The Construction Curse... Or Cursing Construction?

Tiffany getting excited about winning an eBay bid for a bunch of forks really did crack me up. I mean they’re forks! But I had a similar geek out moment when I secured a slicer for my cheesecakes. I knew you could get machines that made nice even slices for your cakes and pies, the ones that put the papers between each slice. It was one of those items that was on my wish list; not an immediate necessity but something I would dearly like to have once we were up and running and could afford one. I looked them up online and they're manufactured by a company called FoodTools. When I inquired about the price it was well out of my range, so I started looking for used ones for sale. Turns out, there happened to be a man selling one on Craigslist out in San Diego for a steal. I simply had to have it, because it was nearly 90% off list price! The gentleman who was selling was an incredibly nice guy as we tried to work out how to ship it from California to Arkansas. It ended up costing more to ship it than the machine itself cost me but it was still an incredible deal. So I am now the proud owner of a CS-1FP model Round Product Portioning machine! I’m so thrilled to own it that I actually get giggly every time I use it. The folks at FoodTools are exceptionally nice as well and helped me with parts and supplies even though I didn’t purchase the slicer from them.

The problem we had with this spending though, was that we hadn’t really sat down and put together a construction list. We had a general vague idea of what we needed to leave for construction but it turned out to be a gross underestimate. So we were spending money on equipment for the store, furnishings and such but hadn’t finished or even fully realized the expense of construction. So what we were faced with then down the line is that we were short on money and couldn’t finish construction.

Sure we had table and chairs, we had a refrigerated display case (another great buy on eBay), but we sure as heck couldn’t open since our kitchen was only half constructed! This caused some substantial delays as we scrounged to come up with construction money. My husband left the bakery idle for almost two weeks to complete a drywall job just to have more money to finish construction on the bakery. Last week it became obvious that we were still much too short on funds, and we had our first monthly lease payment due on the building. We had already spent two extra months on construction than we anticipated and so incurred two months of electric and water bills that we had to pay out of pocket. This was getting serious. It looked like we would fail before we ever opened.

It was time to lose my pride and ask for help. Up until this point, I had, for my part, funded the bakery completely, out of pocket. Now I was going to have to go, hat in hand to my family for help. I really loathe doing that. REALLY LOATHE IT, but I was in trouble and I couldn’t throw in the towel and fail before I ever even opened the doors! I just couldn’t have it. So I put out the call for help and I have to say I have the most WONDERFUL family ever! They came through for me. I am so very grateful. Thank you Dad, Janet and Pam, sincerely, thanks to you, we are back on track now and are in the final push to get open. Just a few more weeks…

M