It is now the middle of March and I am neither ahead of schedule nor behind it. Such is the beauty of having no timeline. Now having said that, I do have some idea of when I want this project to end. I have set the date of April 15 as my “be sorta done” date with May 1 as my “gotta be done” date. Experience has taught me that nothing in the remodel business is ever done when we want it. As a general rule the “twice as long” and “twice as much” theory still applies. So how am I doing? Time wise it looks OK, after this is my first try as a general contractor. With the exception of any exterior work, I should be done with my interior work by May 1. At some point in the next 3 weeks I will have finished any remodel work including modifications to the kitchen, tiling, painting, booth repairs, lighting, minor plumbing and carpeting. After that I am in position to do all the final work such as general cleaning, bar setup, ordering any needed small-wares. For our restaurant, that also means setting up the 15 wine racks that we have ordered plus all the needed wine to fill it. Add to that such things as point of sale equipment, last minute refrigeration repairs and the myriad of last minute items to be done such as menus, hanging art work, installing new table tops, carpet cleaning and whatever else. It’s the “whatever else” that you have to watch out for.

Years ago when I opened my first restaurant, I was both construction guy, dishwasher as well as chef de cuisine. The remodel has been smooth and by the time opening night came I felt pretty good about my impending success. I had spent two days making my food preparations for that first night. My stocks and sauces had been simmering for hours, my meat and fish where cut, my appetizers where prepped and all of my prep lists had been checked and double checked. I was ready! Or so I thought. The first customer walked in and sat down. Several minutes later my first ticket came back to the kitchen. And then it dawned on me that I had forgotten to prep any vegetables for the coming night. Hell I hadn’t even ordered any vegetables for opening night. How could I have made such an obvious blunder like this?  Hell, I was a Cordon Blue trained chef….my only vegetables in the restaurant consisted of carrots, celery, onions and garlic which I had used to make my stocks for my sauces. My partner at the time was not aware of my ‘faux-pas’, he only new that my mood had gone from anxious to pissy in a matter of seconds. I raced around the kitchen trying how best to cover my error knowing full well that time was no longer my ally. I fessed up to my partner about my lack of vegetables and he looked at me like I was a moron, which I was. And so I hurried up some slightly raw sautéed carrots and my first customer waited the better part of 40 minutes for their meal. By the end of the night I had done 12 customers and it had seemed like 120. As work came to a close that first night, my partner and I where finishing up the last of the dishes (we couldn’t afford a dishwasher back then) and he looked at me and asked, “It get easier than this, doesn’t it?”

That was 30 years ago and I guess that explains why I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about what I need to do the next day. It also explains why I now hire people to do the cooking.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 25th, 2010 at 5:09 pm.
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