Pumpkins

There haven't been a lot of dramatic changes in the way the building looks over the past few days. The electrical and plumbing rough-ins are done, they were inspected today, and that means we can start to close up the walls. Having walls in there is going to be a bit of a shock, since we've gotten used to the space being open. Having a ceiling is going to require even more of an adjustment. We'd love to leave it open, but there's no insulation at all up there, so we have to put in insulation and a ceiling.

Jill and I are working on the outside of the building: we're picking paint colors to repaint it, having the gutters repaired (which became an emergency issue when the snow melted and we had a waterfall coming off the roof), and thinking about how to set up the patio. Meanwhile, we've temporarily decorated the building in true Brinig tradition: we had a pumpkin-carving party yesterday, and Jill's and my creations now adorn the front doorstep:



Tomorrow Jill and I are attending the annual Sysco food show (Sysco is a big food distributor), which we hope will include endless free samples. We went to Sysco a couple of weeks ago to meet with one of their staff chefs to brainstorm about breakfast foods we might want to serve in the café. We were really impressed with the chef--he had tons of good, practical ideas, and the food he demonstrated for us came out really tasty. Plus they gave us several big boxes of sample products to take home, which I've been living off of since then. We've been experimenting with one of the chef's ideas and we think it's a real winner--perhaps soon to be the Generous Servings breakfast specialty. Our recipe development is still in the confidential stage, but check back in a few weeks to see our menu unfold. Better yet, plan to stop by and sample for yourself--we'll be open in less than a month!