All steps in the right direction.

Well the big news is that the Landlord and I have signed the contract, so we are now legally tied to the Vienna location, and I'm most happy with that. I really like Vienna, the more I see of the area the more I like. This is also going be the target area for the house hunt.

The current plan is that the landlord will have the premises for February while a number of construction and power supply issues are addressed. However we have let Beyrouz have an extra few days to help with his move. He's the sitting tenant and he's been massively helpful to me on equipment so far. So that's no problem.

In the last week the big steps were mostly in equipment acquisitions :

I've now bought the dicer for the veg, a big old Robot Coupe R6X and boy can it chop. Devastated a couple of spuds in an instant. I also got the dough roller, a Somerset CDR 1100, great little machine. Finally on Wednesday I bough a Scotsman Ice Maker, this will churn out the ice for the cart that will keep the drinks cool. All are now safely in the basement.

Tomorrow, I pick up the mixer and the big fridge. The mixer weighs around 900 lbs, so this is going to be really fun.

I will report back on the state of my back in a couple of days.

Drawing and design.

I've covered the Cheesetique part and although it's bound to get a mention here and there, from now on it's mostly Pasty Business.

The best thing I did after deciding on the Vienna location was get rid of my first architect. Hamid was a nice enough guy, but he just didn't seem to know much in the way of local code issues, and worst of all was a nightmare to get hold of via e-mail or phone. So I brought in a local guy from Vienna, who had done a lot of the very successful businesses in the neighborhood. I could see his work was excellent in the terms of being aesthetically very pleasing, but he knew all the local code compliance points. I was quickly learning that in the land of free there are a lot of rules and regulations. Also, he had a working relationship with both Nick the landlord and business that was moving out (across the road). Having satisfied myself there was no conflict of interests, this seemed to tie things together very neatly. Most problems in life are caused miscommunication and this seems to have worked very well so far with all parties very much on the same page. This made the discussion of lease terms, conditions and time lines so very much easier, everybody knew what the other people needed.

Before long we had a layout down on paper on how floor space would be divided out, to give the best process flow and impression to the public. We are going to use the Vienna space for 2 functions.

1) Production and initial point of sale.

2) Production for loading a cart that will be initially dispatched to the Ballston.

The space we had divided neatly into an open production area that can be easily viewed buy the public purchasing in the shop. A model I had in mind based on a shop in St Ives from my Cornwall fact finding mission. I can recap that later.

We also built the foundation of the image extending the colours from the logo very professionally designed by my very talented daughter. Now we started building on the foundations of organic content, local suppliers etc. Getting as far away from the image of nasty savoury pie as you can get.

Eventually we had a plan that we could submit to the contractors to get some quotes on how it was going to take to achieve this. I have to say we didn't put anything over the top on the table. I was all functional stuff and all that had to be done to comply with code. e.g. The ceiling has to change. Even though the current place deals with food prep, the ceiling doesn't comply, it needs to be smooth. Just like the bathroom used to comply for disabled use, but now it doesn't. The main problem is, as soon as you change 10% of building space and apply for building permits, it triggers a whole raft of code checks. This will be a pain in the backside for next few months, but a necessary evil that cannot be changed or shifted.

My fiscally shrewd northern attitude was coming to the fore and there are now many spreadsheets monitoring costs etc. How Much??? A cry I introduced to France with C'est Combien??? Is now to become part of the North Virginia vocabulary.

We've had a plan one on the table. Now we are on plan 2 as we've changed a few things that will simplify areas and cut the cost down. I reckon we are pretty much there on the design. I'll find a way to post the final plans so all can see.

Enough rambling for now. There will be more later as bring the whole project progress up to date.

Progress, work and holidays.

Well it's been a while, and I'm guilty of not keeping people up to date.

Lots of small things have been happening, then it was Christmas/New Year. That involved lots of work at Cheesetique.

Ah yes, I've not mentioned that so lets start there.

Back in October, I'd pretty much got the business plan all laid out, and the Implementation plan down on paper, so I was running through the motions of checking all the detail and going through many of the tasks that were sequential. I was getting into the zone of having time to spare, and as much as I love a round of golf, its doesn't pay anything (the opposite) and I learn very little (except how to search for your ball in the trees). So I started applying for temporary work, hoping to get something in the retail area to enhance my experience. Previous people experience was dealing with awkward sods in IT or unhappy IT users (happy IT users are the most silent people on the planet). This resulted in CHEESETIQUE.

I got really lucky. This really cool up market Cheese and Wine Shop/Bar needed people, and my availability suited the job. Apparently, they wanted an English accent on board, but couldn't afford anybody posh, so went down market and got yours truly in the bargain basement section. Anyway most Americans still ask me if I'm Australian! I have to reply with the defence that my Grandfather did nothing wrong, or at least nothing they could prove.

So, I became a cheese monger for about 30 hrs a week. Great experience and fun. I thought I knew a bit about cheese and wine, but what I knew could fit on the back of a postage stamp, and what I needed to know was a library. At this point an English accent combined with a natural talent to bullshit worked splendidly. It seems customers will believe most things I say.

What I did learn was a whole host of things that need to be done to operate in a retail environment, serving people, ordering, invoicing, point of sale software etc. It was tremendously busy in the holiday season, Thanks Giving, Christmas and New Year, but great fun. Now Tommy (the assistant manager) has to move up to New York with his wife, and I'm going to fill in for him, while I launch my own place and they find another manager.

Anyway, need to go to lunch now. I'm out in rural Virginia enjoying the weekend off.

So more in the next few days.