I Assure You, We're Open

For those who didn't get the reference, do yourself a favor and watch Kevin Smith's first movie, Clerks.

Do you see how desolate the restaurant looks? This was our first Sunday that we were open for lunch (June 21st, 2009 AD). Most of our normal customers don't know that we are open on Sundays for lunch since Wayne's OG California Shabu Shabu has Sunday lunch off. Anyhoo, now you guys know we're heeeeeeeerrrrrreeeeeeee!

FYI, our hours are:
Sunday - Thursday : 11:30 AM - 2 PM / 5 PM - 10 PM
Friday - Saturday : 11:30 AM - 2 PM / 5 PM - 11 PM

OK, I have to go set up the front of the restaurant while Ash preps meat for the day. See you guys soon!


Smoochies,
Len

Soft Openings (Get Your Mind Out of the Gutter, Son!)

I would like to start off this entry with a big "WOOT WOOT!" for all our friends and family that made time out for our two (2) little shin digs (especially my brother, Ivan,and Alex who drove down from Santa Cruz on Saturday afternoon and drove back up Sunday morning). Also, we'd like to apologize if we weren't able to chit chat too much with everyone who came, we were just so slammed and trying to make sure everyone was fed!

On Friday - June 12th, 2009 AD, our family and a few close friends who couldn't make it out for Saturday, swung by to act as our first set of official guinea pigs! Things were a little chaotic since we were still finishing up construction and cleaning up. We had initially planned on getting people seated at about 7 PM, but that rolled into about 8 PM, ick. It was melee when we first started, because it was the equivalent of having twenty-five (25) customers all sit down at the same time to order. Needless to say, there was a bit of a lag getting everyone their orders, but Ash manhandled the pressure and flung down the plates of meat to our stomach growling guests. Right when we thought everything was going to run smoothly, our induction cookers decided on switching on and off the entire meal, causing much confusion to us, the staff, and our family (we later tested it out and found out that the burners weren't being properly vented and have since cut large vent holes out of our counters. It looks like complete @$$ right now, but Morgan is working with us to brainstorm out some ideas to cover the holes with mesh). As wonky as the night went, it all turned out pretty good in the end. On to Saturday...

Funny as it may sound, we had about five (5) or six (6) times the amount of people on Saturday, and things went a lot smoother! It may have just been jitters on the first night or maybe just the overwhelming amount of people came forced us to get all tunnel vision with the restaurant and servicing our friends. We ended up using a makeshift solution for the cookers by propping up the back with little 1/8" nuts (again, get your mind out of the gutter) to allow for better ventilation. That seemed to do the trick since the burners were on the entire night to accomodate everyone that came in. I'll let the pictures do more of the talking for our little event, but just imagine what happens when beer and sake is flowing for free an entire night. Mayhem *cough STEVE cough CHUNG*.

We've been open now since Thursday - June 18th, 2009 AD, so if you haven't come by yet, SHAME ON YOU, I mean, hope to see you soon!


Smoochies,
Len

Our Lucky Lepra-Shaun

So our Irishman has managed to save our buttocks big time - we officially passed all of our inspections on Thursday - June 11th, 2009 AD! After much heartache, affliction, sleepless nights, and holes burning through our stomach linings, Shaun pulled through for us.

Again, I'll let the photos (which are not in the correct order, but give me a break, I'm running on three (3) hours of sleep and its approaching 3 AM again) tell the story for us. Though we've been signed off on for all of our inspections, we still have some loose ends to tie up. So, we will be popping open our doors for the public at 11:30 AM Thursday - June 18th, 2009 AD, so come on by for a visit and let us stuff your mouths silly with food!

We went through a couple of soft openings this past weekend, come say "Hi" to the blog in the next couple of days to check out all the chaos from those nights. We look forward to seeing you soon! Need sleepy...

Smoochies,
Len

Bamboozled: A Story of Epic Failures

Yikes, has it really been about four (4) months? I don't know why it's taken so long...all right, ALL RIGHT, I know why. It's partially because we've been crazy busy, paritally because time just flew by, but most of all, it's because it's absolutely shameful how delayed we are in getting our restaurant up and running. First off, let me apologize to all of you out there who have felt duped over and over again by my empty promises of a shiny new Shabu restaurant opening up (especially to those who kept receiving those cursed automated eVite messages before I could change the date *shaking fists in air*). I know I'm wasting my knock out punch right in the beginning, but I feel like I owe at least this to every one who reads our little blog - we are finally going to open next week to the public! We're going through our final inspections this Wednesday, so please keep your fingers, toes, eyes, hair, legs, etc. crossed for us. Now that that's out of the way, I can explain the title of this post.

You guys will have to bear with me, though, as the story is a bit long. Actually, click on the photo below and you'll be bounced over to an album which will delve into more details on just how badly we were put in the tree chipper, but I'll give you a few of the lowlights.


We Thought We Were Flying High - Not So Much

My eyes are feeling droopy, but it may be due to all the epoxy fumes I've been sucking into my poor lungs the last few days (I'll explain that in the next post). Man, I am all over the place today...let me reign myself back into this thing. Let's see, where was I? Ah, ok. So, around the end of March, our Ogre disappeared on us. That's right, he up and abandoned the project - please pick up your jaws from the floor. For those of you who want to know the story, it's pretty crazy, but I don't want to air out someone else's dirty laundry all over the dub dub dub, so you'll have to come in and ask Ash or I =). After the Ogre pulled his best impersonation of Lance Burton on us, Ash and I were sent spiralling into a Twilight Zone state of mind. We ended up going almost two (2) weeks hitting up contractors that we spoke to in the past and some new contractors that were referred over to us. There was literally a parade of contractors coming in and out of our doors for a week straight. All we needed were some flashing lights and furries and we would have been lit up like Disney's Main Street in Costa Mesa.

As the fire flamed out, from the ashes arose...Shaun Gallagher - our little Irish phoenix.

The Man


Look out really REALLY soon, cross my heart (my eyes are getting watery just thinking of Pixar's UP - you guys all need to watch this and you'll know what I mean), for an entry on how Shaun has saved our collective rumps in the past month and a half from all of the Ogre's epic failures. Have you realized I can't even speak his name? From this day forward, that who we do not speak of shall now be known as the Ogre.

See you all on the site super soon and at our restaurant soon after that!


Smoochies,
Len