The Sidewalk Police Strike Again!

As the weather has gotten warmer and we’ve had a few balmy fake-spring days, fixing our patio has become a high priority. Ever since we first saw the building, we’ve planned to put some patio furniture out on the concrete area in front, and to comply with the code for outdoor eating areas, we commissioned a railing to be constructed back in December. We got bids and picked a railing company that seemed very eager to please, although there were clearly some communication issues. While they worked on fabricating the railing, we set about getting rid of the huge shed that was taking up part of the patio area. We put it on craigslist, got a few bites, and eventually met with a guy who bought it from us and was going to rent a truck to haul the shed away while we were gone over New Year’s.

Unfortunately, right about then we had our sewer back-up, the repairs for which involved jack hammering a ten-foot long trench through the patio area. Now we were going to have to replace the concrete, and that was one too many things for us to deal with back in December. We told the railing guys to hold off on installing the railing, because we still needed to have the shed removed, and we weren’t sure what to do about the concrete. Then we left on vacation.

When we came back, the shed was gone, and the railing guys were at work installing the railing. As I said, communication was not their strong point. Since they were already cementing the railing in place, we figured there wasn’t much point in arguing about it. Then the guy who had paid for the shed showed up and wanted to know where the shed had gone, which came as a surprise to me, since I thought he had taken it. Turns out the railing guys had taken it, because they thought they were being helpful and getting it out of the way. They had paid $150 to have it towed to their house, and they wouldn’t give it back without getting their money back, although I pointed out that they had actually stolen the shed from us. I finally spoke with the boss, who turned out to be the 15-year-old brother of the salesman I’d been dealing with, and the only one who spoke fluent English. We negotiated for me to ransom the shed for $75 so I could give it to the guy who had already paid me for it. I had to go to the railing guys’ house with the cash, and I thought they might kill me. It was not a good scene.

All of this excitement totally sapped our energies for dealing with the patio concrete problem, so we just left the jack hammered trench there for a few months, enclosed by a totally useless railing. Finally, a few weeks ago we got motivated to get quotes on the concrete work, including replacing the sidewalk squares that the sidewalk police had told us we had to have fixed before the summer so that we can get our permanent certificate of occupancy. We found a concrete guy, Matt, who seemed totally competent, reliable, and gave us a good bid. We felt very comfortable about him doing the work, and to our surprise, he was ready to get started the next day.

In order to do the sidewalk repairs, we needed a permit from the sidewalk police, which involves inspections at several stages of the project. Matt’s crew tore out the old patio and the cracked sidewalk stones on Tuesday, and the sidewalk police came out to inspect the demolition, but instead of focusing solely on the sidewalk, the guy walked around the area and noticed that one of our gutter downspouts drained into a pipe that had previously been covered by the patio concrete, and the pipe was broken. He said that we would now need to repair that pipe and drain the water properly to the gutter, which requires a permit from Wastewater Management. Therefore we couldn’t have the concrete poured until a Wastewater Management engineer came out and looked at the situation, which could take six weeks. When any question includes “Wastewater Management”, the answer is always six weeks, even if the entrance to your commercial building is obstructed by a large pit and the entire sidewalk is closed.

At this point, Jill and I both identified a distinctive sinking feeling that we haven’t felt since the end of major combat operations on the building renovations. This feeling characterized the six months between when we first decided to try to buy this run-down building and when we finally wrested the last installment of the construction loan from the bank. I’ve never experienced this feeling in a sustained way in any other context—apparently it is quite unique to building repairs involving city permits. This is the feeling that will prevent me from doing any project like this ever again in my life (unless, as Jill said today, we make ten million dollars on the eventual sale of this building, in which case it might be worth it, but we’re sticking to that threshold). One component of this feeling is the certain knowledge that if inspectors spend enough time at your building, they will find problems.

As luck would have it, the Wastewater Management engineer showed up the following day before I got there, and he did ask Jill several tricky questions, which she did not know the answers to (at least, not the “right” answers in this situation). The engineer must have had a lunch date or something, because he inexplicably did not follow up on those questions, and instead gave us a fairly limited set of requirements for fixing the drainage problem, and went away.

On Thursday afternoon the concrete truck came, and despite the fact that one of our customers walked right through a freshly-poured sidewalk stone (the concrete guys had moved to another area and hadn’t put the cones around it the first stone immediately), we now have a lovely smooth sidewalk, a great patio, plus a new walkway around the back of the building, and much-improved drainage away from the building. I was going to take some pictures today but it started snowing. One of our regulars helpfully informed me that March is Denver’s snowiest month, followed by April. I think that kind of psychological torment is totally unnecessary.

Long time, no blog

I know, it's been a long time, but there just hasn't been too much to blog about recently. I try not to write too many posts that say, "Everything is pretty much like it was last week." I also avoid the captain's-log posts: "Fair day, wind from the east. Played three games of whist." There's a certain type of event that makes for good blogging: it has to be sort of stupid but not so bad that it doesn't seem funny. Sometimes I wish this blog could be a more accurate record of this phase of my life, including the really hard things about running a business and the mistakes we make while trying to do it, but although I really don't mind telling almost anything to almost anyone in conversation, there are limits to what I want on the permanent written record. Especially since our lending bank checks this blog multiple times a day, which is a little creepy, don't you think? (And also inefficient, since I only post about once a week on average; although they haven't checked since March 5, so perhaps my strategy of not writing for a while is working.) I'm being stalked by a bank.

So anyway, the past couple of weeks have been fine. We've been busy, but not insanely busy. I taught our first Cooking with Kids class, featuring nine three- to six-year-olds and their parents, which was messy. The food was quite spectacular, given the circumstances: we made a great melon and grape salad with lime-cardamom dressing, mini quiche with bacon, monkey bread, and homemade granola-yogurt parfaits. Honestly, I'd make any of those recipes again for myself, they came out so well. Then I spent three hours sweeping granola out of every crevice of the kitchen.

We've done several private events, including one which we have decided was the most boring group of people we've ever met, all of which have been quite successful. At the last private event, we made some great dessert hors d'oeuvres, including individual tiramisu and bananas Foster in phyllo cups. I'm still playing with the best ways to make desserts in the amount of time we have available, and both of these recipes were winners. I've also started teaching a coconut milk-sticky rice dessert in my Asian-Inspired Meals classes that I really like. Mmmm, dessert.

Since I don't have any relevant pictures for this post, here's a random picture of some people in a private event playing with the pasta machine (which I call "Play-Doh for adults"):