Friends, Meet Shabu. Shabu, Meet Friends. Now Play Nice!

I'm a little new to this whole blogspot thing, so you guys will have to bear with me as I crawl around the nooks and crannies to figure out all the whistles and bells to smoothen out the initial roughness. Enough of that, though...

Welcome to the first entry for California Shabu Shabu South Coast!

First off, for those who don't know already (I'm assuming most of you do since you are here and running your eyes left to right and top to bottom), my friends Tina and Ash and I are opening up a California Shabu Shabu in Costa Mesa. After hearing about us crooning and squawking about this for a bit over 9 months now, you'd figure we'd have a drool producing baby or something to show for it. Instead, we finally have a signed lease, a location, and, as cornilicious as it sounds, a dream to fulfill.

To give everyone a wee bit of insight into why it has taken us so long, we had initially signed a letter of intent with a location at Bristol and Sunflower in the plaza inhabited by Red Robin and Cost Plus. We endured through an obstacle course worthy of a Beat Takeshi game show including, but not limited to: two (2) plumbers to survey the location to see if we would be able to put in a grease interceptor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grease_interceptor), (2) contractors with their HVAC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVAC) guys come along to see if we could even vent our restaurant correctly, a move two (2) doors down and incurring a much larger space and lease, a crook of a commercial real estate agent (feel free to send Tom Gioa hate mail at TGioia@leeirvine.com) who jerked us around for four (4) months and kept reneging on promises, giving up on the crook and that location, and finally scouting out another location to find out that a different Shabu had already signed a letter of intent there...in our HOOD! HOW DARE THEY?!

After a slew of phone calls, email messages, and Wayne lighting them up, since he is doing some other work with the same retail real estate group, we have secured our location at 801 Baker Street #A, Costa Mesa, CA 92626! This spot is pretty much in the lungs of what is called SoBECA, South on Bristol Entertainment, Culture, and Arts. Most of you will recognize this location because it is right next to Shark Club ha ha, I know I just heard a collective "Ohhhh yeahhhhh, therrrrreeee!" The location looks rather shameful at the moment, but we have been promised that a remodelling of the facade should begin around the beginning of August lasting six (6) to eight (8) weeks, meaning twelve (12) weeks. In light of our shame, here is an architects rendering of our space after the face lift (go ahead and clickety click on the picture to be redirected to a Kodak Gallery album with even more pictures for your viewing pleasure):

I see that I have already rambled on much more than I intended for our first post, so I will end things pretty much here. I hope that you guys, now, have a better understanding of where we are at the moment. Check back with us soon to read what Tina, Ash, and/or I have to blab about and find out how we kicked off our first official Shabu day by busting down some walls and tearing down a ceiling!

Smoochies,
Len

Here's a shout out to some fellow bloggers, make sure to poke around on some of the ads when you have some time to help them pay a few bills:

For my brother, Ivan's, ridiculously talented art:
http://ivanchanstudio.blogspot.com/
For some daily inspiration:
http://www.makethemostofyourtime.blogspot.com/
For some foody goodness:
http://foodmakesmehappy.blogspot.com/
For some ramen madness:
http://www.ramenramenramen.net/