
  5. frisky squirrels, imports and natives
  6. many many skunk cabbabbages
  7. hardly any people, unsurprising given that every form of precipitation the lower mainland affords fell out of the sky earlier today.  There’s still unmelted snow on the front lawn in the shade.

But the sun came out and Paul received the Gift of Maple Bacon Muffins with great thanks.  Now I feel better, but this next week is gonna suck a large citrus fruit, and I must needs stay on task.

hopes dim a little

Unless we have a very expensive miracle, we won’t be opening on the 1st.  Many health inspectors passed the restaurant without looking at the water heater, and it’s simply too small to operate with proper sanitization.  If we can get permission from the city and enough hot water (like three times as much as we have now OR a hot water on demand heater, both solutions requiring a gas fitter on short notice and somebody having the right equipment in inventory) we can still open on the first.  But so far I haven’t gotten a single call back and Katie and I are feeling kinda deer in the headlights right now.

the derpitude

I put a live bug on Margot’s nose and she didn’t notice.  Such derpitude cannot be allowed to breed!  fortunately, she’s had her hyster out.

Yesterday the prep fridge was fixed for $175 less than the estimate.  Our Syrian-Canadian tradesman is prone to gnomic utterances and the three of us worked contentedly enough yesterday, me and Katie on getting the mold out of the display fridge (which we did, it’s as clean as its gently rusting racks will allow us to get it) and him on his knees, breathing stertorously while he pried the old temp controller out (“Never have I seen it so bad, look how rusted it is” and in truth it looked like garbage somebody had stuffed into the fridge) replacing it with a clever high tech temp controller which should eliminate all our previous woes and breathed some freon into the system.  Then I helped him get the dishwasher into his truck in the pouring rain.  He says he can fix anything, and after watching him I believe him, but he also said “Whether it’s worth while to fix who knows.” So he can have the dishwasher while he weighs the options.  I think he is very surprised at our willingness to ask for and take his advice, but Katie and I liked him the minute we laid eyes on him, there’s something about him that is very reminiscent of Unca Dave.  It is funny how you can buy help, but you can’t buy the feeling that somebody wants to help you.

Katie and I also dropped off the application, got her level 1 cert from North Van, had a lovely Thai lunch, and after our day of running around and sanitizing things we went to the pool and soaked our cold bones in the hot tub and rubbed each other’s feet.  I practically cried, I was so grateful, and me being UNDER 200 POUNDS for the first time in months when I went to weigh myself was marvellous.  More exercise and less food.  Katie is stressed and she cursed the scale with loud imprecations.

Slept awesome.

Today shoes, locating consumable suppliers, signage part III, and a complete brain dump while we reshuffle all our priorities. Oh, and cleaning the shop from topamus to bottomus.  It’s already clean, but we’re going to clean it anyway.

We will be having an intern!  ie free labour.  She’ll get her meals, training on real stuff (she will NOT be cleaning or doing dishes, rather prep and serving customers since that is more job related) and after a couple of months she will get a letter of reference and an honorarium.  So we hope, we shall see what the Grand Joculator brings us.

Have I said lately how very awesome I find my daughter???  because she is the awesome of recently discovered species, water on Titan, babies giggling and kittens catching butterflies.

wow

HIV news.

 

Aprons bought at dollar store (we found decent ones); light for over the employee bathroom sink is in train to go into the store, as is the new dishwashing graphic, our framed foodsafe certificates and the user guide for the pizza oven (which will become a biscotti oven once I tame it).  ALL PRAISE CUSTOMER SERVICE FOR GARLAND/MANITOWOC.  They answered my general enquiry email in less than 15 minutes and gave me what I wanted in one try.  Still no word on if there’s a dishwasher technician who can deal with the Lawrence undercounter commercial dishwasher we have in the back of the store.  If we can install it with FHA blessing in the kitchen our dishwashing problems may be over, but first we have to determine that it’s working and worth refurbishing if it isn’t which it likely will be as a new one is like the price of two used cars, ffs. Found out why we can’t fill both sinks with hot water.  Washing and sanitizing takes 45 degree C water, and requires 140 litres of said same; the fucking hot water heater looks like the Gimli version AND according to Paul (on whom blessings) it was set TOO LOW to actually sanitize anything.  He boosted the heat setting but that is a temporary measure.  We need a long term solution (current solution is WAITING AN HOUR for the tank to refill -to Katie’s pouting despair – and we’ll talk to the FHA folks about what would be best.  Jeff is currently wrestling with the mobile app for the security cameras in the store, with a somewhat furrowed brow, but he DID determine that the cash register for the store is a toy, and we need a real cash register.  399$ plus tax later, I’m sure we can have one, which will at least print out our name on the effing receipt (the toy did not have letter printing capability).  So that’s another trip to Donovans and I have to get the other cash register onto craigslist and sell it for the $50 that it is worth.  It really is a toy.  Emailed the gal who said she wanted to intern with us; alas, no response as yet.  I may nudge her mother into asking her to check and respond to her email. Visited the accountant and he was happy to tell me that I should probably increase my liability coverage on the cafe, and that I was only missing a couple of things from an accounting standpoint, and he rather self-righteously pointed out that we probably lost some negotiating room on the cost of purchase, which to my tiny mind is more than made up for the fact that the previous owner has been AMAZING to work with and extremely helpful.  You can’t buy the cooperation of someone you’ve paid out, they have to want to give it to you, and she has.  I wish her a life of delight and success in anything she does in future, and hope she signs the GST44 form with me the next time I see her.  Tile grout for the loose tiles purchased; hours open sign purchased (we couldn’t rehab the previous sign), extension cord for front of store purchased, Katie is getting a handle on the coffee maker and the turkey ball soup was UNBELIEVABLY tasty.  I had a happy from stem to gudgeon upon ingesting it.  Also, we took half a dozen fresh from the oven muffins over to the guys at Gord-Ron .  They are THRILLED we are moving in and I regret that they may have loved the coffee but they weren’t otherwise impressed by the menu at the old place.  When they heard we were doing soup sandwiches muffins biscotti and coffee, they evinced great enthusiasm.

 

That was yesterday.  Holy shit, eh?

List

Yesterday was a day to set appointments, get a phone into the shop, get the cash register here so Jeff can look at it, cook turkey ball soup (Jessica and Katie did that, and the smell was divine), learn how to run the espresso maker (Katie did that) and call Russell to get a copy of the invoice from the day before because somehow we lost it and it was a big invoice.  Also got quotes on the lid and liner for the soup warmer, which strangely did not come with the unit.

I see the accountant today.

My to do list is growing rather than shrinking, but I’d rather be me than anyone else alive right now, and that is in itself a really wonderful thing, especially when a girlfriend mentioned rather casually that suicide recently crossed her mind in the face of the rather immense financial problem that is staring her in the face right now.  She is reasonably okay but my god contemplating an 800000$ mortgage with no income would be enough to send me into conniptions, let alone the occasional thought of ending it all.  I am so happy my friends and family rallied round me when I called for help.  I feel stronger in my mind and spirit than I have in quite a while.   And Chipper’s mOm has been removed from her mold intoxicated house and placed in eldercare, and thank god for that; she had recently fallen and she has bedsores and is so crippled from arthritis she cannot do even the simplest selfcare.  She wept when her mold encrusted purse was taken away from her but other than that she dealt with the indignity of being yoinked from her home with vigorous complaints rather than cowed silence. Of course none of the other three siblings are answering Chipper’s emails or phone calls, but it’s been like that for 30 years, the entire time I’ve known her they’ve treated her like a bag of dirt.  I told her “Give up.  Grieve. They are never going to treat you properly and it’s time you faced it.”  Jeff made a face and told me to tell Chipper to get a lawyer, but I don’t think it will come to that.  Chipper has no expectation of an inheritance.  I said, “Fuck your siblings, go visit your mom as time and your circumstances allow.”

Katie’s former mom in common law and a friend came by the shop yesterday when Katie was trying to work and WOULDN’T LEAVE.  I told her next time don’t let them in.  If they come in to chat, they can after we open and buy something while they are at it.  I keep reminding Katie she’s gonna have a spa day for the first Saturday after we open, and I think I’ll book myself in while I’m at it.

 

Today was another incredible day

We bought supplies for the store, including coffee and a coffee machine (go figure) and big tough garbage bags, soap, raisins, that kind of thing.  The coffee machine was advertised as costing THIS much but all of a sudden when the salesman got to be in Katie’s presence for two seconds the price dropped 25%.  Talk about using your powers for good. We did a lot of running around today, and don’t forget there was a 1.5 hour dental appointment and the purchase of Izzy’s dinner in there too.

I got the sign info to the sign guy.  Shoon.

 

So tired!  But so excited.

Today I get a hole in my head filled while somebody drills a hole in my pocket

Dentist at 12:30, phone calls to the sign company and printing business cards today.  Sign company is walking distance from the house.  I really like East Burnaby.  There are a fascinating array of useful businesses here.  In the afternoon, buy butter and bake biscotti in the store for the first time.  Scary stuff!  ExCITing stuff.

I didn’t mention, but Planet Clean, where we bought the sanitorial supplies (yes, apparently it’s a word of art in the janitorial supplies business) has a box for recycled household batteries at the front of the shop.  I’ve been carrying around a plastic bag of spent household batteries in my trunk for two months, and so I was ever so pleased to get rid of them.  Good on Planet Clean for doing that!