Hello all, it's been a hot minute since we've blogged. Things have been so busy with the store- there hasn't been time! The holidays are over, and the workforce is back on route running through the red line and blue line. Needless to say, there is A LOT of foot traffic!
It's been a long couple of weeks and we finally found a breather to be able to update everyone!

The last few days leading up to the Grand Opening were toughest! Scrambling around the city finding supplies, finalizing paperwork with our providers, and seeing the last of our store put together. The most stressful part, hands-down, was waiting for the Health Department to pay their visit-- with the holidays right around the corner, it looked like no one would be able to make it out. Determined- Daishin took a taxi across town to get to the Health Dept. Offices minutes before they closed-- luckily he got them to agree to come out the next day! =D 
Without the stamp of approval, we could not stock food, and therefore could not fully train our staff-- so this was MAJOR for us.

As soon as we got the go signal, we called all our providers to get our deliveries sent our way and went full steam ahead in the little time span we had to train our workers. Teaching them how to work the register, taking them through the motions of baking, operating ovens and espresso machines. Despite all this, there is no amount of training that could have prepared them for the mass amounts of people that came through our doors the first day. Eddy, Daishin and I had only 2hours of sleep because I had flown in around 1am! So waking up at 345AM was more than brutal for us. We got ready in a flash, and trudged out in the snow to our zipcar and started loading it up with appliances we had kept at our place and other essentials we needed to survive the day =P  Although i thoroughly enjoy the snowfall, i must admit, i felt terrible for Eddy who had to keep driving through it almost 75% of the day picking up our last minute supplies and running back and forth from the bank to the store about 21820430947203948 times! That's exaggerated, but gosh did it feel like it!  Daishin and I arrive at Block37, ran down the escalator that was running in the opposite direction, haha, and reached the store to find our openers for the morning ready to work, like real troopers =P  We were scheduled to open at 12- so we used those last crucial hours to make everything look spic and span, and start preparing endless amounts of our freshly baked choux pastry shells, and our famous Madagascar vanilla bean custard, Belgian Callebaut milk AND dark chocolate custard, and our fresh and light Strawberries and whipped cream. Our second troop came in at 10a, and it was GO TIME- time to hit the ground running. Time to crank out that custard and start dipping a million dark chocolate eclairs! We had 2 people breaking the giant dark chocolate bars&milk chocolate bars, 2 people with me in the back learning how to make the custard, and everyone else either baking and prepping dough, cutting strawberries, preparing the cookie dough for our cookie shells, washing dishes, or preparing the front workspace. So many people in the store at one time- and yet EVERY SINGLE PERSON WAS DOING SOMETHING. talk about being proactive and efficient =P

Doors open at 12, and BAM. so it begins...a line out the door and our troops working extra hard. Daishin and I in the front and Eddy supervising in the back-- we had our assembly line ready to go- for the most part. Like I stated earlier, nothing can prepare new workers for the overwhelming masses of anxious first-timers, so there were some parts where Daishin and I had to jump in there and send the assembly line of 5? to go do something else. Being long-time veterans really helps in the face of "chaos" =P. Our 3rd and final troop arrives at 2pm and things pick up EVEN MORE! We had our yummy molten double-chocolate cookies out on display, our 8 different mochi ice cream flavors in the display case, our delicious Illy Coffees, Haagen-Dazs smoothies and milkshakes and of course, the CREAM PUFFS. There was A LOT to do, thank goodness we had the workforce to do it all.

This trend has kept up for the past 3 weeks we have had our doors open and welcoming to by-passers and we are more than happy to say, with everyone back to work and school- things have been even busier. Going into our 4th week, we have now introduced more of our savory desserts- cheescakes, fondants, and mini croissants- this week? Our MANGO MILKBERRY, which we promise will be your newest addiction!

We thank everyone who has stopped by and continue to return, we thank our faithful twitter followers for their support and spreading the word, our families&loved ones for their support and putting up with our CRAZY,busy and hectic schedules, and our future regulars to come! We hope to see you soon.

Till next time...

   

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Sp we spoke to our contractors this morning, now they're telling us we'll be looking at the December10-Dec13 Weekend as the finishing date for the store's construction! So we should be opening the week after. And with that in mind, it's getting down to crunch time for us to find staff and start the training process! We've had about 289 inquiries, and about 50-something actual interviews! We're going on our third day of meeting with eager, potential applicants. A strong, dependable staff is so essential to our business--without a good staff, how will our store operate and run successfully! Initially, we were holding our interviews at the ING Direct Cafe off of Chestnut. We figured we were there so much we might as well hold the interviews there too- especially since we had no facilities to do so. However, we did not know we had to communicate this with the ING staff, and we ended up getting in trouble with the Supervisor/Manager. Ehh... so we went with "Plan B" for today's Round3-- STARBUCKS!  When all else fails, find the nearest Starbucks. =)
Out of our many, many applicants, we're confident that we've found our staff. Hopefully we can get back to everyone by Sunday, we've got a few interviews left-- and then we can start figuring out the training processes and such.

On another note, we've been doing our research with the best suppliers in town for the best of the best ingredients for our products! We went ahead and narrowed it down, and we're now in the test sampling stage for essential ingredients for our Specialty Tiramisu Cheesecake and Rare Fruit Cheesecake! We'll let you guys know how it goes. =)

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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!

     

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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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