The Making of a Third Place, Pt. II: The part where it's backbreaking but still good

Then It Was Difficult

This is the second part of a story I began last week, about the restaurant we bought in 2021. Read the first part here: The Making of a Third Place, Pt. I: First It Was Exciting

Renovating the building was backbreaking work, but our vision was this: clean, bright, and uncluttered. We knocked down every wall we could do away with and removed every counter and cupboard and layer of flooring, bringing things down to their sturdy bones. 

Tim used magic tools to remove a rock wall. Our kids helped us use magic tools to remove ceramic tile and laminate tile and very well-adhered vinyl flooring, all layered on top of each other. We rented more magic tools to grind and sand and strip the floor down to its concrete beginnings, and then we stained it all black. It turned out splotchy and worn-looking, very imperfect, and I loved it. 

We kept the original customer counter with the stools our children grew up spinning circles on, with its wooden footrest, pocked by years of loggers’ cork boots.  Once we removed the old restaurant booths, the counter fit perfectly in front of the window.

The community’s rememberers were continually stopping in during the remodel. Any time we were there, visitors peeked inside and checked to see if the doors were open. This made the work slower, but it was an important part of the process. We heard the building’s history and learned the stories of its scars—from bar room brawls marked in its ceiling, to names etched in the concrete floor. Former waitresses and cooks stopped in and reminisced, and Tim’s dad was often shuffling around with a broom as we revitalized what he’d given a lifetime to.

In August of 2021, we hosted his 80th birthday in the emptied restaurant, mid-renovation. 

Gallons of degreaser. Truckloads of white paint. Dozens of thrifted chairs and tables that needed paint. New seat covers. Multiple trips to the dump and the second-hand building supply store. New lighting. The work of electricians and plumbers. Literal blood and sweat, but no tears yet.

We were trying to remodel an old building while also learning all the hoops, hurdles, and pointless piles of paperwork we were required to attend to. Everything has a tax, or a permit fee, or both. There is no manual or checklist for opening a business like this. There is no single person to call and get all the information you’ll need. It’s a phone call to a government agency, or a conversation with someone in the business, that leads to another and another and another, with multiple hold times and always the fear of missing something. 

It’s a whole new vocabulary to learn, complete with acronyms and its own slang, and everyone in the business speaks it as their native tongue and can’t slow down to explain what it means to you.

There were so many decisions to make, but fitting a market and a deli into an already-existing structure gave us some boundaries. There were certain things we couldn’t do. I stressed about layout and where to put counters and machines, but Tim would walk in to the building and its limitations, the drains and plumbing stuck in the original concrete, the things that couldn’t be moved or changed, and he would just know. He could see things in their finished state.

There were several plans we’d made that we had to abandon, but there was one dream I refused to let go of. Coffee.

I try not to be a diva, but good coffee was a hill I was going to die on. If I was going to spend all my hours at this new business, I was going to make it as enjoyable as possible.

Tim thought adding an espresso machine would be too much time and complication for us as we were starting out, but he loves me and I got my way. We bought a beautiful, used commercial machine from a friend, and we chose a locally roasted, ethically sourced organic coffee. 

I know more than I did in April 2021, but I am far from done figuring this business out. One thing I have certainly learned is that when you have a business like this (and we really see it as three businesses: foodservice, market, and coffee shop) everyone will want you to expand. Distributors will want to cover every square inch of your space with their products, and new products and new distributors are constantly streaming in; and customers will always ask for more than you can or want to offer. If you give a mouse a cookie…

“You need to have a good burger.”

“We gotta have chicken fried steak.”

“You’re gonna have milkshakes, right?”

Over and over we repeated, “It’s a deli, not a restaurant.”

A small menu was our goal. Keep it simple, start with a few homemade basics and some quick stuff for the truckers. But telling that to people excited about the only restaurant in town opening up again, was like taking your toddler with you to pick up just a gallon of milk in the store. They see options, and they want them all.

We foolishly thought we’d be done with the remodel and ready to make sandwiches for our friends by September of that year, but this was a stupid idea. It was our youngest child’s senior year of football, and I was still coaching volleyball. September was crazy already. Opening a brand new business and training a whole crew of employees in the fall, on top of the regular changes of life, would have been absurd. 

God, save us from our own absurdity.

We had protection in the form of inspections that took unreasonably long to schedule, refrigeration and other equipment that was hard to find, and a national shortage on store shelving (something about steel and supply chains and blah blah blah—you remember 2021, right?!). We ended up buying used shelving off of Craigslist and driving 8 hours roundtrip to bring it home.

When it came right down to it, we knew we just had to open the ding-dang doors and figure the rest out as we went along. We didn’t feel ready¹, but we’d spent nine months on this baby and it was time. We had all the licensing and inspections that told us we were good to go, so we went. 

Mercifully, opening day was January 17, 2022. 

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You guys. If you’ve made it this far, thanks. This has been really good for me to write out but I fear I’m boring you, and I’m only including a tiny fraction of the whole thing! Next week I’m planning to share Part III and then I think this space will be back to its regularly scheduled programming.

1. This is one of the biggest lessons from the deli. I procrastinate by waiting for things to be perfect, waiting to be fully prepared, and nothing ever happens that way. You just have to do the thing and learn as you go.