When we're not blogging about it...

These past few months have been exciting, terrifying, stressful, delicious, fun, and exhausting. All the planning that has occurred over the year has turned into executing those plans in just a few short months, and now...weeks. We have selected some vendors, bought equipment, finalized our menu, purchased our point of sale system, and racked up some bills doing so. We have been to Home Depot and back maybe six times to buy necessary fixtures for our contractor. We spend our days off in the kitchen preparing our menu or on the phone, coercing and collaborating, whether it be to get a gas meter installed or to set up a meeting with a beverage distributor. We talk to our lawyer, our contractor, our building manager, and twitter followers more than we do our closest friends.

All this and still so much more to do and more to buy, for that matter. I would like to say that we have become wise to the little obstacles that have the potential of becoming big hurdles (i.e. unexpected leaks in the basement), but we will find out.

So what's next? We will be spending our time now preparing for the operation - everything from staffing (and all things tied to it - workers comp insurance, payroll services, scheduling, etc.) to testing our equipment (I can't wait to see the magic that happens with 225 lbs of frying capacity).

Say Cheese!

This weekend the Saus team met for a, wait for it- it's so glamorous, photo shoot! We not only took pictures of our food (give me sexy, give me saucy, give me crispy! Work it, wooork it!), we also took team photos (for the website).

With two girls on the team (myself and Renee) you can imagine the impending chaos. "I look fat in this one." "Look at my chin! Has it always been that big?" "No way we are using this one, I look awful. Am I sneezing?" "I look soooo faaaaat!"

Chin was the voice of calm in the storm. "You both look fine." (Then seeing our mutinous faces)- "No, you two look beautiful." He may have gotten smacked.

We did a series of ideas. Us standing next to each other smiling at the camera, us standing next to each other laughing at Chin being ridiculous, us looking at a pterodactyl in the distance (Renee's idea). Then we took some of us eating frites, and somehow that turned into a ridiculous circus.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to get you all amped for our coming-soon website and the mystery photo we choose. (Hint: it may not be a conventional smiling-at-the-camera photo...)

Aaand to unveil this beaut. It is a picture of us, looking at pictures of us.

The Saus team + friends, analyzing the photo shoot pics.

Can we move this counter again?

Being the newbies that we are, we are having a fun time of it trying to build the restaurant. Between communicating with the contractors, laying out exactly what we want, and getting everything properly inspected, we are like tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum (except there are more than 2 of us to get the job done..three stooges maybe, plus an extra stooge??)

Let's go through a few examples of our "misadventures" of getting the space built.

1. We may or may not have moved the counter 3ish times. To be fair, the counter wasn't built all the way, just the aluminum underpart was nailed to the floor. The first time it wasn't out far enough from the wall, then out too far and took up too much valuable floor space, then who knows. But the contracting team may hate us...

2. In trying to get our gas meter installed, I first had to find out what a BTU load was and then tell National Grid what our BTU load is. Then they had to come and install our gas lines (but not the meter) and then the city has to come and inspect it and tag it. So, who calls the city? National Grid or us? We assumed National Grid and kiiiiind-of waited for a while. Then, after probably too much time, I called them to verify and of course found out we had to call the city. Now the question is, who do we call??? WHO IN THE CITY? dum-dum-dum.. oh wait, dumb. We'll get there.

3. ... I shouldn't go on.

Good news is, we are learning and the space is progressing, thanks to our patient and knowing contractor.

Here are some pics of the "progress."

Here is our 4 burner stove. We promise to clean it before we use it to cook!
Here is the upstairs interior as seen from the front of the space.
Here is our bathroom. It will be as is, no changes!
Here is the upstairs interior again- this time as seen from the back of the space looking out. Notice the railing right in front of the camera... this is the infamous counter that was moved so many times. It looks good there, no?

Saus Tasting Take Two

This past Sunday night we had our second official Saus tasting. 32 people turned out to taste 28 potential sauses. Each attendee gave ratings, written comments and suggestions. You know the turn-out is good when you run out of frites for dipping and resort to little pieces of baguette. Then you know you're just desperate when you run out of frites and baguettes and start opening boxes of Ritz Crackers. Overall, the feedback was great though. Thanks guys! Some early favorites were Cheddar Duvel Ale Sauce, Caramelized Onion Sauce , Roasted Garlic Mayo, Curry Ketchup and Hot Saus. Shout out to Saus' photograher Andrew Ong for the photos of the tasting.

Counters

Our artful woodworker (for lack of a better word), who is building our counter tops, table tops and our burlap wall (it's going to be so cool!), sent over some progress-report pictures of our counter tops being made. Don't worry, they won't be all splotchy when they are installed...

New Question

We got some really insightful responses to the last post, so I'd like to thank everyone for their thoughts. Good rally.

However, I was apparently misleading. When I asked about soda preferences (regular coke/diet coke/etc versus more rare or imported varieties), it wasn't really an either/or scenario. My bad.

We will definitely be having coke/diet coke/sprite/whatevs in a soda gun behind the counter. That is a definite. What I was trying to gauge was people's interest in paying more for unique soda brands. So far we are looking at a "micro-brew" all natural soda line, as well as a few European brands of soda and sparkling water.

Ok, so, new question:
In my research I found one brand in particular from Belgium. Perfect, right? Well I assumed it was soda. I recently found out that it was actually a juice company. It has cool flavors like apricot, pear and mango, but it is juice. Do you think juice is a good inclusion on our beverage menu? Will people be interested in Belgian juice to wash down their frites? Or if you are already gorging on indulgences, will you just want to enjoy a fizzy drink?

Pop Quiz

The last few days I have immersed myself in sleuthing. I am trying to track down some very unique (read- hard to find) sodas for Saus.

To compliment our Belgian menu, we want to serve up some authentic Belgian sparkling juices. Unfortunately, while we've found the perfect company, they are rare within the U.S., so getting them into Saus is proving to be a challenge. (But after working our butts off to open a restaurant -something none of us have done before and therefore didn't know where to start-, we know how to approach a challenge.)

And to compliment our classic-ly American side at Saus, we want to serve some American classics like root beer and ginger ale micro-brew style. While significantly easier to find than Belgian soda, finding people who distribute these "micro-brews" to Boston is still proving to be a challenge.

Anyway, what this long winded introduction is all about is I want to know if I'm wasting my time. Are you guys interested in seeing rare (and extremely tasty) sodas (and probably pay a tad more for them to accommodate the importing costs) or would you just as happily order a coke/sprite/whatever to wash down your frites?

Speak up!