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And so we think we have an actual date now...

Sp we spoke to our contractors this morning, now they're telling us we'll be looking at the December10-Dec13 Weekend as the finishing date for the store's construction! So we should be opening the week after. And with that in mind, it's getting down to crunch time for us to find staff and start the training process! We've had about 289 inquiries, and about 50-something actual interviews! We're going on our third day of meeting with eager, potential applicants. A strong, dependable staff is so essential to our business--without a good staff, how will our store operate and run successfully! Initially, we were holding our interviews at the ING Direct Cafe off of Chestnut. We figured we were there so much we might as well hold the interviews there too- especially since we had no facilities to do so. However, we did not know we had to communicate this with the ING staff, and we ended up getting in trouble with the Supervisor/Manager. Ehh... so we went with "Plan B" for today's Round3-- STARBUCKS!  When all else fails, find the nearest Starbucks. =)
Out of our many, many applicants, we're confident that we've found our staff. Hopefully we can get back to everyone by Sunday, we've got a few interviews left-- and then we can start figuring out the training processes and such.

On another note, we've been doing our research with the best suppliers in town for the best of the best ingredients for our products! We went ahead and narrowed it down, and we're now in the test sampling stage for essential ingredients for our Specialty Tiramisu Cheesecake and Rare Fruit Cheesecake! We'll let you guys know how it goes. =)

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More pictures From Inside

Here are some more pictures from the depths of Block37.  I took these pictures a few days ago, but as you can see, there's still a lot of work to be done with the mall!  Most of the scaffolding is off at the site now though, and Freed is confidant they can open up the center to the public on November 20th. 

In terms of our space, we're still waiting for our air handler unit and the storefront to arrive.  Of course, both of these are HUGE pieces of our store, so hopefully they arrive as scheduled on the 12th!  We're making a huge push to open by the 20th as well, but things are really, really tight...  Stay tuned!

     

Click here to download:

More_pictures_From_Inside_tags.zip (6436 KB)

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The Panelite is Here

The 4' x 12' crate from Panelite has arrived and in it lies the future of Beard Papa's in Chicago.  If you can see in the picture, the crate has "handle with care" discretely burnt into one of the sides.  Panelite should have had this in 300pt font, BOLD, underlined, italicized and in red!!!! 

As mentioned in a previous post (http://beardpapa.posterous.com/the-beard-papas-box), we will be constructing a Beard Papa's box with these translucent sheets with the hope of bringing the Beard Papa culture to the Windy City.  With these panels we believe we will be able to successfully achieve an abstract Beard Papa box that at first glance will be looked at with curiosity and after a few more glances at different angles, it will all come together and the concept would be understood.

Hopefully, this box will dual as a marketing tool to help welcome curious onlookers to step into the store and see what we're all about!

In the next few days we will begin the cutting, assembly and aluminum metal extrusion work for the box and after that, off to Chicago!

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A fast-food launch disaster

I recently read this story from Andy Swan about a Wendy's launch disaster, courtesy of McDonalds.  This McDonalds was the only fast-food joint in a town of about 100K people.  The lunch lines were packed, but they were so efficient that it never took more than a few minutes to get your food.  That's awesome service.  A few years later, a Wendy's decided to open up nearby to steal some of the lunchtime thunder.  McDonalds, instead of cowering and lowering their prices or running huge advertisements against their new competitor, did something even smarter.

On the day of Wendy's grand opening, McDonalds shut it's doors for the day, without notice, to 'repave their driveway'.  This caused a lot of hungry diners to be diverted to the brand new Wendy's, who obviously weren't ready for the rush.  Lines ballooned, people got agitated, horns started honking, and many people left dissatisfied.  You never forget your first impression, right?  I loved this story, because instead of a person's natural instinct to become scared of competition, McDonalds decided to go on the offensive by giving their competitors even more business!  The Wendy's customers probably complained all the way back to the office, where they told other coworkers about the disaster.  McDonalds was probably even busier the next day!

So where does this leave us?  While no one is trying to sabatoge our opening (I hope), it's still a grand opening and things will still be very hectic!  This is going to be the third store we're opening, but this should be our biggest opening.  We'll try hard to be as efficient as possible, but grand openings are never easy since you have a new staff and new operations.  There will always be mini disasters that we'll have to work through.  Poor Wendy's never had a chance, but we'll try our hardest to make your experience at Beard Papa's a pleasant one!

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Introducing the Paris-Bresd

Our cream puffs are what made us famous.  It's why most people come
into our stores.  What some people don't realize is that we actually
have other items as well!  There's a partial list of our items on the
Beard Papa's website, but we also have other products that I think are
super yummy as well!  We'll highlight different products in different
blog posts, but today, we're going to introduce the Paris-Bresd!  This
pastry is actually a newcomer to the United States (we haven't even
started serving them yet), but it's been part of the Beard Papa's
family in other parts of the world.

What is the Paris-Bresd?  According to the Food Network, Paris-Bresd
is "a delightful French dessert said to have been created by a pastry
chef in honor of a bicycle race between Paris and Brest. It consists
of a baked almond-topped choux pastry ring (patterned after a bicycle
tire) that is split and filled with a praline-flavored buttercream."
Wikipedia tells us that it's a 1200km bike ride and it's the oldest
bicycle race being regularly run. There's a 90 hour time limit to
finish the race...

The good thing is that you don't have to endure the 90 hour bike race
to try one of these! The Beard Papa's Paris-Bresd has our famous
custard cream inside the ring and is always filled to order. We're in
the process of getting it ready for production in the US, and we hope
to have it available for the Chicago store very soon after grand
opening. Let us know what you think!

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Afternoon Snack

When I'm traveling, I always want to eat food that I can't find back at home.

This wasn't the case.

Jeff saw a Beard Papa after we meandered through the Walk of Fame and Mann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. I frequent the San Francisco location and my philosophy of eating unique things while traveling instantly ran through my head, so I said no. I finally caved in when he said, "let's go" and my thoughts transitioned into delicious cream puffs.

The cream puffs are fresh and filled to order. We ordered two - vanilla creme and cookie crumb. I took one bite and quickly fell in love with the puff again. The pastry shell is crispy, flaky, yet soft. And the creme? I can eat it as is! It's full of vanilla beans and has just the right consistency of creaminess. Delicious. The second one had the same filling, but a crunchier topping. It was good, but I still prefer the original.

Other fillings they have are strawberry, coffee, green tea, pumpkin and Earl Grey tea. I always get vanilla, but I need to try the others!

             

Click here to download:

beardPapa.zip (1758 KB)

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