Display Case - Hrumph

I like the sound of Hrumph, it expresses exactly how one feels at that time. I had couple of those moments this week.

From where we left off before, it was all about ensuring The Health people had the spec sheets on every item of equipment I would be using.

Oh yes, and arranging consequent purchases and deliveries. Well the coffee grinder has arrived, I must do some really fantastic organic coffee for the American tastes. Coffee maker, model and make has been decided upon. The dishwasher is in transit as I write, possibly not moving it is Sunday morning. However, there is always a BUT....

The Display Case.

What I want to do is really simple. This item is centre of attention in the shop. It contain the main star of the show, the glorious Pasty. The problem is that off the shelf warming cabinets are quite ugly. I want to replicate the beautiful cases that West Cornwall Pasties use (pictured above). They are just front, top, and sides glass, with chrome steel posts holding all together. Yes, they have them in the States, and I can get all the parts, a manufacturer in California makes them. I can have a local glass company order the parts and fit the glass.

However, the health people say I've got to buy a unit with a NSF, UL or ETL code compliance rating. I've asked how other larger outlets get use ones like the one above, and they do, to find its because the big players can NSF rate them themselves :-(

Hrumph.

Anyway quitting has never been part of my strategy, and neither is settling for second best. Actually that goes for most things really. So next week I'm going to try and find somebody who can build this and the NSF rate it for me.

For now we have an off the shelf model in the plans and that is being submitted. So the approval process can keep on going.

A bump in the road.

I wasn't long before the first bump in the road of 'planning application'!

Previously all 'food to go' and bakery planning apps went to the USDA, only being rubber stamped at The Dept of Health. I'd been told that by the Dept of Health and the architect had many previous projects that all had gone down that route. However not this time! The problem is that the detail level required by each organization is different, so the plans have to me amended. That means involving the engineers again, more time added to the timeline and of course more money.

The other part is that I need to have the full detailed spec sheets on every piece of equipment we will be using in the space, so i've been busy busy on the equipment front. Ebay Ebay Ebay!!!

On the marketing front, we made it into Viva Tysons mag. You can see it online, use the following link and its on page 20. Sometime further down the bumpy road it will be headlines!

Anyway, the bump in the road didn't make any wheels fall off. So the Pasty cart is still rolling.

Another small landmark. My architect (Paul) and I walked over the very detailed build out plans to the officials in the Vienna Planning Office. So that concludes getting a whole raft of ideas down on to paper and its all in black white drawings now. I suppose this is really a very visual statement of 'this is what we are going to do'.

Now we wait with bated breath on what the people who say Yes and No think of the whole venture.

Fingers crossed.

Eventually the dough divider arrived today. A piece of kit for splitting the dough in lovely equal sized pieces for the dough roller. Then we can have lovely consistent sized rounds of pastry for the pasty crusts.

This was the first piece of kit to be put directly in the new premises. Well at least stored there, the storage unit is full and Yas have moved out. So the landlord is letting me use the space ahead of time :-)

So unloaded it from the pick-up truck into its new home.

Now seeing the space empty really brings it home, that is going to be my work and life for some time to come.

That's a happy thought to end the evening.