A hive of activity

The build out is all coming together nicely. Jose, the main man has it all under control. The main point being we have knocked the two big openings into the central supporting wall. In fact it was more than a supporting wall, it was previously the external wall of the building. We even found a dated signature, drawn in the cement of with a finger saying; 'Nicky A 08-23-1964'. This was the current landlord aged 8! I was just 3 and summering in my hometown of Nantwich, Cheshire. The openings for the new bathroom and the retail area had a few minor issues, but the project is more or less on time, potentially being around 5-6 days behind. Still pretty good.

As you can see from the picture; we called in on a Friday evening and the team were still hard at work. The back of the kitchen was even getting a coat of paint, so everything is starting to look like it will when we are in production.

I then left the guys to it and went for a week back home in the UK, despite Delta airlines efforts to bungle as much as they could on my travel plans. Anyway it was all in the name of market research, tasting pies, pasties and sausage rolls. I can confirm that they all still tasted as good as when I left. It gave me all the more determination to match them over here in Virginia.

While I was away, we had our proposal for external signs approved by the Town Hall in Vienna. First problem here was we wanted to hang a swinging sign outside, but for some reason we aren't allowed to do that on our area of the street. Seems odd that it's allowed on the main part of Church St but not our part that is set back a little. So there were last minute amendments for that. The people at Banana Banner we really good about all these last minute changes, as I stood in the Town Hall making amendments with only minutes to go before the submission deadline.

The second problem was that somewhere in the discussions it got a little lost that I was supposed to present the proposal in person to the Board of Architectural Review at their next meeting. Paul the architect who is on the BAR phoned me while I was in the UK to see if I was coming along. Thankfully the BAR people were fantastic and allowed Paul to step down from the review board for my proposal and present. He wouldn't have voted anyway, having a vested interest in my project.

Anyway with one minor caveat it was approved and we can proceed.

Tomorrow, we go over the final stage of the schedule in detail. That's the all important final sign-offs from the various inspections. All mid term inspections have been good, so nothing has raised it's head yet. When we have satisfied all the final inspections i.e. we have done what we said we would. Then we get our certificate of occupancy and business license. That means party and pasty tasting sessions and open doors.

We have a target date written in pencil for September 10th for the opening. Let's see if tomorrow will prove that to be a realistic date.