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"...