Starting, Owning and Marketing A Restaurant Blog|Starting and Owning a Restaurant - Construction, Planning, Marketing, Opening and Managing a New Restaurant

If you have followed the blog, you know we have been slowed to a creeping halt by the county while waiting on the restaurant construction permits to be issued. Our last hang-up was with a plan reviewer who was relatively new on the job, but had undertaken his bureaucratic responsibilities a little too seriously when he started to “interpret” the codes rather than just enforce the codes. This has been a five and a half week battle.

In any event, there was a meeting scheculed with the architect and general contractor with the mechanical plan reviewer for yesterday morning. The reviewer didn’t show up. Both the architect and contractor were livid and apparently expressed themselves loud enough for the Director of the department to overhear. The Director took it upon himself to disappear with the plans for about twenty minutes and reappear with them fully approved! All the items that the architect and contracter were there to argue were OK’d!

Luck or perseverance won the battle - we are not sure which. Construction in earnest started yesterday afternoon. In the next post pictures will be posted to show progress as we go along.

This morning the contractor and I will be developing a schedule to make sure all the sub-contractors, suppliers and tradesmen know we must make up time on this project. It will be a seven day a week plan.

Just when we thought things were getting ready to move to the demolition and construction stage, the HVAC contractor says the air handler for one of the A/C units must be moved from a closet in a stairwell to the main interior of the space. The only alternative is to take up about 10 square feet of the kitchen that will have to be re-designed. Losing any kitchen space is the same as losing seating - not good.

Yesterday we finally got the general contractor (the original), architect and HVAC contractor all together to finalize rough drawings. All three, of course wanted to tell me how busy they were. All three got my direct standard response to contractors - “If you don’t want this job or cannot meet the time frames of this job, tell me right now and we will part as friends. If you continue the “busy” routine and can’t devote the time to get this job done quickly, I will know and replace you - which is it?” All three decided they wanted to move forward.

The first portion of the drawings are to be done tomorrow for subssion to the county, landlord and municipality for permits to do two things; demolition and fireproof rating drywall on the supports for the second story space (not ours). This is tenant separation for fireproofing.

The rest of the drawings showing all the other steps will be done a week later. The remaining items to be included in the next set of plans includes:

• electrical
• HVAC
• plumbing
• grease trap
• gas lines
• hood installation
• seating
• equipment location
• walls
• restrooms

Restaurant plans are one of the most complicated to draw due to the wide range of utilities and equipment necessary to function. Multiple regulatory agencies complicate the permitting and planning even further.