Friday, March 28, 2014

Permit Purgatory


We spent most of last week in permit hell, fending off a plan reviewer who kept springing new, expensive, time consuming requirements. Now we're in permit purgatory, waiting for final plan approvals and field inspections.

Believe it or not, I believe in the permitting process. I'd rather live in a world where plumbing and electrical work is regulated and inspected than one without oversight. But I suspect that nobody--including the plan reviewers and inspectors--would disagree that the process is deeply flawed.

The city creates a code based on national and international standards, and then hires plan reviewers and inspectors to enforce that code. They aim for consistency in situations whose specifics are far from consistent. They struggle with issues of safety and liability, balancing these concerns against the prohibitive costs that businesses like ours incur installing grease traps and fire suppression systems.

And then there's the human element. During my first encounter with the plan reviewer, he shook his head and told me that the building I'd bought was a small business graveyard. I walked away from the second encounter visibly close to tears when he informed me that we would have to install a vent hood over our under-counter dishwasher, delaying our project well over a month and doubling the cost of installing an already expensive machine.

I went home and slept, and awoke with a fresh perspective on power dynamics. Heading back to city hall, I suggested that, since the code required a vent hood but few restaurants have vent hoods over their dishwashers, the powers that be clearly had some leeway and discretion. Perhaps he could exercise that discretion in our favor?

He consulted with his supervisor, backed off about the vent hood, and came back with some additional questions about our project. I answered them respectfully and applied retroactively for an inexpensive permit covering some minor modifications we'd already made.

The other evening he called to say he'd been out of the office for some training work, and was catching up after hours on permit approvals. He had a stack of permit applications on his desk related to our project and only had time to review one at the moment. Which would we like completed first?



Sunday, March 23, 2014

Vision



We fill our work days washing pots, peeling onions, sticking labels,  organizing receipts, filling propane tanks, stocking coolers, tinkering with equipment.

Our kitchen remodel project has upended our routines and given us a chance to revisit the bigger picture. We're giving some thought to who we are as a business, and who we want to be over the long term.

We enjoy vending at farmers' markets. Our fellow vendors are free-thinking, creative and consistently unusual. Together we commiserate and collaborate. We also eat very well, especially during the summer. But Patty Pan already vends at most of the markets in the area so it's just a matter of time before we can no longer grow as a mainly farmers' market business.

We care about good food, fresh ingredients, and cooking from scratch. But we're not fanatical purists. We're fascinated by the challenge of making wholesome food widely available, but we run a for-profit business so we're geared towards building these concerns into our business model.

Our new kitchen will be a cooking and dining space where we'll host community dinners and group cooking events. We're planning a kitchen utensil lending library and a free herb garden so neighbors can pick what they need for their dinners.

We already earn enough from the farmers' markets to pay our rent, so we should have some leeway figuring out how to make our new gigs pay because we are, after all, a for-profit business. The neighbors seem stoked, and we're excited that they're excited.



Sunday, March 16, 2014

The Elusive Farmers' Market Parking Space


I've heard that parking rivals price as the top deterrent keeping consumers from shopping at farmers' markets. Once you've gotten used to the convenience of grocery store parking lots, a four-block trek to buy vegetables from your favorite local farmers can be a deal breaker, especially in lousy weather.

But parking issues don't affect all markets equally, even markets of comparable size with comparable parking constraints. Take the Ballard and University District markets.

I've often heard people talk about how difficult it is to park at the University District market, but I usually have to park just as far away when I go to the Ballard market in the middle of the day. Yet I rarely hear people complain about Ballard market parking. I think that's because Ballard is more of a party while University District is a serious shopping venue. You can do plenty of serious shopping at Ballard as well, but folks are more likely to head there than to the University District for a leisurely weekend outing. Leisurely weekend outings often involve parking and walking a few blocks while trips to the grocery store usually do not.

On Fridays during the summer we vend at the Madrona and Phinney markets. On sunny and cloudy days Phinney almost always outsells Madrona. But Madrona has on site customer parking, and on days with dumping rain it consistently outsells Phinney. Customers aren't as deterred by the weather because they can easily get back to their cars.

This past fall the University District market moved from its long-time home in the community center parking lot to the main street outside the center. We were excited about the move. Markets held on streets are almost always busier than markets held in parking lots. Our optimism was well-founded: we've had a wonderful winter there despite some beastly weather lately.

But the move has had another, unanticipated consequence. Like the Madrona market, sales at the University District market have been reasonably consistent in all types of weather, even though our numbers used to tank in the rain and the chill back when the market was held in the parking lot.

The market administration and the community center now offer parking in the lot where the market used to operate, fifty feet from the new site. They charge for the convenience, but the lot always seems to be reasonably full.

Speaking of parking, I used to find that I could improve my parking karma by dropping coins in other people's meters when they were about to expire. But you can't do that anymore with the printed stickers that have to go on the inside car window.

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Building a Kitchen


We've been hard at work outfitting a new space for Patty Pan. Some of the work involves hands-on building, sanding, texturizing, painting, and installing. Other phases involve standing around and scratching our heads, ruminating, brainstorming and problem solving.

I've built kitchens before, and it's always been a lonely and stressful endeavor. I'm not especially handy and I don't know much about building materials so the process has always required making decisions involving large sums of money that I didn't really have, basing those decisions on scant information and insufficient experience.

It's so different building this kitchen as a coop. Between us we have construction experience, artistic sensibilities, networks to scavenge building materials, and plenty of camaraderie. We're sharing the burden and excitement of making decisions, the frustration of snags and the glory of breakthroughs.

When I built my first tiny kitchen in Fremont, I hired a friend of a friend to build a custom walk-in cooler in an odd-size space off the main kitchen. We submitted a drawing to the building department and they took six weeks to look it over before sending it back with the concerns about the format of the drawing, but no real issue with our actual proposal for the walk-in. We redrew the plans and resubmitted them, paying additional fees and delaying the project several weeks.

When I built the Lucky Palate kitchen on Queen Anne, I paid a professional $1000 to draft a layout drawing and help with contracting logistics. He presented the price tag as a good deal and he may have been telling the truth: compared to the revenue from drafting a floor plan for a full service restaurant, my project must have been barely worth his while. Still, $1000 was a lot of money to me.

This time around we bought cad software and drew up the plan ourselves. There was a steep learning curve but we learned new skills and the health department accepted the drawing the first time around. We've had similar experiences with everything from relocating light switches to moving heavy equipment.

It feels strange to say, but this time around we may actually be having fun.