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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Here's a lovely picture of our back wall, and as you can see, construction has started!  It actually started a few days ago, but it sounds better if I pretend it just started =)  The plumbing and electrical work on the walls are done, so it's time to drywall the walls and finish up the ceiling.  Many more pictures coming your way!

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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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This is the third Beard Papa's that we're opening, but for some reason they never get easier!  You'd think by now we could build stores while deep sea fishing in Alaska, but every project will give you at least 18 unexpected headaches.  The latest one was a doozy.  Due to the power of social media, we first found out about this story through twitter (thanks @JustinHaugens!).  Apparently Bank of America and its posse decided to file a foreclosure lawsuit against Joseph Freed in regards to the Block37 project!  The article says that Freed has been in default of its $205 million loan since March 2008 (when the mall was supposed to initially open).  The banks have been working with Freed to restructure the debt, but for whatever reason, they decided to foreclose the project less than 4 weeks until Freed was to receive cash flow from all the tenants' rents!

Obviously as a tenant, we were very concerned, but we've dealt with all sorts of problems over the past three years, so we were pretty sure things would be okay in the end.  I called our landlord, I called our contractor, I called our broker, I was even thinking of calling my momma.  What did the mean for us?  The landlord said everything would be fine and things would be worked out.  Our contractor said the tenants shouldn't be affected.  Our broker said, worse case scenario, our open date gets pushed back a little and we have a new landlord.  Contrary to some of the landlords we've worked with, I actually like Freed, so hopefully they can pull something together and keep the project!

Anyway, this was a big shock, but I'm pretty sure it won't be the last one.  We've learned not to fret things out of our control, because they'll usually work themselves out somehow.  Besides, this project is backed by the Mayor, the city, the people that want to finally see something at Block37, the people that want to see the pedway connect, and most importantly, the people that want their cream puffs!  There's always a way =)

Thanks again for all the Twitter support, and if you aren't following us already, you should follow @ChiBeardPapa now!

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Since this is the first store in the Midwest and still a relatively new concept in the United States in general, I thought it might be a smart idea to start explaining some of our peripheral baked products.  Two years ago I could have written about these particular products in one short blog post, but the Beard Papa patisserie chefs have worked hard these past few years to bring over more of the Japanese product line (there is a lot involved in adjusting the recipes to bake right in a new environment where the humidity, temperature and ingredients are not exactly the same).  A week ago Eddy introduced a new addition to our product line in the Paris-Brest.  Today, I'll focus on explaining the chocolaty goodness known as the Beard Papa's Fondant au Chocolat!

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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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One of the most significant revenue sources within your quick service/bakery/small restaurant or any other business for that matter is driven with complementary products. Often times this is a no brainer -- i.e coffee shops need pastries, burger joints need fountain drinks. 

For some other stores and shops this is not so easy to figure out.  Pinkberry for instance carries smoothies and parfaits to complement their tart yogurt,  but do people really buy this? Likewise Jamba Juice sells baked goods, oatmeal and now sandwiches wraps, but seem to be having a hard time finding that clear #2.  Finding that #2 is super important.  Like Scottie Pippen was to MJ, the #2 must be able to work well with the #1, but at the same time the #2 must carry the team when needed.

The pretzel places such as Auntie Annes and Wetzels seem to have the complementary product down --  their #2 is the lemonade.  On hot days, the #2 can carry the store alone.  The lemonade is probably responsible for 20-25% of the sales at least!  Personally I go to pretzel joints only when I'm thristy.

With our first Beard Papa store in Arcadia, we didn't even think about drinks at all.  Honestly, we were so excited about the cream puffs and were too busy fine tuning the making of it while simultaneously trying to hit our opening date that we didn't even have drinks when we opened.  Aside from a few bottled beverages, we really didn't have anything until about 3 months in, when things started to stabilize.  Unlike other more mature franchises, Beard Papas did not have a drink ready for us to sell, but instead it was our option to sell any drinks we would like to.  Although this sort of freedom gives you flexibility it also makes things difficult as you find yourself in a trial and error position.

We first started off with coffee and tea, which didn't work so well due to our lack of foot traffic (these drinks thrive in high traffic Beard Papa's locations, however--should be good for Block 37).  Our Arcadia customers often times come to our store via a pre-order just looking to get in and out as quick as possible with a cream puff box in hand to deliver to friends, family members or clients.  We also tried various slushies and smoothies.  Everything tasted good, but the drinks were not special enough to draw people in to buy it -- it was a little too generic.  We also feel that since we didn't have our drinks from the get-go with our opening, people just didn't associate our store with carrying any even though we had plenty of options some 6 months later.

Obviously we knew this was an issue for us (our drink sales represented 0.50% of our sales!) so with our second store we vowed to right this drink ship. 

So how do you create a signature drink and where do you start?  We first started off with drinks we liked and identified what we liked about each of them.  We then narrowed the type of drink by identifying milk as being the base(we felt something milky went well with the puffs).  We also wanted fresh fruit, so we decided to dice up some fresh strawberries and mangos (these fruits were selected since we do a lot with them on the cream puff side, so the multiple use made things a lot more efficient).  We also liked mini clear tapioca (aka boba) for its texture and shaved ice to give it that slushier consistency.  We added a hint of coconut milk, some cane sugar and pineapple juice to give it a more refreshing taste and well the rest is history ... the birth of the mango milkberry  (the drink consists of mangos, milk and strawberries =P)

Although I want to say the drink was a hit from the beginning, it definitely WAS NOT.  Initially people would give us dirty looks, would complain or straight out throw it away.  It took months (it was a true group effort, every Beard Papa team member had their hand in making it) before we finally fine tuned the secret recipe.  The result was a signature drink that is currently bought in addition to cream puffs and often times by itself as well. 

The Mango Milkberry (referred to as just the 'milkberry' now since it's hip like that) is the true complementary product that helps your business thrive by increasing sales incrementally. 

I hope Chicagoans love it!

Sent from my iPhone

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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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One of the most important items you have to check off your list when opening a store is finding good food suppliers for your products. If you don't do your homework you will be stuck with one of the default nationwide food service outlets like Sysco or US Foods and trust me, you definitely don't want this to happen.

These mega, publicly traded companies will charge you the highest prices - some 10, 15 to sometimes 30% higher than local distributors. Most people choose these guys for the convenience of having one supplier vs. creating separate supplier programs. These operators are just lazy.

In the food industry, food cost is what drives your bottom line. Although it(where we have to use high level of specialty ingredients like Madagascar vanilla beans and Callebaut chocolate) might be difficult to find a local one stop shop, you can just work hard to piece together a variety of suppliers that can meet your needs. It might take two or three suppliers vs one, but the results in savings is well worth the additional management (ordering and accounting).

We must buy specific ingredients and brand names so the quality is never sacrificed when going this route.

Currently we are in the process of getting this started in Chicago. We have asked for referrals for local dairy, chocolate and paper good suppliers. We will send them our product list, quantities and sizes and will compare them with the Sysco and US Foods quote sheets.

My guess is we will save about 20% on average for every order.

Sent from my iPhone

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People ask us all the time why we wanted to open up Beard Papa's franchises.  Besides the obvious answers like, "we hated our corporate jobs", "we loved the product", and "we wanted our first venture to be something relatively easy to operate", one big reason why we chose Beard Papa's was that it was something hard to replicate!

It's amazing how many knockoffs of Pinkberry there are.  Just off the top of my head, I can think of Ce Fiore, Red Mango (arguably Pinkberry copied them), Yogurtland, Dolci Mango, PinkYogurt, BerryGreen, FrozenMonster, Nubi, TuttiFrutti, and many, many more.  I feel like if I drive into any strip mall in Los Angeles, I can leave with a cup of tart frozen yogurt.  Sure, they had a bunch of success early on, and if you're in a A+++ location, you can make decent money, but do you really want to be constantly scared about a yogurt shop opening next to you that will try to beat you by undercutting you? 

I'm not saying our cream puffs and other desserts are super hard to make, I mean our moms have been making cream puffs at home for years.  I'm just saying that it's not as easy as throwing powder and milk into a Taylor frozen yogurt machine and having your product come out.  Ask any of our workers, but our custard is hand-made and takes about two hours to make.  You can always spot a Beard Papa's worker because their right forearm is always much bigger than their left!  Our chocolate fondant lava cake is even more time consuming!  We hand-mix the flour and cocoa powder for hours until we reach an acceptable consistency.  All that labor is worth it though, since we try hard to ensure you get the world's best cream puffs and desserts that no one else can replicate!

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