April and We Are Seeing the Light at the End of the Tunnel...

Big Jack's is nearing completion.  With the help of some of the guys the furniture was unpacked and set up this week.

DirecTV showed up on time as advertised and set us up with two satellite antennas on the roof that are tuned into five satellites.  They wired the two TV's in Big Jack's so the public lounge is now fully available to our investors as we finish the retail area.

Dave Graven, Bob Miller and Dave Kervorkian were the big guns this week in the humidor arena.  The cedar barrel-vaulted ceiling material was delivered, albeit a week late, and work was continued installing the humidor ceiling.

One more day's work work on the humidor and it will be ready to go.  The humidifier as well as the reverse osmosis water filtration system was delivered as well and they too will be installed in the next couple of days.

We have purchased relative humidity / temperature sensors and software that will record both data points on an ongoing basis and recorded on our company computer.  We will monitor that data in both our retail humidor as well as our storage humidor in the basement. The software can be set to give alerts when any parameter is out of limits, either humidity or temperature, and will notify us when and if that happens.

John Henry and Tim Hawkins have spent many hours this past week painting and their efforts are evident.  The retail shop is looking great.  The "WOW" effect is evident to anyone walking into the front door.

The rep for Torano Cigar, Calvin Woods Jr. out of Chicago, Il showed up this week for a "get acquainted" visit.  Calvin only had one word after he had a tour of our establishment.  "Amazing!"

Calvin said that he sold Torano cigars to many retail stores in a wide area of the upper midwest and he said that there was not a store that could compare with us.  Thanks Calvin for your educated vote of confidence on our store....

Similar comments were uttered as well by Josh Bentley, the Oliva rep who came by for a visit earlier in the week.

The word is getting around folks.   Third Street Cigar is going to a cigar store and lounge that will set the bar at a new level for competing establishments....  And, we are having fun doing it.

Met Dyno Dave this week.  Dyno Dave owns a graphics company in, of all places, Neapolis, Ohio.  Dave is going to be printing the 10' X 8' mural of the interior of the Rupp General Store that we will have on the wall of our retail shop.  The mural was copied from an original photo that the Waterville Historical society had in their archives.  We think it is important to be a full participant in the history of the town and want to do anything we can to achieve that end.

We look forward to a long relationship with Dave as Dave is a cigar smoker...

How many cigar stores have a full kitchen?

John Henry and Rich Restivo put a good coat of paint on the kitchen walls today and it looks great.  The kitchen will, by the way, be available 24/7 to the members of our private club.  Probably another first, or at least the only club that we know of that can brag about that perk.

Dave Smith started his hardwood floor refinishing this week.  The old floor finish is being removed and sanded and the project will probably be completed by week's end.

Joe Stallbaum and his son spent the afternoon today tweaking the smoke filters we bought last week.  These filters will be located in the private club.  Thanks, Joe...

So, it has been a good week no matter how one looks at it.  We are much further along than we ever thought we would be when we started in February.  None of this would be possible without the volunteer help of our members.  

Another Great Week of Progress...

Another great week of progress at Third Street Cigar.  Big Jack's public smoking lounge is 99% complete.  The leather club chairs and other lounge furniture has been delivered and will be in place in a day or two.  The ceiling lighting will arrive on Thursday or Friday.

The beautiful hickory floors were cleaned and polished today (yes, I know it is Easter Sunday, however what more fitting way to celebrate than to bring a little beauty into all of our lives?) and they look fantastic.

The 70" LED TVs were delivered and we installed them yesterday.  All wiring for the TVs was hidden in the wall so the installation is clean, neat and tidy.  There is nothing that we dislike more than walking into an establishment that has electrical wiring hanging all over the place.  It shows lack of foresight and planning; something we will never be accused of doing.

DirecTV will be out on Tuesday to install our satellite antenna and connect it to these two televisions.

Of course, we plan on having three additional high definition, WiFi-enabled, LED Sharp TVs in the private lounge when the time comes.

We elected not to go with the NFL ticket that DirecTV offers due to the exorbitant costs.  A one year subscription is over $2300 (subscription rates are based for businesses on occupancy codes) and we can get the Detroit and Cleveland games on local broadcast channels.  

We may revisit that decision later, but for now we are going to pass on that subscription.  

The smoke eaters were also installed and all the comments were favorable.  They are quiet, really quiet, and we will only resort to the industrial sized smoke eater when we hold noisy events with a lot of folks smoking.

John Henry has had Eric at the Hall of Framers working overtime on the photographs which will festoon our walls in Big Jack's.  Eric is a master at matting and framing art pieces and has applied his talents to our project with a zeal rarely seen in today's business world.  We are proud to display his works of art on our walls.

Two or three local bands have visited us in the past several days, all interested in gigs at TSC.

Downstairs in the retail shop things have been humming along.  Jim Mackiewicz, of Metro Homes, is nearly finished with the final cove moldings and will be moving to other projects at TSC next week.

John Henry painted the ceilings in the retail space yesterday and today put a coat of paint on the walls.  

We have chosen to go with a couple of Benjamin-Moore colors, Woodstock Tan and Texas Leather for the retail store.  They are masculine colors that fit nicely with all the testosterone that the shop seems to attract.

Rich Restivo has been busy digging the tunnel from the basement to Mad Anthony's in hopes of finding a date or something*.  Good luck, Rich.

Sneak preview of our leather club chairs (color -- Tobacco)

The humidor was picked up at Custom Creations on Tuesday and will start being installed tomorrow. Dave Graven and Bob Miller will be hard at it on this project as they have been on all of the tasks to date.  

Tom Clark finished the eyebrow window and brought it up on Saturday.  The other windows will be here in a day or two.  We should be well on the way to having a completed Spanish cedar humidor by week's end.

Rich Jessup hung both the door to the retail humidor as well as the door to the storage humidor in the basement this week.  Rich is a true artisan at what he does and his work shows it.

Dave Smith (shown here impersonating a Ghost Buster) started on his work today.  Dave, after he retired from the USAF, spent many year in the profession of hardwood floor finishing.  Our new oak stairs going up to Big Jack's were the first item on his agenda at TSC.  We almost hate covering the center of the stairs with a tasteful runner but the overall look will be spectacular.

When Dave finishes coating the steps with polyurethane he will start refinishing the retail and humidor floors.  That will be a week-long process as the old finish on the existing floors will have to be sanded off.  The sanded oak floors will be stained to match the hickory floors in Big Jack's and then polyurethane applied.  The process will take a week and we will be unable to enter the retail space until the project is complete.

Not a problem though, as members will be able to utilize the newly completed Big Jack's lounge via entry by the rear stairs from the private lounge entry door.   ...and, the plush leather club chairs, as well as the TVs, will be available for your sitting and viewing pleasure.

As with many things it seems these days, few really appreciate all of the planning, foresight, and thought that goes into a project like this.  Everything, no matter how small of a detail, like where the TVs should be mounted, or what sort of a LED spot is needed to properly wash the walls, is agonized over.  

Many of us wake up at four in the morning thinking about the minutiae that is involved with the problems of getting an operation like this going.  

My thanks go out to all who lose sleep over this and know that it is greatly appreciated...

*I was lying about Rich Restivo, he has no problem getting a "date"...

Things Are Happening Fast...

Another busy week at Third Street Cigar.

Jim Mackiewicz, our builder, his right hand man, Mano, and Bill Peters the electrician spent the week in the retail shop and Big Jack's lounge.  A lot of work went into rewiring the retail space for track lighting and security cameras.  In Big Jack's the ceiling was redone to plaster the old fluorescent fixture spaces up and put in new boxes to support the rail lighting systems we will put in place there.

Since we have decided to leave the existing 1890's ceiling in the retail space as it is, we took the ceiling out of the humidor and will be using that bead board wood to patch the ceiling in the retail space.

Tuesday the humidor from Custom Creations arrives.  We will drive up to pick it up and haul it back in order to save costs that we would have incurred had we shipped the kit.

The POS (Point-of-Sale) counter as well as the island display case in the humidor will be completed the end of next week and we will go and pick them up as well.  We have been working with the providers of the POS to build a cigar data base which is no small task when you think about manufacturers, brands, sizes etc. the job is quite daunting.  We were able to find a couple of relatively complete data bases on line, however, which has made our job a lot easier.

We ordered the initial TV purchase for Third Street Cigar.  There will be two, 70-inch, flat-panel, LED Sharp Aquous TV's wall mounted in Big Jack's, as promised.  

We have decided to go with DirecTV as a supplier of content for three reasons; true 1080p resolution, no Cable boxes (or the attendant wiring to our lounge TV's, and the ability to split the screens.  Therefore, with two 70 inch displays, we should be able to watch four football games.  Being "able to" and actually "wanting to" are two different things, but the capability will be there.  The TV's will arrive Thursday.

We are still trying to decide on our surround-sound system and are considering the SONOS wireless system for Big Jack's sporting events. 

Two new smoke eaters arrived this week from AirFlow in Dallas.  These are for Big Jack's lounge.  They each have a 1000 CFM rating and they are quiet - 54Db on the HI setting.  That will give us 4500 CFM of smoke removal capacity in Big Jack's should the need require.

John Henry has been busy having his personal collection of B&W rock star photographs, many of which are one of a kind, framed by our neighbor Eric at the Hall of Framers.  John is graciously allowing us to display his collection on our blues/jazz/rock and roll themed public lounge walls.

John and Rich Restivo spent the day, today, touching up the paint in Big Jack's.

Also, we were able to acquire six used Smokeeters for the Private lounge.  Fitz Crawford found these electrostatic units and they were recommended to us by Joe Stallbaum.  They came out of a bar in the south end that had lost its liquor license.  Not pretty, but they will be restored to their original luster and tweaked.  Joe assures us that they are in good working order -- the only moving part is the fan.  The plan is to place these units in the attic of the Private lounge so their appearance is a moot point.  They have capacities between 1200 CFM to 2500 CFM each.

What is important is that they work.

These units new cost between $2400 - $3000 each.  We bought six of them for $2100.00 total.  Do the math...! 

The base board will be installed tomorrow in Big Jack's and the room cleaned and ready for the arrival of our first installment of leather club chairs and furniture on Tuesday afternoon.  Big Jack's should be ready for occupancy Wednesday.

That is a good thing, because we are planning on closing the retail shop for all traffic on the 21st for ONE WEEK.  This is necessary for the refinishing of the hardwood flooring which takes seven days.  This is not cut in stone as of today and depends on other factors this week.  This is just a heads up that no one will be allowed on the retail floor during the time of its refinishing.

During that time frame, the lockbox will be moved from the front door of the retail shop and placed on the entry door to the private lounge.  Anyone who wants to can gain access to Big Jack's via the rear stairs in the kitchen area.  The lockbox code will remain the same...

As you can see, things are moving along quite nicely.  

Almost all of the major cigar reps have been in contact with us over the past few days.  Sam, the Drew Estates rep, was in last week to see the facility.

His comment was, "WOW!"

As always, we would be remiss if we failed to acknowledge the fine work and volunteer time put in by many of the investors and members.  Dave Graven, Bob Miller and Dave Kervorkian did yeoman duty this week as they have for the past five or six weeks.  Dave K and Bob spent the better part of the week on the kitchen floor where they laid commercial grade 12 X 12 tile in patterns not likely to be duplicated anywhere on this globe any time soon.  The point being that the kitchen is a kitchen in a cigar shop, not a kitchen on Iron Chef's of America.  The word "utilitarian" comes to mind.

Tom Clark was busy (and he is always busy) building the windows and eyebrow window for the humidor.  We should see those by the end of the week.

Bill Perry, took time from the farm to work with the POS people.  As an aside, our POS system will come already upgraded to accept chip and pin credit cards that will start appearing next year in this country.  Chip and pin cards have been de ri·gueur in the EU for years.  These cards require the card holder to insert a pin number code at point of purchase.  This eliminates much of the credit card fraud that runs rampant in the US today. 

Tim Hawkins, again, has been painting up a storm on the wood trim.  It's nice to watch a pro at work...

Other folks came out to lend their support this week, if for nothing else than to say hello and have a cigar.

With the nice weather, we left the front door open this weekend.  Many passersby expressed interest in our project and said they were looking forward to the day we will open.

Just Keepin' On Keepin' On...

There is no way that we will ever be able to repay all the guys who are volunteering their time and expertise to get the Third Street Cigar shop up and running.  Numerous members have unselfishly chipped in since we started and continue giving.  

All the pre-finished flooring in Big Jack's public smoking lounge has been installed and the new wide baseboard is being painted for installation this week.  The flooring came out beautifully and with our new leather club chairs and accessory furniture arriving next week for Big Jack's the room will be ready for a quiet, comfortable and relaxing cigar and perhaps a sip of your private liquor stock.

Rich Jessup has installed the security doors at both the top of the back stairs in Big Jack's as well as the door between the kitchen and the retail area.  These doors will be locked at the close of the retail shop each night and will enable the Private lounge members full access to the kitchen facilities on a 24/7 basis.

Our two additional smoke eaters for Big Jacks should be arriving in a week or so.  

We have decided to put ten designer rail lights in the ceiling where the fluorescent light fixtures were taken down.  The original holes will be repaired and light hangers installed between the ceiling joist to hang the rail lights.  Each rail light will have four spots that will illuminate the various art work for a total of forty overhead lights that will wash the walls in a subtle glow.  Table lamps located throughout will add an atmosphere conducive to a relaxing environment.  There will be no public smoking lounge to rival ours anywhere within a days drive -- Period.

Proceeding down the Victorian stairway to the retail space, Jim Mackiewicz, of Metro Homes, and a local expert in restoring historic buildings, has been busy replacing the treads and risers with oak.

We are going to great lengths to keep and improve the beauty of our featured interior architectural asset and the new treads and risers, when stained and finished to match the existing decor, will highlight the retail space.

We have also decided to have the existing 1890's wood beadboard ceiling repaired and updated rather than installing the tin ceiling which was our original intent.  Jim Mackiewicz recommended, and rightfully so, that it would be a shame to cover this one hundred and twenty year old historical ceiling when we could choose to preserve the past.  

The team of Dave Graven, Bob Miller, Dave Kervorkian, Tim Hawkins and Jim Gregory, among other wonderful people, worked all week installing the unfinished red oak flooring that matches the existing retail floor.  It was decided that, in order to create continuity as well as keeping the look simple and understated, we would run the same red oak into the humidor.

The retail red oak floor, both old and new, will be sanded, the old finish removed, stained to match the floors in Big Jack's and finished, leaving the entire floor looking fresh and new.  Dave Smith, who earned his living for a number of years refinishing oak floors, has volunteered to do the same for us for a very nominal charge.  We cannot thank Dave enough.

The humidor manufacturer should have our new humidor on site by week's end.  Tom Clark will have our humidor windows to us this week and the room should be up and running next week to season the Spanish cedar.

So, folks, things are coming along nicely, we are ahead of our projected timeline and well on our way to completing the retail space and public smoking lounge.  

Then, we move to the private smoking lounge...

A Special Thank You to Mike Masterson who generously donated a refrigerator for the kitchen...  Thanks, Mike.