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#Post#: 5328--------------------------------------------------
25 April 2018 - The Continental
By: Jack Date: April 25, 2018, 6:01 am
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Cathy and I have made some significant strides forward in
opening the new restaurant. We're planning on a grand opening
on 9 June at this point.
1) We hired a head chef. I've not decided what to call him yet.
His name is somewhat distinctive, and it might be important,
because he and his wife have three children - two boys and a
girl - whom I believe are between 9 and 12. His wife is also a
chef, and we're also hiring her. She's going to mostly be
working as the head chef when he's not there, but also sometimes
as his sous chef. They want the kids to finish school where
they are, which is part of the reason we're not opening until
June (other main reason is to give us time to do everything
right). He'll be spending weeks here and weekends at home, when
we're setting things up. He's already working with us on the
menu. Part of why we hired him is that he loves quiche and
frittatas.
2) We are going to serve alcohol. We've already started
applying for the license. We are NOT going to have a full bar.
When we were trying to decide, I looked up some things online,
and there are a large variety of bloody marys, and there are
many other drinks (alcoholic and non-) that are considered
brunch beverages. Besides that, we're going to be doing steak,
especially with dinner, as well as a number of salmon dishes, so
we're going to stock a variety of wines. Once we start seeing
what sells best, we can start concentrating, but I like to offer
something a little different.
3) we're working on the menus right now. We're actually
supposed to get together for lunch today and start putting
together the appetizers, which we can then send to the chef for
his thoughts and opinions.
4) I'm still working on the decor. I have to make some initial
decisions this weekend. While I have the main idea already in
mind, I'm torn between something that will be open and inviting
for the family for weekend brunch, and something quiet and more
intimate for evening meals.
5) With the chef and his wife, we have most of our management
staff in place and ready to go. We still need to hire one more
chef, a head bartender, and a maitre'd before we're ready to go.
Cathy is supposed to be interviewing for all three of those
positions over the next few days Hiring for the other positions
should be much simpler.
And that's about where we stand with things for now.
#Post#: 5330--------------------------------------------------
Re: 25 April 2018 - The Continental
By: kalico Date: April 25, 2018, 9:39 am
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That’s great news and I hope all goes well in finding the rest
of the staff ....
Sounds like it will be a very nice place....
Hugs kal
#Post#: 5332--------------------------------------------------
Re: 25 April 2018 - The Continental
By: db105 Date: April 25, 2018, 4:12 pm
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Much luck on this venture.
You won't do food delivery, will you? At least not to Spain...
:P
#Post#: 5333--------------------------------------------------
Re: 25 April 2018 - The Continental
By: Jack Date: April 25, 2018, 5:24 pm
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[quote author=db105 link=topic=531.msg5332#msg5332
date=1524690747]
You won't do food delivery, will you? At least not to Spain...
:P
[/quote]
Pretty sure we won't be going that far...
Actually, we wont' do deliveries at all. There is a service in
town that will buy food from a restaurant and deliver it to you,
but I've always found it ridiculously expensive. It seems to
work for some people, though.
#Post#: 5356--------------------------------------------------
Re: 25 April 2018 - The Continental
By: squarecutter Date: April 27, 2018, 5:05 am
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Knowing you have one or two keen chefs in your house . Do you
envisage any of your boysgoing into this business
#Post#: 5363--------------------------------------------------
Re: 25 April 2018 - The Continental
By: Jack Date: April 27, 2018, 2:03 pm
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[quote author=squarecutter link=topic=531.msg5356#msg5356
date=1524823548]
Knowing you have one or two keen chefs in your house . Do you
envisage any of your boysgoing into this business
[/quote]
Van and Ryan both have too many other interests. Tommy and Noah
are both pursuing other goals. Kenny might, but it's hard to be
a chef and enjoy it. For most of them, unless they're really
good, it's just another job.
#Post#: 5389--------------------------------------------------
Re: 25 April 2018 - The Continental
By: Jack Date: April 28, 2018, 10:11 am
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We made quite a few decisions, and got quite a bit of work done,
these last few days.
1) We delayed the Grand Opening. We're hoping to open 16 June,
with the official Grand Opening the 22nd. Jurassic Park: Fallen
Kingdom opens that weekend, so the theaters should be busy.
We're running a promotion that weekend, advertising our specials
before the movies start, and offering discounts to anyone who
brings in a ticket stub (actually - probably a free drink or
appetizer).
2) We delayed things, because we're doing some major
renovations, which should take an entire week. Because this was
a bar, there weren't many windows (and those had been covered).
Our contractor (Mr. Mintz - Joe's dad) is going to take out part
of those walls and install large windows.
As I said, we're going to do the lower half (or so) of the wall
in wood paneling. We're going with walnut for that, then 'light
walnut' for the floor (laminate tile, not actually hardwood
flooring). The upper wallpaper will be a gold brocade (or maybe
damask?), and the posters we hang will be in walnut frames. In
the mornings and afternoons, when the weather is good, the
natural lighting should work with the gold and cream wallpaper
to make the place warm and bright. We're going to go with
walnut, vertical wood slat blinds over the windows, so when the
weather's bad, we can shut it out. During dinner, we'll use
adjustable lighting to give the place a warm, cozy feel. The
rest of the time, we'll have the lights up, to make it feel more
open.
3) The other reason we're delaying a couple of weeks is we
decided to take over the business next door, so we can put in a
bar and a serving area for the buffet. We had to persuade the
business next to us to move, but since I own the building, I was
able to move him to the other end, a slightly larger location,
while leaving his lease the same. That worked out well for both
of us.
Besides the standard buffet items in a warming table, we're also
going to have an omelet/egg bar and a waffle/pancake grill.
We're considering a third grill to do meat to order. We won't
be as cheap as someplace like Golden' Coral's breakfast buffet,
but we plan to be much better. Of course, we'll also be
offering the full menu, when the buffet is served.
4) As for the bar, we decided to make it a bit larger than we
originally intended. It turns out that there are a lot of
possibilities when it comes to breakfast appetizers, so we're
going to put in a seating area where people can just stop in and
get a drink and an appetizer, rather than sitting for a full
meal. We're ordering fairly generic tables there, so if that
area doesn't do enough business, I can easily sell them to one
of my other businesses, and we can just expand seating for the
regular tables.
I think that's it for now.
#Post#: 5537--------------------------------------------------
Re: 25 April 2018 - The Continental
By: Jack Date: May 5, 2018, 5:15 pm
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We have been very busy the last few days. Cathy and I have been
working to finalize the layout of the menu. I'll spare you all
the details, but it's not going to be small. We will have a
drinks, dessert, and appetizer menu, and a dinner menu as well.
Mr. and Ms. Acosta and their kids came to town this weekend (Mr.
A came in yesterday morning). Ms. White - our head mixologist,
Mr. Mintz - my contractor, and a couple of other people have
also been involved. Since we are installing some new equipment
(which Mr. Mintz will be doing), we walked through everything to
finalize the layout. We haven't finalized the menu yet, but we
have things laid out pretty much like we want them, and Mr.
Acosta and Ms. White will be supplying us with what we need to
know to make the final printing this week - still well ahead of
the Grand Opening.
At this point, Cathy and I have some details to settle upon, but
we're at the point where we can pretty much kick back and leave
everything up to others. We just have to keep an eye on a few
things, and everything should run by itself - knock wood. It's
been fun, but there's not much left for me to do now until I
start eating.
#Post#: 5555--------------------------------------------------
Re: 25 April 2018 - The Continental
By: kalico Date: May 6, 2018, 1:19 pm
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Sounds like things are running smoothly with the restaurant and
I hope things still keep upto schedule on that front.......
sounds like it will be a very nice place
Hugs kal
#Post#: 5724--------------------------------------------------
Re: 25 April 2018 - The Continental
By: Jack Date: May 16, 2018, 4:34 am
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I have been meaning to update about the restaurant, and since I
was asked about it yesterday, this seems like a good time.
Last Monday (7 May) we took delivery of most of the
fixtures/appliances for the kitchen/bar/serving area.
Lat me pause here to say that this was a restaurant before it
was a bar. The bar had been there a long time, and some of the
restaurant areas had just been shut down. That means that some
things - like the freezer - had to be completely redone to be
useable. All that type of stuff has been going on in the
background.
8 May - Mr. Mintz and Mr. Acosta (my contractor (and Joe and
Nick's Dad) and the head chef for the restaurant) had sat down
over the weekend prior and decided on the layout. On this day,
Mr. Mintz and his crew finished setting everything up, and
specialist came out to hook it all up.
9 May - Inspectors were there to make sure everything was
installed correctly.
10 May - Flooring was put down in the kitchen/bar/buffet areas.
11 May - Flooring/wallpaper/wainscotting was put down in the
dining areas, while the other areas set.
Weekend off.
14 May - We took delivery of the booths, tables, and chairs.
At this point, we're waiting for installation of the computer
system, and we still need delivery for a few more
fixtures/pieces of furniture, but, for the most part, we're
ready to start. We still have nearly five weeks until we open,
but we still have to hire and train most of the staff, take
delivery of all the small stuff, then get things tested, fine
tuned, and finalized. Over all, we're running a bit ahead of
where I'd hoped to be, and everything is looking good.
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