Tomorrow never comes

Just kidding, it'll be here at its regularly scheduled time.

So many delays. We passed all our inspections except for our plumbing inspection on Tuesday. Thanks, union plumbers. It's fixed now and we have our C of O! I participated in my first health inspection, which I guess in my mind was more of a rite of passage than it actually ended up being. So we are cleared for opening tomorrow! It's going to be a short-staffed weekend; lots of changes to employee schedules, mine included thanks to graduation. Messing with the schedule is giving me quite the headache--I thought we were in the clear but there are days that we don't have an evening manager and that's bad mmmkay?

Anyway.

I was up about 4:15am today due to monkeymind, good training for tomorrow. I have so many things I am still confused about. They are 99% to do with the cash register procedures. Today I am also going to finish the OMR handbook (FINALLY), buy ice cream scoops and brown sugar (the package Sysco sent was busted and covered up with labels), call Sysco about said package (as well as a destroyed tub of chocolate icing), call Johnson Bros, and be at the bakery by 3pm to knock out a whole mess of prep work for the week with the baking crew. I feel mostly great. Wishing this weren't all happening at the same time as graduation and having my family in town, because I want 100% of my undivided attention to each of these great events but instead I can only commit so much to everything.

All right, let's lighten the mood! Marnie opened Pandora's Box the other day. She and Jennifer, our other morning baker, were cleaning up the bakery when a friend of the owners came in to inquire about when we were opening and what we would be selling. Marnie went through the menu. When she came to the cake pops, the customer was confused, which is sort of understandable--even though they are trendy and have been popular on the internet and in other cities for quite some time, San Antonio is really behind on trends. We are making two cake pops currently: both round, traditional cake balls, one confetti cake and one peanut butter/chocolate cake. Very tasty, simple, attractive.

So Marnie, bless her heart, says "oh! You should look at bakerella.com, they have lots of cake pops. That's sort of what we're doing."

The customer goes and looks at bakerella.com (and you should too, they're fabulous) and instantly goes, "Great! I want 30 Hello Kitty cake pops by this Friday!"

For reference, what the customer wants:



Darn it all, Marnie.

So this is what happens when you take these bakers:


And have them make Hello Kitty cake pops. I call it "Ohno Kitty."





Be sure to note the expressive, intensely worried eyes....the slightly perplexing placement of facial features....the bullet wound in the side of the head. Masterpieces.

(We had a really hilarious and wonderful time practicing, I have to say.)

It's just our luck to have two jokers in the bakery, huh? Tough break for us. Fortunately, we have other employees, more mature, respectable, GROWN UP employees like our manager Lizzie who can keep these clowns in lin---



Oh dear.

Maybe tomorrow SHOULD never come.

A sample "to do" list for a manager

*Email our rep from Ben E Keith again since he didn't respond to the one I sent last week. We need to set up an account so we don't have to shop at Sam's Club and HEB to get through the week!

*Message the remaining two employees about what time they should come in tonight for training (they missed it Saturday because they were doing their Gala dinner at St Philip's. Awww memories). This involves figuring out what they need to learn and how long that will take. Also how late I really want to be out there if I have to wake up at 4am tomorrow morning. (Did I mention how, in freak Texas tradition, it is supposed to be in the 40s tomorrow morning? ARGH.)

*Send out this week's schedule. I wanted to send out the schedule I drew up for the rest of the month but Tom and Laura need to OK it first.

*Get Tom or Laura to complete the credit card authorization form for Restaurant Depot, a restaurants-only warehouse in town where we will be purchasing our boxes to package up our food in. Go buy said boxes x 200 each as well as a couple other items.

*Finish fixing Focus (our POS system) to the best of my abilities. Mark, our rep, will be at the bakery this afternoon to install and answer any other questions but I want to be as ready as possible before then.

*Get Rodney (our evening baker/manager) to tell me his chef coat size and then call H&M Uniforms to order it.

*Be at the bakery at 11am to give a check for the remainder of the Blue Bell purchase to their rep.

*Be back at the bakery at 1pm to finish setting up and training. I don't know who else is going to be there at that time and I'll be irritated if I'm the only one, what with everything else up there ^^^. Maybe I'll hold off on fixing Focus until I'm on site, that will pass the time. (ETA: After talking with Tom I have a nice list of cleaning to accomplish as well as the times everyone else will be there. Problem solved!)

*Tonight we need to train the remaining two on Focus, opening/closing procedures, the employee handbook and the recipe book/sidework. We also need to train on ice cream scoop procedures which I don't know and I haven't seen any of the equipment yet so that's a big ol' blind spot there. We will also test the proofer/ovens on some products and make test batches and some bags of dry ingredients to expedite opening tomorrow morning. We don't have every ingredient yet; some things are on their way and some things we just won't start with. But for the most part we will be ready to rock and/or roll tomorrow!

*Oh and somewhere in there gosh darn it I wanted to finish the Original Mexican Restaurant handbook. It's so close, it just needs a bit more time. Which I'm out of. Hmph.

Catch-up, update, and pics!

The short version since the other day: everything worked out. I made it to both my classes and the goods were received. Needed a new tank of gas after it was all said and done but it was a great and successful day. Huzzah!

We expect to open Tuesday! The delays right now: finishing the plumbing (we are leaking all over), grouting and cleaning the tile floor, installing shelves and IKEA-style boards to hang our tools in the back, setting up the tables and chairs in the front, and getting our last batch of supplies that Sysco did not provide. (There's a few headaches involved in that.)

We trained almost everyone yesterday as well as some hardcore cleaning and rearranging. Miracles abounded. All of our major equipment fits in the back better than Tetris. All of our food purchases fit in the fridge/freezer. Everything works and is holding the right temperatures. Our coworkers are mature, hardworking and get along. Nothing exploded or caught fire. (But our fire extinguisher is installed if something DID catch fire. That's called "preparation!") We are still getting random walk-ins hoping that the bakery is open already. Our neighboring businesses (particularly Willie's Icehouse and a brand new nail salon, called something like Uniquely Heavenly) are thriving and pulling in a lot of traffic to the area. I mean, seriously, we are set up to win!

So I wanted to share some photos of the process. They are generally a progression of how the bakery is slowly but surely getting rearranged, scrubbed within an inch of its life, and reformed into something very chic, trendy, and clean. I couldn't be prouder.


My first shipment of ice cream!


The front room with Coke machine not where it's going to be and the empty dipping stations (where the ice cream goes).


Hurray for ice cream!


The view from behind the counter, earlier in the week. Plumbing and electrical work not completed.


Without storage (or room to install storage with all the construction in the back), we stacked our dry goods off the ground in the front room.


Much improved! This was our status yesterday. With the lovely giant pictures hung, it looks much more complete. (The vagrant Coke machine moved but is still not in its final destination.)


Our ovens are beasts, lasting for decades of use. But they ugly.


A bit of elbow grease fixed them right up!


And our shiny new refrigeration! I am just amazed at how everything fits. It was like we were meant to be here.

Today: shopping at Sam's (yes, Sam's) for our remaining ingredients that we didn't get. We are going to set up with Ben E Keith in hopes of timely, organized and complete service. But for right now, everyone's thoughts are on getting started and getting through the first week. It's happening, people!

One week!

I have completed my 256 hours of internship! Boerne Stage Bakery is set to open next Saturday, April 30. Lots of work is going into preparing for the opening. The highlights of my week were: 1) placing the order for our first (estimated) week’s delivery of food with Sysco, 2) attending the Ben E Keith trade show (I even got a VIP pass!), and 3) training on the POS system, Focus.

In addition, we had our first meeting with (almost) all the employees of the bakery, where we were able to introduce ourselves, see the bakery’s state of completion, and discuss schedules for this next week and the opening. It was a good orientation and I think it was necessary for the employees to see firsthand what Tom and Laura are dealing with on their end, which sheds some light as to why we may not get the immediate communication on deadlines and schedules that we were hoping for. It’s just too soon to say, beyond “here’s what we’re looking at now. We’re going to be flexible to change.” Fortunately, everyone had a great attitude and seemed very willing to bear with the growing pains. Also a good sign: during our 1.5 hour meeting at the bakery, no fewer than 5 people stopped by and tried to enter the bakery, thinking we were already open. Hurray potential customers!

As for the other highlights, I was very pleased with my performance overall. Placing the order with Amy from Sysco was very satisfying; I had everything ready to go and she was very cooperative in person. I am really happy that even though I led that meeting, Tom was there to observe and learn. He is really determined to be knowledgeable about every element of his bakery, which makes me respect him a lot. I can tell that he is relaxing and gaining confidence in his decision to hire me as manager the more he sees me in action. It feels great.

The Ben E Keith trade show was a riot. It was in the convention center, and everything from seafood to sorbet, paper goods to pastry, cooking demos to coolers was there. I could have spent hours sampling goodies if I had been left up to my own devices. Fortunately, I was greeted and then shown around by Henry McCrary, a very friendly and helpful Ben E Keith rep; after I got my bearings, he then turned me loose to gather information and literature on products relevant to the bakery, such as Tupperware/bins, gloves, eco-friendly flatware and to-go boxes, and various food things that we didn’t have settled with Sysco such as ham and chorizo. It was a lot of fun to wander with a purpose, and I look forward to sharing my findings with the owners.

Finally, we began training on Focus, our point-of-sales system. I love this system for the most part; it is very intuitive, does not present too many or too few options, and generally seems very reliable. It was easy for me to understand how to run reports and what those reports would tell us, which is good because that will be a significant part of my job. I took the POS system home and updated the menu options and graphics so it reads in what to me is the most logical and correct way. I trained Marnie on using it and got her ID set up as well, so I feel fairly confident in my ability to train the remaining employees.

Lots to be done yet this week. Wednesday we get our delivery of food, which I will receive and inspect. Wednesday is also when we will all come and clean the equipment and front of house until it's shiny and fabulous. And then Thursday and Friday will be training and a "family & friends" tasting before our grand opening on Saturday!

Fun with food

The opening has been delayed.

Dunno until when. I'm really quite relieved; we drove by there today and I stopped and pressed my face against the glass. It's still a wasteland as far as I could tell; no sign, paint isn't quite done, tile isn't installed, no equipment in the front of house at all. It would take some kind of Christmas miracle to get that place ready for the "friends and family tasting" that was due to happen in 6 days. And really, I want us to be better hired and better trained than would be possible in a week and a half. So overall right now my overwhelming feeling is relief.

Regardless, it was a super fun weekend of playing with food!

Marnie and I tackled the remaining menu items enthusiastically. We have a great quiche made with a Sysco biscuit dough, San Manuel chorizo, and Rotel tomatoes and green chiles. We want to find a pan with Texas-shaped mini loaves and make them Texas quiches. So cute. They taste fantastic! And we have a zesty quiche with Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage, cheddar cheese and jalapenos on a really yummy sweet yeast kolache dough. So our breakfasts are set, costed-out, procedured-out and fabulous.

We also took on a couple of our "signature breads." We have one with chopped black olives and feta, which was just beautiful and the little pockets of flavor were wonderful. We have another with rosemary and parmigiano cheese--the most fragrant by far! Exquisite. And we have a sweet honey and oat loaf. We may only start with these three as our "specialty" breads and I'm okay if we do; these are three that I can stand behind 100% and I'm not even really a bread person.

(But oh! if I have to try another carrot cake muffin in the next 5 years, I am going to give up baked goods forever. We have tried 5 carrot cake recipes in search of one that will meet Tom's very precise mental picture of The Ideal Carrot Muffin. We are pretty sure we nailed it. But I really loathe carrot cake at the moment. I could never work as a taste tester.)

Testing products

Done, done, on to the next!

So far for the Boerne Stage Bakery we have a pretty complete menu. There are a couple items we are doing from ready-made products (more on that soon), some items we are doing from recipe (aka from scratch), and some things that are a combination of the two. This is really the best strategy for a small bakery with a limited kitchen and a very limited number of employees--if we tried to make everything from scratch, we would have to charge $10 a cupcake to make a profit on the small volume we could produce. But the combination of the two ensures that we can have a steady stream of fresh baked goods in the proofer/oven/on the shelves at any point in time. It will just take careful mise en place to make sure we have it all timed right.

Those of you who know me are aware that I can be somewhat of a culinary snoot. This isn't to say that I don't like food; I really love food. But I have preconceived notions about terms like "fresh, local, organic, made from scratch" and terms like "ready-made, pre-packaged, convenience." To me, it's a black and white difference. One category is made with love, the other is made with preservatives. "I'm selling out," I glumly told myself at the thought of abandoning my three years of culinary training in favor of a frozen bread product.

I'm happy to be proven wrong.

True, not everything--not most of the things--that we've tasted from Sysco have been as good or better than homemade. Some things were as unpleasant as I'd expected. But other things are really, astonishingly palatable. I would put my name on them without cringing. And boy is it hard to turn down a flaky little puff pastry danish that you pull out of the bag onto a sheet pan, pop in the oven, ice and serve. It simply defied the hours of labor that went into my hand-made puff pastry. Hours and space that we don't have. So much butter. So much time and pampering. Versus frozen puff pastry that any of us would have been happy to claim on our final exam in Laminated Doughs.

So we're going with those, as well as dough bases (sourdough and wheat) that are incredibly easy to personalize, proof and bake. We have excellent recipes for banana streusel muffins, apple granola muffins, blueberry muffins, chocolate chip cookies and ranger cookies. We have cake pops that are an entire universe better than Starbucks'. We are finalizing quiches and kolaches (YUM!). We still want a good sugar cookie, pecan bar, and to revise our carrot cake muffin.

That's the food side of things. Just delighted with our progress. My job right now is to get these recipes to a science and make a recipe book with precise measurements of amounts, procedure, and time rested/proofed/baked. It needs to be all spelled out. Fortunately Sysco is very accommodating to new businesses starting up and they gave us a bunch of the product to play with. It should be enough.

In other news, we had a bit of a setback with staffing and need two more bakers to work evenings. No idea on front of house. I am officially on the full-time payroll in four days.

Yep, moving, shaking and baking!