“Murphy’s Law rules the insane world of
“You take everyone’s word — lawyers’, architects’ and contractors’ words — about how long it takes and you end up blowing timelines and budgets,” said Jehangir Mehta, the pastry chef who is opening the 18-seat Graffiti Food and Wine Bar. “In my case I lost about $50,000 in rent waiting for my liquor license, which I just got. It didn’t make any sense for me to open a wine bar without any wine.””
Build-outs are non-stop fun. There are new challenges every day. The thrill of creating a concept and then seeing that concept come into fruition is priceless. The process however is Non-linear, there are an infinite number of twists and turns. The complications arise mostly because a restaurateur is navigating the uncharted waters of the general contractor. The skill sets for the two are a little different and requires a very quick education on the part of the restaurateur. The ability of the restaurateur to master the GC skill set will vastly impact how over budget the project becomes. Dealing with city codes and licenses is a process that defies understanding. The key is to find out what exactly what the licensing bodies want and give it to them. DO NOT try to understand why they need this or that or even worse fight them about this or that, simply discover exactly what they want and give it to them.
Build it and they will come!
