Trial Runs in the Kitchen

Tuesday was a chaotic day. I had a list of about thirty jobs that I wanted to try to get finished by 5pm. At 3pm, I had two of those jobs crossed off my list. However, several of the other staff members came in at 5pm, and within an hour, we had another dozen items crossed off. Among other things, we got the following jobs done:

- Put up a shower-rod and a curtain on the front kitchen entrance, so the light from the kitchen won't be so distracting in the dining room.
- Put the final coat of brown paint on several sections that needed touch-ups.
- Steam-cleaned the carpets.
- Hooked up the Interac machine.
- Hooked up the cash register and tested it to make sure that it still worked (this is the old machine - we hope to buy a better register within the next month or two).
- Hung all of our licenses and certificates for public display.
- Cut door keys for the staff members that required them.
- Did touch-up painting on the beige in several spots (there is still more touch-up painting to be done, but we'll get to that over the next week or so).
- Fixed the coffee machine.
- Installed one of our open signs, which Randy wired up after supper.

We also laid out all of the tables in the main lower dining room, in preparation for our first trial runs.

At about 7pm, we invited most of the staff members to bring in a guest or two apiece, for a small trial run of the kitchen. Tiffany and I wanted to get practice making a dozen meals or so, to let us start to discover any equipment problems in the kitchen that we had missed. However, far more people showed up than I had invited, so our "small trial run" turned into complete chaos. We got through it eventually, with the help of several of the off-duty staff members (thanks especially to Ali & Sarah & Emily), but it wasn't what I had intended for our first test of the equipment. One consolation, however, was that we at least discovered several problems in the kitchen that I'll have to rectify before we open to the public.

Fire Marshall Inspection

Monday was an extremely busy day. A food order arrived at 10am, which I had placed under the assumption that we might be able to open this week. I didn't order much produce, just in case, but I ordered all of the dry goods and non-perishables that we would need. Tiffany came in and started prepping some of the less expensive foods that we would need if we got permission to open within the next few days.

After lunch, the Fire Marshall inspector showed up. He was pretty careful when looking at everything - not surprising, considering that half of the block burned down just over a year ago, on a property beside us, owned by the same landlords (click here to see footage that I filmed from that fire). Anyway, after a lengthy inspection, he declared that we were permitted to open to the public, as soon as I fixed a number of small problems (such a moving fire extinguishers to better locations, and preparing a Fire Safety Plan). As soon as the Inspector left, I sent the staff an email to say that we were in business, and I immediately started working on the deficiencies that the Inspector had pointed out.

After supper, we had a staff meeting to go over planning for the rest of the week. We need to do some practice runs with the kitchen before we open to the public. With any luck, we should be open to the public by this weekend. There still isn't any indication of when we might get approved for our liquor license, but now that the Fire Marshall inspection is complete, I hope the liquor license will be approved fairly quickly.

Menu Revisions

Sunday was another quiet day, with Alison doing some more sewing on the slipcovers for the sofas, and with myself out of the country. However, I did manage to get started on getting the menus ready for reprinting. We aren't going to make a lot of major changes to the menu at the start, because there have been too many other things to worry about. We'll ease back into getting the restaurant open first, and spend a couple weeks making sure the equipment all works, and then we'll start slowly making more changes to the menus after we doing some more training with our cooking staff.

Quiet Weekend

Not much happened on Saturday. I spent the day in transit for a DJ show I was playing last night on the other side of the country. Allison worked on upholstery of the second sofa in the coffee lounge. This is basically a quiet weekend, while we catch our breath and wait to see how our Fire Marshall inspection goes at the start of the week.

Electrical Work Started

On Friday, I spent a few hours putting verathane on the table tops, running to Kent Building Supplies for two more bar stools, and doing a number of smaller errands.

The big news was that Randy Clare stopped by after supper for a few hours to help out. Randy, an electrician, installed a light in the front entry-way, installed switched plugs for our open sign and lights, fixed the light fixtures in the back of the kitchen that were not working correctly, and fixed one of the lights in the dining room.

Once we start hanging art on the walls (hopefully next week), we'll still have to install some appropriate track lighting to illuminate the artwork, but we can worry about that in a few days.

No More Tools

A few minor jobs got done on Thursday. For instance:

- I learned how to make zippers from "scratch" with parts bought from the fabric store.
- Jeff and I managed to get rid of some of the stuff that was remaining on the old Olive Branch patio. However, we couldn't find a key to unlock the chains on the benches, and I broke two sets of wire-cutters trying to cut through the chains, so we gave up on that project for the day.
- I went to Kent and bought some neat stuff, including a bar stool, and a heavy-duty shelving rack.
- I put another coat of black paint on the tables.

Most importantly, I cleaned up the tools. I had about 15 milk crates full of random tools lying around on the floor in the front of the restaurant, and now that the minor maintenance work is almost complete, I felt like it was safe to clean up. I spent about four hours sorting tools and parts into some very neatly organized crates, and set up a tool section in the storage room in the back of the restaurant.

Just About Ready

Yesterday was another of those days where it felt like a lot got accomplished. Among other things:

- The rest of the supplies got shelved and organized in the kitchen.
- Took an old broken filing cabinet and removed parts of the drop-down facing, and converted it into a shelving unit for heavy canned goods in the kitchen.
- Hung four speakers in the dining room (although they still have to be wired).
- Hung a curtain rod to separate the "Rickard's Room" from the rest of the dining room (although we still need to make curtains).
- Installed a couple of blinds on the side windows.
- Sanded and put the first coat of paint on the inherited tabletops from the previous restaurant. They were a pretty bold mix of bright colors, and we're painting them black to match our other tables from the old Olive Branch.
- Installed a shelf in the kitchen for all of the coffee and tea supplies.











I actually got to go home early last night, stopping work at 11:30pm. I even had time to finally open my Christmas presents when I got home, which was fun.

We're still waiting on the Fire Marshall inspection to determine when we might be able to open.

Memory Loss

Tuesday was so busy for me that I can't even remember everything that I did. I spent half the day working up at the university, and while I was at the restaurant, I spent most of the time starting to put the rest of the supplies and equipment away on the new shelves in the kitchen.

After supper, I had to do some more work at the university, and ended up serving for a while early in the evening because the Pub busy so early in the evening. After that, I came back down to the restaurant and washed an unbelievable number of loads of dishes - around 120, I think. It's a good thing that the dishwasher can do a cycle in about a minute - even so, running at almost full tilt, it took me hours to finish the pile of things that I wanted to wash. Luckily, none of the dishes were "food dirty" - they were just dusty from the move.

Board of Health Approval

Monday was a fairly big day. Again, I was up extremely early, so I could get several hours of stuff done before breakfast.

Some of the minor things that got done yesterday included:
- Kitchen floor completely scrubbed (with SOS pads) to get rid of the layers of grease & grime.
- Both washrooms scrubbed, with the paint cleaned out of the sinks, and drops of paint removed from the floors.
- Shelf for the pizza sheeter and mixer built and painted.
- Shelves over the recyclables painted.
- New thermometers for the fridges and coolers, and all equipment turned on and tested.
- Eighty percent of the lumber cleaned up out of the dining room.
- Seats installed on the rest of the dining room chairs.
- All shelves in the kitchen given a final coat of proper kitchen-grade paint.

The Board of Health inspector came in to look around, and approved us for a food permit. He was extremely helpful in walking around, making suggestions and answering questions. That was a big relief, to know that part of the approval process is out of the way. I should be able to pick up the certificate in Moncton on Thursday of this week, he thinks.

I called the Fire Marshall next, and didn't have as much luck there. The person I talked to asked me for a report that I had already sent them on December 20th, which was quite frustrating. However, I talked to him for quite a while about the challenges of getting open quickly, and it seemed like he was going to look into the file immediately. I hope so - we have a number of people who want to book major events in the restaurant next week. I guess we'll see how things are going later this week.

Sunday Progress

I was up very early on Sunday morning, but it was not to be a day of rest. I spent the morning catching up on more paperwork at the university, then I got a bit more done at the restaurant. I managed to finish the back storage shelves that I hadn't finished on Saturday night, when I found enough lumber to finish the job. I then tried to prime the shelves, but I only got halfway through that job before I ran out of primer.

I then spent most of the rest of the day trying to catch up on emails. I had several hundred messages to answer, having been essentially away from the internet for more than a week. I managed to get about halfway through them all, then called it a night.

More Shelving

Shuffling boxes and equipment around, as I work on various sections of the restaurant, is kind of like playing one of those "move-a-square" games that were popular when we were kids. My biggest goal yesterday was to put away the rest of the kitchen supplies, so I could work on chairs in the upper dining room, but there wasn't enough storage space in the kitchen yet. I looked at the back of the kitchen and realized that there was a lot of unused space there, so I started building some more heavy-duty shelves. That went well, until I ran out of lumber.

Aside from that, half of the chairs had their seats reinstalled and paint touchups done, and I also did a major cleanup throughout the dining rooms and hallways. For once, I feel like I actually accomplished more yesterday than I had expected. Usually, I make a list of things to do for the day, and it turns out in retrospect to be more than any normal person can accomplish in a week. However, it is always good to have goals.

No Progress on Friday

I got practically nothing done on Friday. I spent most of the day catching up on paperwork for my job at the university. About the only useful thing that I did at the restaurant was to look around and take stock of what I needed to do on Saturday, and spend a few minutes out at Home Hardware, ordering a small load of lumber to work with.

"Break Week" Summary

I was out of the country for the past eight or nine days, but while I was gone, some work continued to take place, under the supervision of Ian Allen. While I was away, the following major jobs got done:

- The propane installation took place. We're now up and running one stove with eight burners, plus two ovens. We had a ten burner stove in the old restaurant, unofficially, except one pair of burners didn't work very well. I'm going to order the parts so I will eventually have all ten burners working again.

- The propane setup was inspected by the provincial inspector, and passed.

- Ralph and Peter did several additional jobs for me. They installed a circulation fan which will move air from the kitchen into the restaurant at certain times (useful for minimizing heating expense in the winter), put up new wainscotting in the dining room in one section that didn't have any, installed a few additional heavy shelving units in the kitchen that I had built, drilled a hole from the draught cooler down to the basement for our pressure lines, and did a couple of repair jobs at the old restaurant.

- Jamie & Terry finished up some more plumbing work that was needed in the staff washroom.

- Kevin, our accountant, was finally able to get back to work processing some paperwork, which he had to defer for a while when the office wasn't functional.

We still need to finalize the three last major inspections: The Fire Marshall, the Board of Health, and the Liquor Licensing Branch. Because of uncertainties surrounding those inspections, I still don't know how soon we'll be able to open.

Propane Installation started

A pleasant surprise for Boxing Day - Maxon showed up to start working on the propane installation. They spent the entire day at the restaurant changing connections and pipes, and getting the lines ready for the hookup. Since the current lines were installed a very long time ago (we think that Remy just hooked the tanks up himself, without proper authorization or permits), they needed some major changes to be brought up to the current building codes.

Boxing Day was my last day in Sackville, as I am going to be away for a week due to a major commitment that I made several months ago. However, Ian Allen is going to be in charge of supervising renovations and upgrades while I'm away. I'll continue updating this blog site when I return, on approximately January 4th.

No word yet on a possible reopening date. If things go smoothly over the next week, we are hoping to re-open on approximately January 10th, but that's very tenuous right now. Happy holidays!

Christmas Day Social

I started Christmas Day off by having a meal with the family in Truro. We ate at The Belgravia Bed & Breakfast, which is owned and operated by my sister Anne and her husband D'Arcy. After a very tasty breakfast, it was a quick trip back to Sackville. The breakfast was very interesting to me, as a restauranteur, because I got to see how carefully the Belgravia caters to special dietary needs. We try to do the same thing at the Olive Branch (ie. having gluten-free options), but Anne & D'Arcy have had a lot of practice at it.

I was supposed to fly to Toronto after lunch, but my conscience felt that there was too much work left undone. I figured that with one more solid day, I could move the restaurant from a state of "me panicking for a week, while I was away," to a state where it felt like the restaurant was getting close to being ready to go. I changed my flight to Boxing Day, so I could keep working.

In the end, I was glad that I did. I worked all afternoon, evening, and night, so I got an incredible amount accomplished. Sleep is over-rated. I put away a huge pile of extra stuff from the upper dining room in the afternoon, and by the time I was done, I could see the carpet again! I estimated that there was only about 10% of the equipment and supplies left to be sorted out. I need to build a couple more shelves in the kitchen and in the back storage room, and once those are done (probably not until January 5th), I will be able to put the rest of the stuff away.




I was pretty amazed by the amount of traffic though downtown Sackville for afternoon of Christmas Day. I had a guy from Amherst coming in to ask if I knew of any bootleggers. Surprisingly, I don't know any - I like to plan ahead and have lots at home, so the issue has never come up for me in the past. I also had a great visit from Matt Jonah, a friend of mine who works at the University. He talked to me about some supply possibilities on used equipment, and he also brought to my attention a very exciting idea for a special "international cuisine" night. I can't go into details yet, but I think that his idea was brilliant.

It's amazing how many people stop by to give suggestions. And it's pretty funny that many of them are diametrically opposed to each other. Everybody wants to offer advice, and thinks they have fantastic ideas that would benefit the restaurant. For me, it gets a little overwhelming to listen to so many ideas, but it's worth it, because some of them are real gems.

I also had several people walk by and peek in the windows, and wave to me while I was working. Some days I feel like I'm on stage when I working in the dining room, now that the newspapers are down. A few people have said that I should have left them up, for the element of surprise, but I like the people from Sackville to be able to look in and see what we're working on.

The majority of my night was spent on repainting the chairs that were inherited from Remy's Bistro. Although the vinyl seats had already been re-covered, I still had to paint them. I ended up spending about nine hours repainting 53 metal chairs, and after experimenting earlier in the week, I had quickly determined that spray painting would be far more efficient. It was a tedious and messy nine hours, but I did learn one important thing: there's no need to spike the eggnog on Christmas evening when you spend it in an enclosed room, spraying off thirty cans of spray paint.

Even though I'm now in Toronto, I've turned supervision of some of the tradespersons over to an associate of mine, Ian Allen, so at least you'll still be able to read daily updates for the next couple of days.

Christmas Eve Accomplishments

Monday was a day to try to accomplish as many last-minute jobs as possible before the Christmas holiday. Jamie & Terry came in to work on the plumbing starting at about 9am, but unfortunately, I didn't get much accomplished during the morning.

After lunch, things became more productive. I managed to get the following tasks done:
- I spent a few hours chipping away at the enormous pile of stuff in the upper dining room, trying to figure out where to put it all.
- I went to the bank.
- I dug around until I could find all of the boxes of paperwork for the office, and sorted that and put it away.
- I paid a bunch of bills.
- I decided that the mess on the floor was too unorganized, so I started sorting some common items into milk crates. I ended up with a crate for extension cords (with about 20 cords), a crate for recycleable (dead) batteries, a crate for coaxial cables, a crate for light bulbs (with about 50 bulbs), a crate for security camera equipment, and a crate for speaker and telephone cables.

To the casual viewer, the restaurant still looks like a war zone, and it doesn't look like I got a lot done, but at least I felt like I had accomplished a fair amount. I also squeezed an airport run into the middle of the afternoon, to drop Grover off for his flight home. That was a pretty quick trip, because my meeting at BDC had been cancelled. Anyway, by the time that I got all of this done, it was past 7pm, so I decided to call it a day.

28A York is Now Empty

I spent most of the day working on paperwork, but at supper, Kasie & Grover came to help me for a few hours. We went to the old restaurant, and our goal was to finally finish emptying it out and tidying it up. Kasie started cleaning, and Grover and I started moving the last of the equipment out. Most of what remained was fairly heavy, but not heavy enough to require more than two people. We pulled out things like the air conditioner, the three compressor motors, the draught machine, and a couple more trailer loads of loose ends and boards that got missed earlier in the month. By about 10pm, we were just leaving with the last load, as Kasie finished mopping the floors. It's amazing how big both the basement and the dining room look now that it's emptied out and cleaned up. Most customers probably didn't realize that we had an enormous basement downstairs that we were able to use for storage.




There is still some stuff on the patio that I'll have to dig out from under the snow and remove, but at least it's another milestone in knowing that the inside of the old restaurant is now completely bare and ready for the next tenant, whoever that may end up being.

The Grease Trap

The best thing about yesterday was that I was finally able to start organizing and shelving things. The pile of equipment and supplies in the restaurant was enormous, but there was finally enough substance to the kitchen (and shelving in place) that I could start figuring out where all the small stuff was going to go.

I worked from 8am to midnight, so I got quite a bit accomplished, including the following:
- Moved a bunch of broken equipment out of the building.
- Set up the recycleables area, and moved the cases of pop and juice to a proper storage section.
- Built a bit more shelving for the kitchen.
- Bolted the server's safe to the floor.
- Built a display rack behind the bar for the older "display only" wine bottles.
- Pulled more equipment out of the old restaurant.
- Washed about forty loads of glassware and put it all away.
- Did some vacuuming, cleaning, and scrubbing in the kitchen.

Jamie Weeks and Terry Geddes also showed up to work on the plumbing project for the landlord. However, I mentioned to them that the dishwasher still wasn't draining, and asked them to look at the grease trap while they were here, since that's part of the landlord's territory. We didn't have a grease trap in our old kitchen, because we don't deep-fry any of our menu items, so opening the trap was an interesting new experience. Basically, a grease trap is a structure which is a couple feet across, and it acts as sort of a filter so that a lot of the grease coming out of the dish pit gets stopped in the trap rather than running through the entire sewer system of the building. The grease trap is accessible right in the middle of the kitchen floor, so it is far easier to clean that out on a regular basis than to try to rip up plumbing in the basement or walls, if that became plugged instead.

The problem with our grease trap was that it probably had not been cleaned out since Pizza Delight had a restaurant here, about six or seven years ago. It certainly didn't look like it had been cleaned when Remy's Bistro was here about three years ago. I would even venture a guess that Remy probably disposed of his old grease from his fryers by pouring it down the kitchen sink drains. And since the trap hadn't been cleaned in several years at least, it was not in good shape. The grease in it had sat and coagulated for years, and it was truly disgusting. We could smell it standing outside of the restaurant, and I thought I would have to go buy bandanas for everyone to cover their faces. Jamie & Terry fought with it for most of the day, up to their elbows in the mess, and hauled out about 10 or 12 gallons of slop. I truly don't know how they managed to get it clean eventually. The photo that I have of Terry (below) was taken late in the afternoon, when most of the hard work had already been done, and after going through multiple pairs of gloves and cleaning up again.




So I have a very well-deserved endorsement for these guys ... if you ever need any plumbing done in the Sackville or Moncton areas, and you're looking for hard workers at a reasonable rate, give these guys a call. Their company is called Roof Edge Construction, and they do bathroom renovations, roofing, windows, decks, siding, and several other types of carpentry and plumbing. I highly recommend these guys.

More Propane Problems

After getting to bed at 5am, I was a bit tired, but I got up a few hours later to be back down at the restaurant at 8am. The propane contractor was supposed to hook up our tanks today, and I didn't want to miss out on that project.

While I was waiting, Jamie Weeks and Terry Geddes arrived to do some plumbing. They were doing some work in the restaurant which the landlord was covering, but I also had several projects that needed to be done (and which were my own responsibility), so I hired them for the day. They pulled out the old two-compartment sink that had been left behind by the previous owner (which had a hole in the bottom) and installed my newer three-compartment sink, which the Board of Health requires. I'll have to find a place to store the old two-compartment sink - maybe down in the basement. Jamie & Terry also hooked up a hand sink by the pizza-making station, and hooked up my ice machine. Finally, they got the dishwasher working, although it wasn't draining very well.




Those projects pretty much took them all day, but I stayed busy in the meantime. Around 11am, I started to get worried because the propane guys hadn't arrived yet, and I had a bad feeling about the whole situation. I called Irving, and they said that yes, their computer showed that the tanks would be installed before lunch. I said that I hoped the contractor worked quickly, since they hadn't arrived yet. The lady at Irving suddenly didn't seem so optimistic. She made a few phone calls, and found out that the contractor had decided that he didn't have time to hook us up until after the New Year's. Not good, since the Health Inspector was planning to come in on December 27th, and the stoves had to be working for him in order to give us a license.

After much debating and consultation on Irving's part, they found another contractor who would come take a look at the project. He showed up late in the afternoon, and looked at the tanks and the lines. He told me that he'd have to rip everything out and start fresh, and gave me an estimate of just under $4400. And then added that he couldn't do it for a while. After some arguing and making a decision to leave one of the two stoves off the lines, he agreed to do it for "approximately $2200, if the existing lines are in good shape" and said that he could start the project on the 27th. I agreed, and contacted the Health Inspector to let him know that we had problems, and he'd have to delay his inspection.

Other than the propane incident, everything else seemed to start coming together nicely, although I was working by myself all day. Some of the more important accomplishments that I got done were:
- Set up an appointment with BDC (the Business Development Corporation) for Monday.
- Courier'd off the final official copy of the liquor license application, along with all of the required paperwork and forms and reports.
- Got some promotional certificates designed, and then had them printed at the university.
- Talked to Molson about their draught products, and made a decision to start carrying a second kind of draught (Rickard's White) to complement our current Rickard's Red.
- Rearranged some furniture within the restaurant, and rehung the door to the staff washroom.
- Built a number of super-heavy-duty shelves for the kitchen, which should be strong enough for people to dance on. Not that there will be people dancing on them, of course, but it would be unfortunate if a shelf came crashing down and smashed hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of plates.

All in all, although the restaurant didn't look the slightest bit cleaner at the end of the day, I felt like I had accomplished a lot.

Sleeping In

Thursday was not as constructive as I would have hoped. I was at work until 6am the previous night, so I slept until mid-morning. I had appointments with several people, but I had booked them all for 1pm and later, so it worked out pretty well.

I spent most of the afternoon running around, trying to get more paperwork out of the way for the licensing processes. Peter and Ralph came in and replaced the door going into Ducky's (the bar next door) for me, and also hung the two racks that we hang all of our wine glasses on. The ceiling where I wanted to hang them was made of a very light sheetrock, with no backing, so they had to get up inside the drop ceiling and put some wood reinforcements there, that the wine glass racks could grab onto.

In the evening, I did some painting on some shelving and doors, and built several new heavy-duty shelving units for the new kitchen. I spent some time setting up the bar, although since we don't have a liquor license yet, all I could do was put all of our "fake" wine bottles on display, to make it look good. We have a collection of several dozen old bottles from the past decade, all of which have been filled with water and red food colouring, and which have the corks glued back in place, so they make a nice display arrangement behind the bar. I also started to put the stove back together, installed some coat hook racks, and started to sort and rearrange some minor equipment. I am still confident that by the end of the weekend, the restaurant will start to look like a restaurant. As long as the propane gets hooked up in time, we should have a fully functional kitchen by Christmas Eve.