Opening Soon. Seriously.

Finally, a date. We'll throw open the doors on Saturday, March 14. A day when, according to the weatherman, it will be cloudy and 48F. A hot cup of coffee on a day like that would be nice. We'll have it ready.

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of activity. Some items of note.
*The end of construction
*All permits signed off
*Certificate of Occupancy issued
*Second baker hired/started (more on the bakers very soon)
*Equipment repaired
*More equipment repaired
*Checkbooks balanced
*Almost 300 responses to online job ads
*Resumes reviewed, minds read, personalities dissected, work habits scrutinized
*Interviews scheduled and conducted
*Budgets checked
*Specialty flours delivered - we're like kids in a sandbox!
*Breads, cookies, and some pastries baked tested
*First batch of bagels baked (not good enough for sale, but still..)!
*Opening schedule planned
*First food order placed

Coming up: If you're in the area and happen by 22nd and Larimer in the first part of the week, you will see
*Signage going up. Window decals, the big "Hi*Rise", and the ubiquitous neon "OPEN"
*Boxes. And boxes. And boxes.
*Furniture being moved
*Samples being handed out. Seriously, if the door is open, poke your head in. If we have baked something recently, we'll be glad to share.

Pushing it

We've reached the point where almost everything is in the building but still constantly moving. An odd juggling act it is. The spiral mixer has to be in place to make sure the electrical connection is right, then all (600? 700?) lbs of it has to be moved because the ceiling above is going in. The bagel machine has to be taken apart for cleaning and new belts, put together temporarily to check placement and connections, then moved and taken apart again. It causes a certain level of brain damage. And it shows how this is such a business of details. The best part - seeing the plans become real, getting excited about baking/cooking in the space, seeing how the flow of equipment and raw materials will make the menu that's only been in mind and on paper til now.

Our Executive Baker, Jackie, and I had our first meeting with our food distributor today. The lineup of products they carry is mind boggling. Spent most of the time talking about food (as it should be) with a fair amount of packaging, cleaning supplies, and brand identity thrown in. Surprises - its 2009 and the options for unbleached/recycled paper products is pretty limited. They're out there. But it's cheaper, and often more acceptable, to have paper products bleached and virgin instead of brown and recycled. Buy brown. We're trying to source as many recycled paper and packaging options as possible. We'll recycle and compost too. If anyone reading this knows of a community garden or other group that would like waste for composting, contact Doug at info@hirisedenver.com.

Shouldn't this be simpler?

When you come in to the restaurant I hope you notice the floor. For a simple slab of concrete it sure became a pain in my a&& in January. We knew the floor had issues. In order to seal it to meet health code, we would have to grind it. "Grinding" the floor removes the top few millimeters of concrete. The floor grinder looks like your standard janitor floor buffer on steroids, which is a fair comparison. Once ground, the floor should be ready to finish.


To keep a long story short, the grinding worked but the finish process didn't. A chemical reaction (or two, or more) caused the floor to be cloudy and several professionals to claim "I've never seen this before". The remedy? Take it all off and start over. back to the grinding. What should have taken a week took almost a month and we lost valuable construction time, but there was no option to fix it later.

I describe the finished look as "leathery". The light colored specks you see in some photos are the aggregate (gravel) in the concrete. Normally you wouldn't see them, but they show themselves after grinding. Except for the time, this is what we had hoped for. Here are some photos of the finished project.

Next: cabinets and equipment.