What's the hold up?

July is upon us and Saus is still not open. No one is more aware of this or frustrated by the fact than the four of us. We made it worse for ourselves when we tried to predict our opening date. Since part of what we are trying to do with the blog is educate, please take note: predicting an opening date for your restaurant is like predicting the weather in Boston, the forecast always changes and it rains on you, just as you've laid your towel down on the beach and after you've applied a responsible layer of sunscreen.

The delays started over a month ago when the subcontractor who was slated to install our ventilation system backed down. Fine. We'll just have to find another. Sadly our contractor did not have a camp of ventilation engineers ready to show up and get their hands dirty at moment's notice...for the price we were willing to pay, anyway. Finally though, after gathering three quotes from three different subcontractors, we found one. The only problem was that the company had their own set of delays and had to order the proper equipment for our project, thus could not start right away. Okay, not the only problem...

Another problem was (and it still is) that we had to obtain a permit in order to start construction on the system. The engineers used a "short form" application (for small projects) for the permit, assuming ours was indeed a small project (tiny cafe, tiny problems riiiight?). Short form permits take much less time to get approval than long form. Unfortunately, our exhaust (fryer grease) is considered "hazardous" sooooooooooooooo ............. we are currently in line with the other shamed, hazardous exhaust folks (the few, the proud who still believe in deep frying), the long form group - which probably means our application is sitting amidst a stack of other applications waiting to be looked at.

Needless to say, we are upset by the unfortunate turn of events. But there's not much more we can do than wait....well wait, and run an endless list of errands.