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.
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.
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