My heart is racing as I type this entry. At about 6:30 this morning, I woke with a start, suddenly remembering something, and drove to the restaurant as fast as I could.

I remembered that I had left a counter-top steam table unit plugged in and running last night. Very bad. As I drove down Dempster I kept picturing what I'd see as I turned the corner from Grove onto Sherman, and the scene kept alternating in my mind between a burned-out shell of a building and...not. I tried to control my urge to go 80 as I hoped for that second option.

I made an effort last night to leave the restaurant at around 5pm, in order to get home by around six and start dinner. I've been working so much that when I get home, the kids are a mess, Wendy's behind and exasperated, and I get home so late that I'm not able to be much help with dinner and getting the kids to bed. So last night I made a conscious decision to try and be there for that, and I left rather quickly, forgetting completely that around 3pm I had filled the unit with de-limer and water and left it to boil.

There were some things working in my favor, I calculated as I drove...the unit's max temperature was 180°, it was filled with water nearly to the brim, and there wasn't anything flammable around it, that I could remember. If I was lucky, it might've just burned itself out after it ran out of water. Or maybe it would still have some water in it. After 15 hours? Not likely.

Well, no fault of my own, I got lucky and there was no damage. The building was intact when I turned the corner. No flashing firetruck lights, no plumes of smoke. I parked the truck and unlocked the outer door, then the inner door to the kitchen. Door wasn't hot. No smell of burning or smoke.

The unit had burned all its water away, the bottom was well-toasted, brown, and kind of stunk, but the thing was still operating. The air above it was quite hot.

I got lucky. I did something really, really stupid and, thanks to dumb luck, it did not result in me burning down my restaurant and ruining all my plans.

Thank you God, or karma, or Great Spaghetti Monster. Or maybe just my lucky star. I owe you one.

I'm putting a sign on the back door to remind myself to turn everything off. Right. Now.

Another eventful day in the permanent painting zone. I'll be really happy when I can take the chairs down off the tables and move everything out from the center of the room. Still more molding to paint. It's taking forever because I'm painting a light color (orange) over a very dark eggplanty purple. So I'm doing two coats of primer and two, sometimes three of paint. Tedious.

I went down to Lincoln Square today to close the bank account that we had opened down there when we thought that's where the restaurant was going to be. They were nice enough about it, totally understood. Whoever ended up buying the space is already open. Looks like they did a quick facelift on the dining room with new tile floor, new drywall, and a paint job, and opened the doors. It's called Mediterranean Grill and appears to be serving just about the exact same menu as the previous entity, which was Skewers Grill, and the one before that, Egypt Kabob.

Not sure why they think they'll suddenly be able to make a go of it with the same concept that's already failed twice in the space, but good luck to them, I guess. I'm feeling some sour grapes, but don't really have time to care, and I honestly think our location is better. It all works out in the end. I still think that location would be great for this concept. Maybe for our second store.

From there, I headed up to Evanston and got busy. Had a meeting with the Vienna folks to discuss marketing, signage, and lots of other stuff, including this huge framed-out section of wall that I'm hoping to have a mural done for. I was thinking I could use some of Vienna's artwork, particularly that one sign you always see where a giant hot dog is on Navy Pier and it's got the Chicago skyline behind it, but they said they don't have the original of that in a computer file and that it couldn't be done.

I chatted briefly with about 10 different sales reps from bread, meat, produce, and all-purpose vendors, filled out a ton of credit apps, faxed them all around, fielded calls to clarify info, and all the fun stuff that's involved in getting a company to sell you stuff with terms. In between all that, I kept painting, received a big delivery of smallwares (including my fresh-cut fry potato ka-chunker gizmo), and, since Vienna was no help with the mural, placed an ad on Craigslist seeking an artist to do it.

The response I got was amazing. At least a couple dozen replies within a few hours of the ad going up. I thought at the price I was offering, I would get art students and the like, but I got lots of replies from people with degrees and many years of experience, including plenty of portfolios to look at.

One guy came by and threw a bunch of ideas at me, some of which were good, and I considered hiring him on the spot. I didn't, though...figured it's best to sleep on it a bit and see who else applies. It's nice to have this many options, but kind of depressing that all these talented people are so desperate for work that they immediately pounce on an ad offering $500 to do a huge mural inside a hamburger and hot dog place.

I guess it's a good thing that I've got the work to give. The end result should be something striking and interesting on the wall, at any rate. Should be cool.

The next couple days should be pretty crazy. I've got a few artists coming by tomorrow, my guys Carlos and Rodolfo are coming in to help me paint the shoe moldings because I'm burnt out on painting and don't want to lay down on the floor to do the moldings, I've got a Quickbooks consultant coming by in the morning to help me set up my bookkeeping and payroll software, and then, after my meetings with the muralists, I'm supposed to meet some friends down in Wrigleyville to celebrate a buddy's 40th birthday. He's in from New York and is taking a bunch of us to the Cubs' game on Saturday as well, so no work that day. I'm going in on Sunday for a while to compensate for the lost time.

I'm excited because with the menu boards and mural starting to come together, things in the front of the house are really starting to look good. Once the painting is done, I'll really be able to focus on getting the kitchen up and running and then I can order FOOD. And start COOKING. Yay! Can't wait.

Last night I got home around 8:30 and even though Wendy and the kids had already eaten, I started making burgers because I had four different buns I wanted to sample and I really felt like it was best to check them out when they were fresh. I had a pound of ground beef, so I divided it up into four quarters and did four smashed-on-the-griddle style burgers, serving up two as singles and one as a double on one of the larger buns.

It was a fruitful exercise, because I did eliminate one of the buns and managed to hone in a bit more on what I liked about the other two, but even moreso, because the burgers were just juicy, crispy, sloppy, cheesy, and nicely topped with grilled onions and ketchup, I was reminded of what this whole thing's about. I was also STARVING, so that made them taste particularly good.

Oh, yeah...that's right. This opening a restaurant thing is about cooking tasty food. Sometimes I forget, what with all the mundane chatter about grease dumpster service, alarm systems, professional references for lines of credit, and all the other crap I'm devoting 90% of my time to.

I'm determined to have the ability to cook by the end of next week. In order to do that, I've got to figure out my line configuration, get my equipment guy in to do the hookups and repairs, get the hood people out to bring the exhaust up to speed, and get the fire suppression people out to ensure that the Ansul system and fire extinguishers are working properly.

Then...when all that's done. There *will* be burgers cooking. And fries. Can't wait.

I've had quite a few new characters emerge over the last few days and wanted to quickly jot them down before I forget.

Carlos--This is my other future employee. I've already introduced Rodolfo, who was the dishwasher/prepper/allaround cleanup guy for PP's. Carlos worked there as well as the main kitchen guy. Pete made a point to pull me aside and highly recommend these two, so I'm planning on hiring them and I've been trying to give them a little work during this in-between time.

Carlos helped yesterday with painting and cleaning. He's a Peruvian guy in his mid-40's, with pretty good English skills. Very good natured and laid back, fairly clean-cut, in that way that people from South America can sometimes have. If that makes any sense. More to come from this guy, I'm sure.

A guy came by yesterday when I was painting in the vestibule and introduced himself as Neil. He apparently knows my dad, and says he's met me in the past, but I don't remember meeting him, and based on his personality, which is along the lines of the guy I met the other day outside Captain Porky's, I think I would've remembered this guy if I'd have met him.

He's an older guy, my dad's age, and I believe the connection is through this family. I'm probably offending them by not remembering better. Sorry!

Anyway, Neil's a big burger-and-fries aficianado going way back to Albany Park and the storied Cooper and Cooper, of which I've only heard. He quizzed me about my plans for cooking the burgers and such and seemed pretty damn knowledgable about the various styles and techniques. He also said that he used to own a restaurant and so has connections for equipment--at one point he whipped out his iPhone and insisted on making a quick call to a guy.

I'm mostly done with buying big pieces of equipment, but I took the phone and talked to his guy, promising to make the trip down to his store on Madison at some point or another.

The third new character of the last few days is "Don". I'm using the quotes because he's a muslim guy who at first introduced himself as Imad, then quickly changed it to Don. Whatever.

This guy is the manager of the beef stand around the corner and he drives an 80's Cadillac Seville that he constantly parks in my spots. When he does, I make a point of wedging him in so he has to come find me if he wants to leave. It's my hope that this will cause him to decide not to park in my spots anymore.

I chatted with him briefly last week, and he came to the realization that we're more or less competitors, although he has plenty of menu items that I won't sell, including Italian beef and sausage. Today he knocks and asks if he can get a burger, jokingly, then tells me he's actually fasting for Ramadan. I offered him some bacon and a pork chop, but told him he'd have to wait until after sundown.

More on all three of these interesting dudes later, I have no doubt.

Saturday was fairly uneventful. My guy Sasha was a no-show. He's got some sort of dubious business venture that entails him driving back and forth to Pittsburgh twice a week (don't ask--I didn't) and he called me early Saturday to tell me about some emergency that came up.

So I spent almost the whole day painting. I'm only doing the trim and some fix-ups on the walls, but it's a lot of work because I'm doing light colors over dark ones, so I've got to prime and then do two or sometimes even three coats to get good coverage. It's coming along, but I'm dreading the shoe moldings.

I did a few other things, including placing a big order from Restaurant Equippers, on which I blew about half of my start-up smallwares budget. Hopefully I got about half the smallwares I need. I also made a bunch of appointments for the coming week.

Yesterday I rested my aching body. Painting is really hard on the muscles, especially if you're not used to doing it. Today is my designated childcare day, so that's fairly restful, at least physically.

Plans for the upcoming week; finish painting, get the kitchen equipment hooked up to gas, kitchen deep cleaning, lots of meetings with potential vendors, fill out all credit apps for vendors, keep trolling the restaurant sales and auctions for good deals, pull the trigger on a meat grinder, and a meeting with a Quickbooks expert for a crash course on Friday. I'm sure I'm leaving out a bunch of stuff.

Should be a busy week! Looking forward to making some progress.

How does a quick trip up to Delavan, Wisconsin, to buy a popcorn machine off someone from Craigslist turn into an entire day-long trip?

Well, rain, for starters. It rained and drizzled on and off all day, turning every driver on the road into a nervous Nellie and creating gridlock down every street I turned. Second, construction, of course. Is there a street or highway in the tri-state area that ISN'T under massive construction right now? If so, I did not find it.

Then, of course, there's my ridiculous compulsion to turn every driving trip into a diner, drive-in, or dive visit. Can't cross a state line without seeking out some out-of-the-way hole-in-the-wall that's rumored to have the best whatever it is. Nope. Not me.

And so it was that what would've already been a pretty long trip (hour and a half each way, plus stops) turned into an epic, 8+ hour, butt stiffening, wiper-blade groaning death march drive.

The first error that I made was thinking that, since I was already in Evanston, so close to the lake, I could just shoot up Sheridan Road and avoid all the 94 construction insanity. Wrong. "Shoot up" Sheridan? What was I thinking? It's like a 25 mph limit, curvy as hell, and there was a landscaping truck parked every eleven feet. And don't you dare speed through Winnetka or Lake Forest driving that shitbox F-150, buddy, unless you really want to return for a court date in a few months.

Then, since I was already going to be in the general neighborhood, I figured I'd make a quick stop at the jewel that I've been known to refer to as My New Favorite Restaurant, Captain Porky's in Zion.

Slowed me down quite a bit, but worth it. Dino (the owner) was there and his staff was spread out all over the place with stainless bowls, all of 'em peeling a huge load of gulf shrimp that must've just come in. Score! I'll take one order of those please!

Even better was Dino's fresh goat cheese, which he battered and deep-fried for me. He offered to let me stay and watch how he makes the cheese. This is how the guy is...every visit has the potential of turning into a kind of apprenticeship, depending on when you happen to walk in and what mad-man food science experiment he's into right at that moment.

I ordered an order of the fried goat cheese ($3.75 for five big planks--a total steal) and it was a revelation; texturally, it was like a mozzarella stick...soft and melting with stringy cheese, but this cheese had oomph that you don't get from frozen mozzarella sticks. It was a bit salty, briny almost, like feta, super-creamy, and had a late tang, which is the goat. Amazing. I'm not kidding. I'm not even exaggerating. At all. Dino makes his own cheese from the milk of goats and sheep he raises on his farm in western Illinois. He also told me he just bought a couple Jersey cows with which he will expand his cheesemaking operations. He rocks.

It cost me an hour or so, but I'm glad I went. As I was eating off the flatbed of the pickup truck, this guy approached me and started going on and on about Dino, Captain Porky's food, the gulf coast, "white trash" food, what kind of wood he uses when he smokes pork butts in his backyard, and on and on....I always seem to attract these type of people. How do they find me, I wonder?

Anyway, I forced the last Dino cheese plank on him because I could just tell that if I finished it, I'd be toast for the day, fired up the truck and careened out of the parking lot. The guy was still rambling on as I pulled away. Later, dude!

I got a bit lost going from Zion to Delavan, but managed to make it to the popcorn machine guy's house ok. The guy's wife met me in their garage, we tested out the machine, which was super-clean and seemed to be in fine working order, and made the exchange.

I left the restaurant in Evanston at a little before 11:00. It was about three when I finished loading up the popcorn machine. Not that bad, right?

It gets worse. The trip back is when all the many forces of nature, construction, detours, traffic, and poor radio reception conspired to beat me to a frustrated, traffic-cursing pulp. I held out until around Barrington, when I started melting down. It didn't help that the truck's tires seem to be bald and I kept shimmying around on the newly-laid, perfectly flat roads, all wet with fresh summer rain.

I toyed with the idea of just heading straight home and leaving the popper in the truck overnight, but I had stuff at the restaurant that I wanted to get, so I tacked my way back there, using side streets and even alleys at times to avoid the traffic snarls that met me at every turn.

When I got back to the restaurant, it was 7:00. I dumped the popper on a counter, packed everything up and got home in time to put Nora to bed at around eight. A full day in which I accomplished one thing--buying a popcorn machine.

Actually, that's not true, since I was pretty active on the phone, setting up a number of appointments for next week. But, all in all, a fairly frustrating day. Tomorrow, I'm not doing any driving except to and from the restaurant.

Progress continues on the restaurant. I'm doing a million things at once, just about every day; taping, priming and painting the space, working on getting equipment in place and hooked up, fielding a thousand calls offering me wonderful rates on merchant and payroll services, and still celebrating the little baby-step victories.

All the big kitchen stuff is in place and I'm working on gathering the smallwares, as we call them in the industry. The little stuff. Bowls, spatulas, french-fry cutting ka-chunker machines, fryer baskets, pink soap, mop heads, and on and on and on forever. I probably have a few days of painting left and then I call Rodolfo in for a couple days of deep cleaning, hook up the equipment and, hopefully, start cooking. That's when things will start to really feel like they're coming together. It's hard to feel like the place is a restaurant when I'm mostly eating Atkin's bars and drinking cold water from the soda machine all day long.

But it is. Or will be. Ideas careen around in my head constantly. Today I worked on the stereo a bit. One of the speakers was vibrating strangely, so I got up and messed around with it, checked all the connections, and got the system working nicely, so then I started planning how to do the music in the space, thinking I could just load up an old mp3 player of mine with hand-picked restaurant songs and put it on endless shuffle.

I've never used the "voice notes" feature of my cell phone before, but I keep thinking of things to do and forgetting them before I can add them to one of my 12 to-do lists, so I trained myself on how to use them and did a couple on the ride home. I'm still feeling scattered. Not because I'm disorganized, but because there's just so much to do and remember.

What I accomplished today: we now have a logo. To be shared on this site soon enough. I think it looks damn good and that will enable me to move forward with the awning company early next week. Like everything, it's a process. Papers have to be filed with the city, etc, etc....

What else? I finally got the guy in the black Cadillac who keeps parking in my spot to seek me out. He parked deep in my space, so I crammed the Ford F-150 I'm currently driving in behind him, right up against his bumper, and left it there until about 7pm tonight. At some point, I figured the guy would want to go home and would have to seek me out. Nice enough guy. I'm hoping he got the message and won't park in my spot any more.

Oh! And, press! We got some more. Courtesy of Chicago Magazine's online blurby blog, Dish, this time. I spoke with Penny Pollack late last week and someone called to fact-check this morning. I'm not crazy about how the piece reads...how it's just one big quote from me...but any mention is welcome, especially from a prominent presence like Chicago. And--bonus--they spelled my name right, so I'm not complainin'. (That's more than I can say for GrubStreet, which spelled my last name "Laskin" at first, and even though they corrected it quickly, Google's bots must've picked it up, 'cause if you Google the name of the restaurant or "Laskin", there it is, floating around the internet, in perpetuity.) At any rate....it's free PR. Much appreciated. (I still love you, Helen!)

Another cool thing I just found out today is that I'm going to get to go to Hot Dog University!

Did you know there was such a thing? I didn't. Vienna runs it at their factory near Damen and Elston, and it's a short training course for people who want to run hot dog carts or stands. It's a service they provide (one of many) for those who sell their products. I'm hoping to get that done sometime next week.

I'm very excited to be working with Vienna. They are, of course, a legendary company, their place in the history of Chicago food is prominent, and, since the restaurant is shaping up to be kind of my personal tribute to classic Chicago hot-dog-stand-food, Vienna is kind of a one-stop shop for me. They have a reputation of being very helpful to start-ups, supplying stuff like signage, promotional materials, free food, and even equipment, so I'm pretty psyched to be involved with them and will be grateful for whatever support they can offer.

More to come tomorrow. I regret that I've gotten out of the habit of posting something here every day or two, due to the fact that I've been getting home late and exhausted and going to bed around 10pm almost every night. Painting equals lots of very tired, sore muscles. I'm going to pick up the pace again.

Today was an eventful and successful day.

The big task at hand was purchasing a three-well deep fryer from some guy on Craigslist who's been listing this thing for sale for the past few weeks. I went and looked at it a couple weeks ago, thought it looked just about perfect, and toyed with the idea of just buying it and stowing it in my garage. But reason won out, I realized that if the restaurant deal fell through I'd be stuck with a big ole deep fryer in my garage, and I passed, figuring that at the price the guy was asking ($500), it'd go.

It didn't. I saw it listed last night, so jumped on it and set up a time to meet the guy in River Forest, where he had it stowed in HIS garage.

But, as you can see, it's a beast, and there's no way that I'd have been able to handle moving it around myself. Especially with my bum arm, which is still hurting me enough that I just iced it for over an hour.

Enter Rodolfo.

Rodolfo is my first hire. Unofficially, at this point, but I'm going to hire him. He worked at PP's and PP spoke very highly of him. In fact, he called me during the negotiation period especially to talk to me about two employees, who he highly recommended that I hire. He said they were super-dependable and great, hard workers. I plan on hiring them both, and have filled them in on the plan, the timeline, and when they can expect me to call them to come to work.

It's great from my perspective, since finding dependable help can be difficult, it's great from their perspective, since I'm sure they're daunted by the prospect of looking for a new job right now, and it's great from PP's perspective, because he gets to walk away without feeling like he left these two quality people high and dry by selling the place.

I happened to run into Rodolfo in the bathroom (the bathrooms are located in a common area of the building, so are shared by all three retail tenants) yesterday. He explained that he was coming back from his other job and just stopped in to say hi to some of the guys at the restaurant next door. Perfect coincidence, I thought...so I asked him if he'd be willing to help me move the fryer, and he was happy to earn a little extra money doing it. We made plans to meet at the restaurant this morning.

He was punctual, so we hopped in the truck and drove down to River Forest. Everything went pretty much perfectly, and I ended up giving the guy only $300 for the unit. It's a leap of faith, of course, as is the case when buying anything off Craigslist, but even if only one of the three wells is functional, I'm still ahead of the game, since most used single-well fryers that I've come across are going for $400-$600.

Once we got back to the restaurant, Rodolfo enlisted the help of some of the other various busboys and cooks hanging around the alley (there are always a few out back smoking or whatever) and we managed to wrestle it out of the truckbed, clean it up a bit, and guide it gently into the restaurant and onto the hot line where it will live. All in all, it was a pretty smooth operation. Hope it works!

The fryer was a big accomplishment, but what I think I'm most pleased with today was laying the groundwork for a good relationship with Rodolfo, who will be my all-around cleaning, dishwashing, busboying, and prep guy. He's a good-natured forty-something guy from Mexico, has lived here in Chicago for 15 years, and isn't shy about sharing his philosophies on life, love, and work. We spent a good three hours in the truck while sitting in traffic on the way there and back, and chatted, switching back and forth between English and Spanish, almost the whole way. Lots to know.

After we were finished, I bought him lunch, we ate together, and then I paid him and sent him on his way. I genuinely like the guy and have a lot of confidence that this relationship will work out well. He seems like a well-grounded, happy individual and clearly has a strong work ethic and a great attitude. I'm lucky to have him.

After he left, I puttered around a bit, reluctant to tackle anything big since I had to leave at five for an airport pickup. But, lo and behold, the phone company guy came a-knockin' on my door, ready to do whatever needed to be done to get my phone, fax, and internet lines working.

He needed to find the phone box, which I had no idea about where it could be, so we went exploring around the building and finally found it, in the basement of the restaurant next door. After looking at the huge old bundle of wires for about four seconds, he declared that he couldn't do it and started asking me a bunch of questions that I not only didn't have answers for, but had not the faintest clue what the fuck he was talking about.

Phone Co. Guy: "Oh....this could be an issue. It says here that I'm just supposed to tag the nid. Is that what you want me to do?"

Me: "I have no clue what that even means. I want you to do whatever you need to do to make my phones work."

PCG: "Well, what kind of phones do you have?"

Me: "Uh....cordless? I don't know? Normal phones."

PCG: "Well this phone here seems to be part of a phone system. Do you want this phone to work?"

Me: "Yeah."

PCG: "Well, that's gonna cost extra, then. It's a system."

Me: "Ok, well I don't need it to work as a system, I just need it to function as a phone. How much extra would it cost anyway?"

PCG: "I don't know."

Me: "Ok, well let's just get the regular phones working and we can worry about the system later. Can you do that? What do you need me to do to get the regular phones working?"

PCG: "Well, this just says I'm supposed to tag the nid. But to get the phones to work, I might have to address some of the interior wiring."

Me: "Ok, well let's do that, then."

PCG: "Well, we might not have to do that. I need to find out. Do you know where your up-level switching station is?"

Me: "I don't have a clue what that means. Look, when I talked to the lady on the phone, she said that this would be a pretty easy deal. The previous owner had four working phone lines in this space just last week, so can't you just, like, flip a switch or something and get'em working again? Do you need to call into the home office or whatever and ask them what to do?"

PCG: [Chuckling annoyingly] "It's not that easy."

Me: "Ok, well, I don't think I'm going to be able to help you. All I know is that the phones were working fine last week, so I don't see why you'd have to do any interior wiring. Just get'em working the same way they were working last week. I'll be upstairs if you need anything. Thanks."

After all that (and I'm posting a vastly abbreviated version of that conversation), I picked up a phone about five minutes later and heard a dial tone. I guess it wasn't quite as hard as PCG was making it out to be.

What-EVER! The phones now work, and my number is 847-xxx-EDZO. Cool!

Ok...it's now late, and this post has become far longer than I intended it to be. Today's victories were getting a fryer, an employee, and a dial tone. I hope every day is this productive.

Up until today, the most visits this blog ever logged in a day was three. Today, more than 100 people showed up, thanks to the folks over at Grub Street Chicago, who put up a quick blurb about me, the restaurant, and the blog.

It's great to have you folks here reading, but I feel I should explain a few things; I wasn't quite ready for all you all, so the links at the top of the page don't work. I'm not crazy about the font either, and the whole layout still kind of bugs me. Basically, this site is still kind of "in development", much like the restaurant itself. This blog was kind of a secret for the past few months and I liked it that way. Now that the cat's out of the bag I feel a bit....exposed.

But, whatever. It is what it is, and it's great publicity, so I can't complain.

Lots going on today. Opened a bank account near the restaurant, started getting ready to do some painting, I've got a line on a deep fryer that I'll hopefully purchase tomorrow, and, of course, all this media attention, which is the big news of the day.

Not without setbacks, of course....never. I've got an issue with the griddle I'm wrestling with. As part of the arrangements of our purchase, the previous owner (PP) arranged a swap of griddles between the Evanston location and his other store. They have a smaller hood over there and wanted a smaller griddle so they could fit another piece of equipment under it, so he asked if it would be ok to swap the one that was there for a newer, larger one. The griddle is the centerpiece of classic burger cookery, often working buns, burgers, and grilled onions all on the one large surface, so I was fine with it. He brought over a huge old Vulcan 48" unit, thermostatically controlled, which looked to be in excellent condition, so I was psyched.

However, I neglected to notice until a couple days ago that it requires a 220 electrical line. Which I don't have. And running a new electrical line behind where the griddle's going to go is no small feat. It requires running metal conduit through the wall, which is tile. Plus, it requires pulling permits from the city, which I wasn't planning on doing.

The whole thing could end up costing me weeks and thousands of dollars. I called PP to ask him about swapping back and he was really reluctant to do that, so I asked him if he'd split the cost of running a 220 line and he said he would. But I'm still not sure that's the answer.

I'm mulling it over, but I'm not liking any of the options I'm coming up with.

Mistakes I made today; drinking six shots of espresso before 2pm, telling the guy setting up my bank account that I wasn't sure if I was going to take credit cards, and trying to lift a Berkel deli slicer by myself. I think I tore my right biceps.

Small victories of the day; my hundred-dollar ice cream freezer is running like a champ! And of course, my total media domination.

Thanks for stopping by...

I've been back and forth to the restaurant a bunch of times already, but today was the first actual "workday" type day, where I wake up, have breakfast, and then head out to work. At my new job. Running my restaurant.

Ahhh! Kind of terrifying and very exciting all at the same time.

I spent a couple hours last night organizing, planning my day, so that when I got to the restaurant, I wasn't just running around like a chicken with my head cut off, doing whatever I happened to pass by and think of doing. I had it all planned out....

But then I remembered that I don't yet have a working phone or internet service there. Sure, I can use my cell phone to make calls, but some stuff I really needed to use the internet for, so I spent a couple hours this morning setting up utilities and setting appointments, then headed out.

But, halfway to the restaurant, I get a call from a guy out in Elgin who's selling an old popcorn machine on Craigslist, and he wants to meet *right now*. So I hang a big ol' U-turn and hit the highway, make great time out there, and check out his popcorn machine.

The popcorn machine is a 'want', not a 'need' (this is how I've categorized the equipment list I'm working from), but I think it would be a really fun tone-setter to just have it out in the dining room, for people to help themselves, and especially for anything resembling a grand opening that we do, it's a perfect fit. This guy wanted $450 for the thing--it was a nice old machine--but I'm looking more along the lines of two hundred and he wouldn't budge on the price. It also didn't seem to be running right, so I passed.

Back in the truck, back on the highway, and all the way back, retracing my steps, to Evanston. Not counting the five minutes I spent in Elgin popcorn machine guy's garage, I've been in the truck about two and a half hours, need to pee badly, and am way behind schedule for all the stuff I'm supposed to be doing today. I get to the restaurant, pull down the alley into the parking lot, but....alley's blocked by a delivery truck. I go around the block, enter a different way, and....in the four parking spots I'm allotted, five cars are parked.

So, I have to leave the truck in the middle of the alley, and go into some of the various businesses to try and figure out which cars belong to who and get them to move at least one so I can park. Arrgh.

There's a nice little Italian restaurant right next door to me, and I've already met a couple people that work there, so I go in there, resist the urge to start screaming at anyone who looks like they might drive a car, and calmly, politely, explain my dilemma. The woman--the restaurant's day manager, I believe--was nice enough, asked around to her staff, and found one guy who said he'd move his car.

Well, he did take his time about it, so once I unloaded (four trips to and from the truck), went to the bathroom, perused a couple paint samples, and made an appointment to meet with the ice machine guy, he finally got his Isuzu the fuck out of my way. I'm exaggerating for effect...he was a nice enough guy.

In fact, he seemed so nice and accommodating that I hit him up for a little help moving a couple of countertop drink coolers that were too heavy to move solo. One thing about doing most of this by myself is that there are sometimes going to be tasks I really need another guy or two to help with, so it's a good idea to try and stay on good terms with some of the guys from the other restaurants around me.

Besides the trattoria, which is the place right next door, there's also an outpost of Al's Beef and a sushi place called Koi right around the corner, so we all share a common alley, dumpster zone, and parking lot. It's kind of a tight area for so many restaurants and there's a fairly constant stream of delivery trucks, cooks out back smoking, dishers emptying pots of spent fryer oil into the grease dumpster, and waiters crouching down by the parking blocks scarfing some ill-gotten plate of food. Should be interesting.

So....after all THAT....I got into the restaurant and started thinking about actually doing some work. I met with Dick Symon, a be-suited 70-something salesman/rep for the ice machine rental company, wrote him a check, signed his contract, and he was on his way. I made a bunch of calls to fire suppression companies (they inspect/charge the Ansul system and fire extinguishers) and hood/vent cleaning companies (self-explanatory), worked on my budget for getting the place ready to go ($10,000), and started trying to move things around to try and figure out how I'm going to set up the line.

I managed to kind of carve out a nice little milkshake station, I think, right behind the cash register. Whoever's running the register (me, primarily) will also make shakes and malts, unless we're busy enough that I need to split that into two positions. The ice cream freezer I bought the other day gave me a scare, because after being on since Saturday, it was warm when I checked it, but it seemed to perk up when I plugged it into a different outlet. I think it had somehow tripped the GFCI on the one it was plugged into. Might've been a fluke, or it might be an indicator that something's wrong with the freezer. I took a risk on that one, but it was only a hundred bucks. We'll see.

I'm feeling good about money today. I'd been kind of discombobulated, money-wise throughout the purchase and close process. It just took so long that I'd been focusing on all the stuff I needed to do to close and all I was doing was making sure I had what I needed in the account to pay for the purchase of the restaurant, security deposit on the lease, and the first insurance payment. So today was get-my-house-in-order day, and after I ran all the numbers, brought the corporate checking account up to date, and estimated what I'd need to spend on equipment to get us to opening, the money situation looked pretty damn good.

Even better, the estimates I got from fire suppression and hood-cleaning folks were lower than I'd expected. And...even better, I found two items down in the basement that I believe I can use, so that's two items scratched off my list for exactly $zero dollars.

The basement is quite a trip. Basements in restaurants are basically where old shit goes to die. This one is no exception. Restaurant people never throw anything away. There are all sorts of old pots and pans, plates and glasses, and various other strange things down there that you have to hold up to the light and try and figure out what they are. But, thankfully, plenty of functional basics are there. There's a four-drawer file cabinet--empty and ready to go. There's a fax machine, a paper-cutter, a decent multi-line phone, a nice older office chair, and a cup full of pens. There's a 100 year-old walk-in safe with a two-foot thick door. There's a cabinet full of sombreros.

Yep, you heard me. A cabinet full of sombreros. At least fifteen of them. So I've got that goin' for me. Which is nice.

No, seriously, the place before PP's was a Mexican restaurant, so there are strange odds and ends like a cabinet full of sombreros, a collection of fancy old tequila bottles (sadly, empty) and a four-foot eloté on a stick.

Call me if you're having a Mexican-themed party.

More tomorrow.

Well, finally, huh?

Crazy, how long this took. But we did manage to get all the pieces--lease, purchase, insurance, lien searches--assembled and the closing took place this morning. I've had keys for a few days, but the official hand-off was this morning.

I also got the approval to substitute me in place of PP's with the city of Evanston. They have a rule that every "type 2" restaurant (meaning not table service) must possess their own individual zoning ordinance allowing them to exist there. They stipulate a few basic requirements about garbage pickup that I had to sign on to, and transfering it was, everyone told me, a big, scary thing that could take months, but nope! It's done. I found dealing with the city very easy and pleasant.

So after holding myself back on buying equipment, I almost immediately headed out to Westmont to meet a guy about an ice cream dipping freezer, loaded it up, and then went back up to Evanston to put it in the restaurant space and put brown paper over the windows.

Now that the matter of buying a restaurant (and agreeing to a lease!) has been taken care of, my mind has begun considering the matter of MAKING MONEY by running a restaurant, and I'm nervous. We'd been thinking of this idea as a no-brainer back 6-8 months ago, when we found the Lincoln Square space and thought "what would do well there?"

I'm happy with the location in Evanston, though...don't get me wrong. But there's a lot more competition, it feels somewhat more intimidating.

That said, I'm on a crusade to open this place with as little money and as much of my personal sweat equity as possible. The freezer I bought today was $100 and I'm determined to spend less than $10,000 getting the place ready for employees to come in and start training and hold on to as much of our reserve cash as possible, because I know there will be expenses I haven't budgeted for.

The really exciting part of it is that it's now in my hands. No more waiting around for deals to be made, lawyers to worry me, or debt searches to come back before I can do the stuff I need to do to get this place open. I got zero emails from my attorney today!

I do believe the pace of this blog will step a bit livelier now, since I'll be actively out and doing restaurant stuff every single day. No internet connection yet at the space, but hoping to find a place where I pick up wi-fi from someone.

Oh. And there is also one more nugget. Almost forgot. A name.

We had been using Automatic Burger & Dog as the working name, but an overwhelming number of people we know who we told the name to hated it. So the new name is Edzo's Burger Shop.

Do me a favor, ok? If you hate it....don't tell me.

Well once again we find ourselves sitting on the bubble. In-between time. We have a signed contract with Pete (the seller), from whom we're essentially purchasing all the "stuff" in the restaurant, but we still don't have a lease from the building's management company.

We worked out the major details of the lease weeks ago, and have been coordinating smaller stuff since then, but it's been a very slow process because the person we're dealing with from the management company just goes a few days at a time without responding to messages and emails. Not anything to stress about, necessarily (I'm hoping), but, still, stressful...because at this point it's inevitable that it will be.

I've moved a few things into the space and have keys in hand, but I'm reluctant to move forward much due to the way the last deal broke down at the last minute.

In the meantime, though, we're really coming down to crunch time with regard to the name. The working name we've been using all along is Automatic Burger & Dog. But I've gotten a lot of negative responses to that, most notably from most of my family and closest friends. The other name on the table currently is Edzo's Burger Shop. I've been firmly in favor of Automatic for months now, but after being in the space a few times, it just doesn't *feel* like its name should be Automatic, which evokes imagery involving chrome, stainless, and white tile, which this place doesn't have.

The current space has lots of warm tones, with some woodwork and terra cotta colored floors, and a vaguely 60's-70's vibe to it, which I kind of like. It's occurred to me that most places doing burgers, fries, and shakes do the 50's-early 60's retro thing; doo-wop, drive-ins, and ducktails, but that's played out, in my opinion, and now just kind of has that contrived Disney-set kind of feel to it. But you've got to watch it doing 60's-70's retro, that you don't overdo the whole hippie psychedelic thing, which can be as cloying as clove cigarettes or patchouli.

The other thing is that we're trying not to spend much money on turning this place around. Literally, the opening budget for changing the space is around $10k, and that's including everything I need to do to get the kitchen up and running.

So keeping things mostly the same is the plan. I'm going to paint, clean, change signage, and get some stuff on ebay for decor. Maybe a plant would be nice too. In the kitchen, I need multiple deep fryers, an ice cream dipping cabinet, and the grill needs attention. But I'm also going to re-arrange the equipment on the hot line, which means that all the Ansul sticks will have to be re-aligned.

It all costs. Once the deal closes, the idea will be to hurry up and get open as soon as possible, but then we're at the mercy of the City of Evanston, which, I will say, has been quite merciful so far. Hopefully that will continue. Evanston, if you're reading, I will be proud to be an upstanding member of your business community and have confidence that I will thrive in the space and pay you a lot of taxes!

Anyway, if folks want to chime in with thoughts on the name, that would be great. I hope to post again Monday with some actual concrete news.