The Planning Process

Last Wednesday was spent running back and forth from our architects office, to the building department, the planning department, and the health department, trying to orchestrate everyone and make sure one hand knew what the other hand was doing, so to speak. Everything went relatively smooth--we thought--and it wasn't until we sat down to eat that the emails started to fly from the architect regarding a change the building department told us to make on our plans before we submitted them. The head hombre at building told us that the code-type the architect picked for us was wrong (maybe not wrong, but not the most strategic pick for our size and use) and he strongly urged us to change it to another, one that would treat us as a smaller operation (less code requirements, i.e. exits, bathrooms, etc).
So we ended up changing and then later going back to the guy at building and having him walk us through this new choice and its ramifications for health, planning, ABC, etc. So he went and got his boss and a few other code guys and they ALL agreed that we should be classified as such. The architect stood his ground and said we could possibly screw ourselves down the road by changing it and the city code guys stood their ground saying we are crazy to listen to the architect.

Yeah, I know, a mess.

So all this to say we're not out of the woods yet. However our 30 day notice for change of use has been submitted and as long as no one in the neighborhood objects to there being a wine bar and cafe in their neighborhood we can operate. BUT, the letter went out to nearly 1000 homes and businesses (yes, we have to pay for postage, yikes!)so it only takes one person to file an objection that would result in a minimum 60-day delay.

The construction presses on....we'll be done well before this whole thing gets solved so stay tuned. --JK


Another Walrus sighting. Notice his shirt, it's a gangster Scooby Doo with a gold grill throwing rolled up hundreds into the air. I asked The Walrus why he's wearing the shirt and he just pointed to the hundred dollar bills and grinned.










Some progressive photography of Ricky climbing into a soffit looking for an electrical feed.


Our good friend Dre from the Fillmore Center Engineering team. This guy is a rock solid dude and one of the hardest working guys we've had the pleasure of knowing.


Our kitchen looking a whole lot better since the primer was put on.


Most of the drywall is up. Still waiting for a few more pieces.



My buddy Judd Schneider and his lady visiting the FA space on their long weekend in Frisco from Boston. Judd's a great friend from college and one of the funniest guys I know. Thanks for swinging by Juddley!


Another drywall shot. Can't get enough of the white.


El Hefe Sifu. Again, this cat has the kids gloves on for our space. Way beneath his level of work.




Our electrical upgrade. $10k of copper wire.

Hey, what are you doing? We need that.

We ripped the front of the store out and built this temporary wall to cover it all up. New Storefront is in the works.



Tommy and Ricky chipping out some plaster to make a groove.


The Great Wall Van. Where all the magic happens.


Tommy and Ricky with a big ol' DeWalt drill


A-Rod, aka, Alex the Papagayo. New addition to the crew.


No mas storefront.

Less Words More Pictures

So we're spending the majority of this week fixing the permitting issues I spoke of last post. I don't have the time to wax poetically over our struggles but suffice to say we're fixing the problem. So stay tuned for the good news! Enjoy the progress below...


Remember this pink wall? Gone. Here Eddy the Guat is doing some work on making it silky smooth.


Giving the bar a test run. This is the ADA part of the bar. Built lower for the wheel chairs.


We got our sinks the other day. This will be our hand sink. We received our mop and prep sinks as well as the big daddy 3-bin sink too.


A small change order to uncover a fire sprinkler hatch that we covered up. We're still trying to figure out how to maintain the integrity of the original design seeing as now there's a 3' notch in a perfect rectangular dropped ceiling.


Finished soffit repair. We're still trying to figure out how to maintain the integrity of the original design seeing as now there's a 3' notch in a perfect rectangular dropped ceiling.


old school tools for a master carpenter. Nothing but the best Japanese steel for Robert. a.k.a, The Chinese Jesus


Chisels and a wood hammer. This guy's from another time.


This is the beginning of our wine storage shelving unit. A little cubby hole for each bottle.


Soon to be a 144 bottle rack.


Cyrick getting involved in the painting process. More on him than the walls. Rookie.


Slowly but surly the pink is disappearing. Couldn't happen to a nicer color.


Tommy and Eddy the Guat putting up the first piece of ceiling drywall.


Eddy the Guat muggin' for the camera. Hard working hombre.


Can't get enough pictures of the disappearing pink and orange.


This is primer on the walls so another color will be gracing FA's walls. Whites a little too sterile for what we're going to be doing.


--JK

Weekly Set Back

It seems every week starts the same: Monday the fires are set ablaze, Tuesday thru Friday are spent putting out the fires. I don't spend a lot of time getting into the details of what we deal with during our day-to-day as I want to keep these reports upbeat and positive, but suffice to say if I had tear ducts and a shoulder I'd be using them both. However, Cyrick and I have developed some really thick skin in the past two years and few things phase us to the point of paralysis, subsequent breakdown and then total meltdown. It's like the part in Forest Gump where Captain Dan is in the crows nest of the shrimping boat during the hurricane, yelling and chiding the gods to bring their worst. At the end of a week we typically look at each each and say, "It's going to take a God-given miracle for this place to open". And I don't say that in jest, either.

So our week started with the SF Planning department denying our health permit application on the grounds that our current use allowance is not permitted without a 30-day neighborhood notification for a change in use. Now, this isn't news to us. We spent what amounts to a new Ford Mustang on an architect in SF, our landlords recommendation, to figure all of this out for us some 4 months ago. Short story long, the architects strategy backfired and here we stand 30 days from opening and we can't serve food. Oh, and of course our beer and wine license is connected to all of this too so we can't even get you liquored up. So we're in triage now to get this ship back on course.

So the show goes on. We put together a new strategy to deal with the problem and it's the best we can do with the time and resources we have left.

Here are a few shots of some more wine tastings we've done this week and last.


1) David McFaden is a friend who has a keen pallet for the French grape juice. He joined Di and I at the famous Kermit Lynch wine merchant for tasting.


Shot of Daniel (our wine rep), Dave and Di at the end of the tasting. We got a few parting gifts as well, Kermit Lynch t-shirts.


Daniel was very generous at this tasting. He allowed us to roam their wine shop and select 13 bottles to taste. We had some very beautiful wines this afternoon. Thanks KL!



Jeffrey from Farm Wine Importers tasted us through a solid selection of French wines that, again, showed tremendous depth and character.


Raphael Knapp from International Vineyards was another Francophile that has a really interesting book of small French producers. Many of whom are the younger generation of French wine makers who are not doing it the way their parents and grandparents did. Makes for some interesting wine.



Richard from Vine Connections showed us all the goods coming out of Argentina. After tasting mainly French juice during the day this was a great change of pace. Completely different styles as you can imagine.

Working with the construction team

Getting to work two crew of guys in our space is very interesting indeed. Each of them possess a set of skills with cross training in other areas. But they all play a part in complimenting each other.

Most of the time Ricky is the one that delegates the work to Tommy and Eddie. Tommy sometimes voices his opinion when he gets a shot in the area he's strong in. I didn't get to see Eddie in the role of a foreman until the boys are furring out our exterior wall. Apparently Eddie's expertise is in the area of building cement walls. Interesting.

Eddie putting Ricky and Tommy in place. (Ricky on far left in the background, Tommy in the middle, and the boss at the moment on the right, Eddie)

Tommy in charge mixing the dough.

Things take shape when people decide to work together. Whip em' Eddie. Whip em' into shape.

I tried climbing up the scaffold. It doesn't look so bad from the ground looking up, but it's a different view when you're on top. We're going to let the pro's do their work.

Benihana's New Chef

The San Francisco Health Department is the one city office that we need to make really happy during this build out. Their list of do's and don'ts is mind-boggling. 80% of the requirements I get, the other 20% are debatable. The phrase that has been jammed into our heads from the beginning is, "smooth and washable". This is really their main hot button. Everything from the ceiling to the walls to the floor needs to fit into this mantra. Eric Mar is our inspector and we've gotten to know him well. Our thought process goes something like this: Keep Eric in the loop, call him, email him, stop by his office, constantly be in contact with him every step of the way. I can imagine most people just go ahead without really involving their health inspector and hope that when they get their final inspection they will have everything. We'd rather have Eric tell us something's wrong sooner than later. It's a whole lot cheaper to get it right the first time. He's actually saved us from our assumptions more than once.

So in honor of being smooth and washable, here's a video of the crew chipping paint from the walls in the kitchen. There's a slight texture pattern to the wall in the kitchen--not to mention the hideous color--that didn't pass muster with the HD so we're exposing the concrete to prep for primer and paint. Some of the more tedious work performed to date. --JK

HVAC!

When most people move to SF they're blown away to find that most buildings/houses don't have central heat or air.  Some may not even realize it until the temperature actually goes above 75 and they start looking for the thermostat.  Live in San Francisco for any length of time and spend a summer or two here and you realize that we live in one huge air conditioned city.  Gone are the days of sweating through a shirt or wearing short pants and sandals in August, you learn quickly that it's 60 degrees year round whether you like it or not.  So all this to say the HVAC install was completed today and we have AC.  Again, we probably won't use it very often but it's sweet to have.  So here are some shots of the finished product.

 

1) Fresh air in kitchen exhaust out.  2) Main intake that sits on the top part of the wall in the bar area

1) Another shot of the duct work.  2) HVAC crew installing the condensing unit. 

1) Condensing unit waiting patiently for his new home.

2) Condensing unit perched on its new nest.