Still Busy

I haven't slowed down much at all lately to have enough time to put together a good post. On Friday, I mastered interstate Craigslist commerce, taking it to a new level. I think I have a problem . . .

I knew I needed equipment for brewed coffee and kicked a variety of ideas back and forth, weighing the pros and cons, debating capacity and demand, glitz and frugality. There are a number of schools of thought on coffee brewing equipment. One school says Bunn makes fine airpot brewers, they aren't pretty, but they get the job done. One school says that Fetco is the way to go. Their brewers are more high tech, more adjustable, better to look at, and more expensive. The third school says, don't get Bloomfield unless you want your cafe to burn down in the middle of the night, even if the equipment is unplugged. I decided to go the Fetco route and got to shopping. My discovery of CraigLook and CrazedList was a bad, bad thing. Both allow you to search the entire craigslist network with ease.

I found a Fetco GR-2.2 grinder in North Chicago for a song and a dance. They retail for about $1600 new and are supposed to grind quickly and efficiently for coffee brewing with two separate hoppers with two dose settings each, small batch and full batch. My interstate transaction is being completed by Melisa who moved to Evanston a little while back. How convenient . . . otherwise, I'd have to come up with a way to do the money transfer/shipping that would work for both buyer and seller, not an easy task. In exchange for her services (which may net her a new hairstylist), I will be cleaning the gutters at her rental house in Denver.

I also tracked down a Fetco CBS-2052 which includes two Luxus LD-15 thermal dispensers, in Milwaukee, WI. Fortunately the seller was an office furniture dealership that no only takes credit card, but was also willing to ship to me, with me covering the freight charges obviously. I now have a freight account if I ever need it for business purposes of course.


This pallet is on a truck and on the way to Denver. It was another bargain and there is no way I would have been able to purchase the equipment new to get the business started. Give the price I paid, I anticipate there will be some work to clean the brewer, dispensers, and grinder before I can put them to use in the shop.


I have been meeting with my team of high powered consultants on a regular basis. On Tuesday, I met with friends with both design and restaurant experience over at the new space and got their input which was very helpful. I had no real concepts yet of how throughput would work and how the kitchen and coffee area would flow. I also had no idea of some of the requirements and process for getting food from raw state to cooked. One of the items that got added to the list was an ice maker to keep the in-counter refrigerator well extra cold and presentable and to keep "dangerous" foods like raw egg at the proper temperature until they hit the pan. Craigslist netted this one:


It isn't the fanciest or the best rated, but for $60 for an under counter unit that has never been used, as long as it works, I win. I found a great way to finance all of this without having to take out major loans. While visiting Joey at Stevinson Imports today, I was treated to a ride in a Bentley Flying Spur (or Sperm if you are Izzie). Question of the day is, how much change is there in the average Bentley's ash tray?


Joey's guess of $7 was pretty good based on his sideways glance from the driver seat, it was $7.06. Through all of this, I have still found time to get my rides in. I made the mistake of going out West on Sunday to check out the cross race.


The picture doesn't accurately capture the white caps on the pond along the Ralston Creek path. Our best guess at wind speed was approximately 43 MPH sustained. Riding west was bad, sailing east was easy.