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

Chug Chug Chugging Along

Ok, ok, OKAY I KNOW! The picture makes it look pretty bad, but I assure you, we're getting really close to opening up our doors. I hope every one reading this had a great Valentine's Day! We were hoping to open by February 14th, but alas, all the delays from the last post have piled up nice and high and have caused yet another excrutiatingly painful, bile producing, and stomach wall eroding delay in our opening date.

Our induction cookers have finally arrived, we had a marathon meeting with Red Mountain to figure out our plumbing issue, and construction has actually been going at a relatively brisk pace. We're still handcuffed by some of the subcontractors for our walk-in refrigerator and our hood vents, but those suckers are supposed to be delivered and installed by the middle of this upcoming week. If you can sense the lack of enthusiasm in my tone, it's because I feel like we've let a lot of people down, including some friends (sorry Charles and Catherine) whose birthdays are coming up this weekend and a wedding rehearsal dinner party I am going to have to notify tomorrow that we won't be able to take care of them anymore. We want to get this right before, we open, so we're trying hard to remain patient and focus on finishing up everything we have left.

Just a quick update...our servers have been training at the current Fountain Valley location, so if you've seen some new faces in there, BE NICE ha ha. They're actually all doing a really great job, and should be ready to rock da house once we open.

I'll keep this sucker short since we still have many many loose ends to tie up within the next week if we are to get our pots boiling for you guys soon! I'm scared to even blurt out another date, so please check back with us soon for an update and more construction pictures. Take the jump and click on the picture above to see where we are with the inside. Bear in mind that these were taken about a week ago, so we've already made a good deal of progress since then. Any positive chi you want to push our way would be greatly appreciated!

Smoochies,

Len