Opening - that was fun.

I'm not sure if the correct word is hectic or frantic, but that was wild and fun ride. The only analogy I can make is like tackling the toughest run in the ski resort. The preceding weeks were like the chair lift taking up to the top, probably followed by a hike to get really hard section. Then strapping on your board and looking down at something that is mighty more scary than when you suggested it over a beer at lunchtime. Then there is no choice, you just have to go. You have to give it your best shot because the alternative is just not pleasant at all.

So, on Thursday we had a wonderful party full of friends and family. Many were friends made along the Pure Pasty team (above). It's no longer just me with a wild notion about selling Cornwall's classic dish in the South East of the US. Joshua 'Head Chef' Andrus has been a stalwart now for months. Coming from Michigan he is no stranger to pasties. Mike Smith (my brother-in-law) has been ready to come on board from launch. Then Nicola just wandered into the shop, a Brit living in Vienna, complete with Chef skills and kitchen management (a god send). A certainly not the least; the ever supporting and loving Jen, who has suffered me banging on about pasties for years, then worked all the long hours of Friday, Saturday & Sunday to get us up and running

The party was a fun filled event, we got the bunting out that my mum had sent for the occasion. The British meet up group turned out in force which was wonderful support

. In fact everybody turning up was a spectacular effort as North Virginia's weather had turned from summer into torrential rain all day long. In

fact we had water dripping in from a number of places.

After the party we had to get up really early on the first day of 'go live'.

The problem was that we prepared well for the

party and had work doubly hard to make stock for day 1. We were late opening. It was 12:00 before we flung the doors open. I feared a slow day and having reassure myself that trade will pick up as we go along. The first customer, a wonderful lady, presented me a dollar to mount as my first earned in the business, and promptly ordered 12 pasties. That set the tone for the day brilliantly. We were playing catch up all day long, just making pasties as quick as we could and baking them straight away. As soon they were

coming out of the oven they were selling from the sheet pans, some not even getting a stay in the hot display that had caused me so much heart ache.

Jen did a wonderful job on the till with brother Mike, customer service skills sprang out that I never knew existed. Josh and Nicola were bashing out pastry and ingredients like crazy. Josh has been an absolute star in every aspect in the lead up. Now he was in his element and Nicola was just the support he needed. She even went home and came back with her daughter so she could work much later than we had agreed.

At the end of the day we were

all exhausted, but we had made and sold nearly 200 of little beauties, and Facebook had given some excellent feedback.

The next few days were still going well after the storm of interest on day one. All the local businesses are being really supportive, and we are getting lots of custom from the bike shop next door. A pasty is a great meal for a hungry cyclist after doing a long stretch of the Washington Old Dominion trail.

Now to clean the shop with Mike and close up day 3. Tomorrow is our scheduled close day, and time to sort out all the bugs in our processes.

For all of you who use Twitter we are now going to start tweeting when we get the cart up and running, plus when we start adding to the 'soft launch' menu. We only did 3 to start and intend to build to 6. Plus Sausage rolls of course, as so many people have requested.

Opening Oct 1st!

Last week was hectic, simply hectic. We completed all our inspections, and many thanks to all who assisted. Jose who made all the arrangements and then guided a lot of the inspectors around the facilities, and the inspectors for turning up on time and doing a great job. Paul (the architect mastermind) and I walked the certificate of occupancy application over to Vienna Town Hall on Friday, once that is completed we can serve the wonderful public.

So that means we are shooting for our first day of trading on Friday October 1st!

Our aim is to serve you lunch to go, so the doors will open at 11:00.

We will apply for permission for some seating but that change will come after we have obtained the certificate of occupancy. One thing at a time is the best way forward. After all the pasty is ultimate 'food to go' item.

Josh has been a star all around the place last week, and on Friday we capped off the day by baking some of our recipes. Our neighbor John (Bikes@Vienna) kept popping in to help with taste testing and was mumbling approval with a mouth full of 'Traditional Style - beef, potato, onion.

We had a few nervous moments as Vulcan ovens gave us a few teething problems. Miriam at Yas Bakery sprang into action referring a couple of great technicians who have sorted out those problems. However, that was a real scare and threatened our live date of October 1st.

Now we are fingers crossed that the gremlins are out of the system and we can just get on with what we love - cooking great food.

Our launch will probably be a soft launch, limiting our menu slightly at first, so we can give our full attention to a smaller number of our pasty options. Then the others will be added, giving people a growing choice, and nobody will get bored. Actually it's really difficult to get bored of pasties, ask all people in UP Michigan. One friend we spoke recently said that they out sell pizza up there. So I'm sure the wonderful people of Virginia will take to them really easily.

Must go there are 101 things to do today so we can hit that date!

See you all soon.

And the inspections roll on.

I took some snaps while we were waiting for some of the inspections to show how things are looking. On the left here we have the lovely retail area, and where the lovely pasties will be baked. The infamous warm display unit is now in place and I'm getting to like it now. Paul the architect likes it, but is still complaining about my acquisition of an old Quiznos open air merchandiser. I had to save money for that superb Vulcan oven in the corner, they don't come better than that beast. The hood above the oven and now all the air conditioning mechanicals have passed the final inspections so we breath a big sigh of relief.

Also you can see the drinking fountains are in place,

these were delaying the final plumbing inspection

but that is now all completed.

Then we are now hung up on the electrical inspection. We had been calling for final inspection all last week with no response. On Tuesday they came, but it appears we have to change some sockets to contain their own circuit breakers. That work was done immediately, we had to sit it out through Wednesday, and then today we got the little signed sticker.

Just as the electrics were all signed off, the Health Dept person arrived. Annette is great to work with, and all our work met with her approval :-) So today was a very good day.

It's not all over yet though, we have the buildings inspector to come tomorrow (Friday) and then the Fire Marshall. Both vital and important.

Anyway, on the right is the beautiful open kitchen, may it always stay in this wonderful state.

Except full of pasties being stuffed with gorgeous organic goodies.

The Final Countdown

Oh look at the nice new signs! We now have the shop front all neatly decorated with new signs and I think it looks good. So when you all come to find me I should stand out a little. Let's tick that one off the list.

As many of you would have gathered, back in early August we set a target date of September 10th for opening, but we are a long way behind in getting all our sign-offs. Thankfully there are no problems in the work that has been this far, but the sign-off schedule keeps on extending.

We have been ready for electrical sign-off since Thursday last week and we await the inspector.

Paul added some more detail on the drawings for the Mechanical people and today we are requesting that they sign-off.

Plumbing is delayed by the late delivery of our water fountains, then the wrong one arrived, that should be sorted out by this Friday.

Once those 3 are finished we can have the buildings inspector in to check the construction work for one last time.

Then it's the Fire Marshall, and the Health Dept.

We are going to resist setting another date until we have have the green light from the Health Dept. We think we have got everything right and bang on to the original plan, but it's fingers crossed and hope it's all smooth running.

Meanwhile we are pushing for the internet and telephone connectivity to be completed, so we can talk to the outside world.

We have fired up most of the equipment, and after a few nervous moments with the freezer, all seems to be OK.

So the BIG question everybody is asking is WHEN WILL IT OPEN?

As soon as we have the go ahead with the Health people, you will be the first to know.

Of course PARTY invites will be sent to all for the evening before the first official day.

The Hood.

Ok. I agree, not the most impressive photo in the world, but..... This is the extractor hood that deals with the heat from the ovens. It is all an equation of temperature, air coming into the building via the HVAC and air going out via the extractor hood. It's not a subject that will make your day reach a crescendoof excitement, but to me this week it was very important.

That's hood over there on the left, at least the bit you see inside the shop, and yesterday it passed it's code inspection.

Hip Hip Hooray for the hood, or rather Jose and team who put it all together.

That code inspection is a major tick in the box on the schedule towards opening. So a big sigh of relief from me.

Next we have electric and plumbing, before the highly important health inspector.

The food warmer display unit, has been the subject of many headaches for the front of shop solutions. I had eventually had to settle on one that was a ready made option, rather than the bespoke idea I really wanted. Then when I ordered it, I nearly had a heart attack. At first the distributor company said all was fine and took the order. Then proceeded to tell me 4 days later there would be a 98 day delivery time. So I looked elsewhere and other places said it was in stock at the manufacturer, (nobody keeps stock themselves). Eventually it boiled down to confusion on their ordering dept regarding part numbers. The original manufacturer was Anvil and it had changed to Vollrath (aren't they a heavy metal band?) causing a change in id numbers and the sales people got confused and caused me a minor panic attack.

Panic never lasts long thankfully.

So onward and upward.

We have our shopping list for all the goodies that go into a pasty. So now let's go shopping.

Ohhh look at the shiny Cart

Now it's time focus on the project within the project. THE FOOD CART. It has always been a very large part of the plan to get on board with the gourmet food cart revolution that is becoming so popular in our cities.

I had been busy from day 1 highlighting the g

eographical areas to start this retail arm in. It was decided at a very early stage that the Ballston area in Arlington was an excellent location. The Arlington authorities are very much in favor of this street scene, and there a some very successful enterprises proving that the concept works.

So, having checked out the code and spoken to the nice people in the Arlington police department (Pilar is a star) I new exactly what I was looking for. It was a Custom Cart DC650. I visited their factory in New Jersey early on in the year to see what they could do. Jay Celona gave every confidence, being the kind of person that will find a solution to make anything work.

Since then I was lucky with a find of 2nd hand cart in excellent condition. It was totally clean, it had never even been cooked in. All it needed was the addition of an oven with a warm display unit. Plus in U.S terms it wasn't far away, West Chester PA. So after a couple trips up I95 I had bought it, then moved it to Jay's factory in NJ to have the necessary ovens fitted. Friday was the big day to tow it back 4.5 hours down the wonderful I95, finishing with welcome home of the rush hour traffic on the DC beltway.

Eventually we had it parked up in the lot outside the shop, and it's just waiting for the Pure Pasty logo make over, courtesy of the Banana Banner (signs with appeal - great strapline) people.

So the plan is we open the bakery, get the pasties rolling off the beautiful marble pastry tables, then the cart opens up in Arlington (Ballston to be precise) for lunchtime service. Later we'll open the cart up to weekend events, sports, music and wine festivals. I'm guessing a twitter account is going to come into play to let everybody know where we are going to be. This seems to be the communication method of choice in the gourmet cart world. So pasty lovers, you'll have 2 locations to get your hands on the UK's greatest food to go item.

In Vienna we are still aiming for September 10th. You can see from the picture, there are improvements everyday. We have now started the joinery on the counter area. This week we ran through the sign offs that we require leading to the big target of 'Certificate of Occupancy'. At this stage the date is still achievable, but it really does do depend on gaining those sign-offs. I think each one will be met with a cheer and probably a glass of something to celebrate with. Paul has done a great job with the plans, and Jose has been equally good at converting those from paper to a tangible premises. So I'm confident any problems won't be in the way for long.

This next week, it's all about finalizing the menu for the promotional material, and internal signs/decor. Plus - Business Insurance, burglar alarms, fire alarms, internet and phone access ..... the list goes on.

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.