fed who otherwise would not have the 
benefit of a holiday dinner.
Monday, November 30, 2009
A rewarding Thanksgiving diversion
Just a quick post to acknowledge my crew for their excellent work in helping to provide a Thanksgiving feast to needy Chandler residents at the Chandler Boys and Girls Club. Iguana Mack's and RigaTony's has been providing food for this event for 12 years and this year was special because it represented the christening of their new facility. We had a huge turn out - over 700 people were 
fed who otherwise would not have the 
benefit of a holiday dinner.
fed who otherwise would not have the benefit of a holiday dinner.
Friday, November 20, 2009
A moment of calm
Today feels like the eye of the hurricane. Weirdly I have no appointments today but every upcoming day for the next week will be building to chaos. Monday alone I have 4 meetings, one with my technical guy to review the wiring plan for the restaurant. We need to wire for surveillance cameras, sound equipment, telephone locations and point of sale locations. Then a meeting with our retail group to launch our new retail campaign which I will explain later, another plan review meeting with architect, designer and contractors, and then a tour of the brand new Boys and Girls Club facility where we will be feeding close to 1000 needy people a Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday next week. So today is left to planning and making preparations at home here for the 60 -70 friends and family that will be joining Chrissy and me for thanksgiving, which is by the way our anniversary (any creative suggestions for that shopping duty are welcome!).
Through all of it I have to push my architect to get his work done and get these construction plans into the city. We can't start construction until the city approves our plans and its getting very tight. Our lease ends in Chandler on March 30th of 2010, so we must be open before then. According to m
y plan there should be only be three days in March when Baked RigaTony is not available. Its up to my architect to make sure that doesn't turn into a month or more. (Are you reading this Todd?!!!!)
I have been emailed a question through this post as to when we are opening in Tempe and my best guess is March 17th. The new location is something I neglected to document here as well. It is at 1850 E Warner Road on the NE corner of McClintock and Warner Road. It used to be a 3 Margaritas Restaurant.
We can't do any construction yet but here's some destruction of a fine looking fireplace that was in the entry of the restaurant.
Through all of it I have to push my architect to get his work done and get these construction plans into the city. We can't start construction until the city approves our plans and its getting very tight. Our lease ends in Chandler on March 30th of 2010, so we must be open before then. According to m
y plan there should be only be three days in March when Baked RigaTony is not available. Its up to my architect to make sure that doesn't turn into a month or more. (Are you reading this Todd?!!!!)I have been emailed a question through this post as to when we are opening in Tempe and my best guess is March 17th. The new location is something I neglected to document here as well. It is at 1850 E Warner Road on the NE corner of McClintock and Warner Road. It used to be a 3 Margaritas Restaurant.
We can't do any construction yet but here's some destruction of a fine looking fireplace that was in the entry of the restaurant.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
I have discovered that I am not a natural blogger. I was never one for journals or photo albums either so it shouldn't have been a surprise. Nevertheless I am going to regroup as we enter the complex construction phase and post at least several times a week to document the evolution of this project.
Here's a brief recap of what we've been working on in the last few weeks.
We've completed our exterior elevation plan and submitted drawings to Tempe for approval. They initial reaction seemed positive, but we'll see when we get comments back hopefully in a few days. Our landlord had to sign off on the plan as well, and they were very enthusiastic. I'll post the actual exterior elevations as soon as we get approval.At the same time we've completed our construction plans and are fine tuning everything before turning them into the city as well. We're behind about two weeks on this and I have to admit that I'm nervous about being behind on something that we had so much time to do. The construction plans include a complete revamp of our heating and ac system, a total redo on the kitchen, all new surfaces in the dining rooms and bar, and of course the construction of a new building facade and a patio.I've continued to purchase equipment for the kitchen and bar and recently scored on an awesome 30 gallon steam jacketed tilting kettle which to our chef is like moving up from a bicycle to a Masseratti. We have also been interviewing trades to select who we want when we start building. Sign painters, concrete, paint, electrical contractors etc....Another interesting development is the addition of a Doctor to our staff. More about that later.
In the mean time here are a couple of pictures. One is of JVG and Greg gingerly moving the old Mesa RigaTony's neon sign from where its been stored in my backyard to the repair shop. (note: I've never used "JVG" and "gingerly" in the same sentence before). The next is a shot of what happened moments later. No just kidding, but its a funny sequence. The truck turned over in front of the restaurant the other day when we were doing demo
inside. No one was hurt.
Here's a brief recap of what we've been working on in the last few weeks.
We've completed our exterior elevation plan and submitted drawings to Tempe for approval. They initial reaction seemed positive, but we'll see when we get comments back hopefully in a few days. Our landlord had to sign off on the plan as well, and they were very enthusiastic. I'll post the actual exterior elevations as soon as we get approval.At the same time we've completed our construction plans and are fine tuning everything before turning them into the city as well. We're behind about two weeks on this and I have to admit that I'm nervous about being behind on something that we had so much time to do. The construction plans include a complete revamp of our heating and ac system, a total redo on the kitchen, all new surfaces in the dining rooms and bar, and of course the construction of a new building facade and a patio.I've continued to purchase equipment for the kitchen and bar and recently scored on an awesome 30 gallon steam jacketed tilting kettle which to our chef is like moving up from a bicycle to a Masseratti. We have also been interviewing trades to select who we want when we start building. Sign painters, concrete, paint, electrical contractors etc....Another interesting development is the addition of a Doctor to our staff. More about that later.
In the mean time here are a couple of pictures. One is of JVG and Greg gingerly moving the old Mesa RigaTony's neon sign from where its been stored in my backyard to the repair shop. (note: I've never used "JVG" and "gingerly" in the same sentence before). The next is a shot of what happened moments later. No just kidding, but its a funny sequence. The truck turned over in front of the restaurant the other day when we were doing demo
inside. No one was hurt.
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