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Caporegime
- Joined
- 29 Aug 2007
- Posts
- 28,732
- Location
- Auckland
Our first business venture - The Red House
- Thread starter wez130
- Start date
nowhere near you i'm afraid , but i can give you an idea what it would cost to produce back in the UK at cost and the retail price you can then decide if what you are being offered is a fair price
Caporegime
- Joined
- 13 May 2003
- Posts
- 34,518
- Location
- Warwickshire
Looks great.
Just Googled 'The Red House New Zealand' to see whether or not this thread had had the desired effect on the search engines.
It seems that you have some competition with a romantic film from 2012!
Just Googled 'The Red House New Zealand' to see whether or not this thread had had the desired effect on the search engines.
It seems that you have some competition with a romantic film from 2012!
Yea, that's tomorrows job, hopefully i should have it finished tomorrow
Awesome. I've worked in too many places that have horrible looking back bars as they weren't treated properly. Glad to see you're doing a proper job
Update time....
Well, my focus has been on the kitchen for the last few days, my god! what a filthy kitchen that was, how it got 97% in a hygiene check in Feb last year i'll never know! You've seen the pictures above, they don't show half the story...
Just to give you an idea...
So, yea, that's pretty much how the whole kitchen was, absolutely disgusting, if i had ever eaten in there i'd definitely be regretting it now!
I've spent 4 days cleaning it top to bottom now, and it's finally starting to look like a clean kitchen, definitely not a brand new kitchen, but at least somewhere i'd eat food from. At the point we are at now, we have almost 3 weeks left until we open, and most of the major work is now complete, it's mainly just small jobs left to do now like hanging the Sonos speakers, making a shelf and a top for the coffee machine table, tidying up, stocking the bar and kitchen etc, we've probably got a weeks worth of full time work left to do it which leaves us nearly 2 weeks spare, we've done really well considering i've done most of the work on my own, my wife has finally joined me full time now after she left her job. I guess we can have a little rest before the hard work starts!
We did have a big scare though last week, i waited unitl it was resolved before i posted here...
As the license process takes about 5 months to complete, for us to open in October, we have to apply for a temporary authority to operate under the current license on the premises from the previous owners (which is valid until 2020). However, as we didn't purchase the business, we also didn't buy the license, so when we filled in the application for the temporary authority, we sent off the lease agreement for the building, however, to take T/A of the license, the authorities require a sale / purchase agreement form the license, essentially, proof that we have purchased the license that we wish to operate from. we haven't done that as we are a brandd new business and only have the building, not the business.
I received a phone call last monday from an Auckland licensing officer explaining to me that we cannot apply for a temp authority without a sale / purchase agreement of the license / business and as we were a new business, we would have to apply for our own license, which as i said above, would take around 5 months, my heart sank, this would certainly put us out of business before we began operating! I was full of dread, what now??, we're screwed!
Anyway, after about half an hour on the phone to the licensing officer, we came to a possible solution, as the liquidator that we bough the chattels of the business essentially 'owned' the business, and more importantly, the license, he could 'sell' us the valid license for us to take temporary authority and 'operate', this was easier said than done! The liquidator is at best sporadic in his responses, even trying to pay him was a pain in the back side, now we wanted something, what chance did we have? I didn't build my hopes up! I rang him last Monday and explained the situation, i said, for us to operate, and in turn repay him for the chattels, we need to take temporary authority of the license that you currently 'own'. we need a letter from you, authorising us to operate under that license. He said he needed to check with his lawyer about any possible problems with that, we said that if there were any fees outstanding we would be responsible for them. We explained that we needed it ASAP! We waited a couple of days, tried to ring him, he maded his excuses as to why he hadn't done it yet, waited a couple more days, nothing!
On Friday afternoon, we were passing close by to his office, so we decided to unexpectedly drop in, this time he was very helpful, i got the licensing officer on the speaker phone to explain the situation, and how there was no risk to him, after an hour and half, we walked out as 'owners' of the valid license with a sale / purchase agreement, that meant we could finally apply for the temp authority. This was finally granted this morning, wow, what a relief this was, finally we can stop worrying about whether we can even sell alcohol, and start stocking it and concentrating on finishing the rest of the refurb! So, one very releived OcUKer here today!
Anyway, pics of the kitchen as it currently is...
It's not perfect yet, as you can see, i'm trying to boil the chargrill branding plates in oven cleaner, i may have to buy new ones yet as they aren't perfect. And i want to replace the workbenches too as soon as we can afford to as i'm not happy with the bottom shelves, but it's a LOT cleaner than it was.
Well, my focus has been on the kitchen for the last few days, my god! what a filthy kitchen that was, how it got 97% in a hygiene check in Feb last year i'll never know! You've seen the pictures above, they don't show half the story...
Just to give you an idea...
So, yea, that's pretty much how the whole kitchen was, absolutely disgusting, if i had ever eaten in there i'd definitely be regretting it now!
I've spent 4 days cleaning it top to bottom now, and it's finally starting to look like a clean kitchen, definitely not a brand new kitchen, but at least somewhere i'd eat food from. At the point we are at now, we have almost 3 weeks left until we open, and most of the major work is now complete, it's mainly just small jobs left to do now like hanging the Sonos speakers, making a shelf and a top for the coffee machine table, tidying up, stocking the bar and kitchen etc, we've probably got a weeks worth of full time work left to do it which leaves us nearly 2 weeks spare, we've done really well considering i've done most of the work on my own, my wife has finally joined me full time now after she left her job. I guess we can have a little rest before the hard work starts!
We did have a big scare though last week, i waited unitl it was resolved before i posted here...
As the license process takes about 5 months to complete, for us to open in October, we have to apply for a temporary authority to operate under the current license on the premises from the previous owners (which is valid until 2020). However, as we didn't purchase the business, we also didn't buy the license, so when we filled in the application for the temporary authority, we sent off the lease agreement for the building, however, to take T/A of the license, the authorities require a sale / purchase agreement form the license, essentially, proof that we have purchased the license that we wish to operate from. we haven't done that as we are a brandd new business and only have the building, not the business.
I received a phone call last monday from an Auckland licensing officer explaining to me that we cannot apply for a temp authority without a sale / purchase agreement of the license / business and as we were a new business, we would have to apply for our own license, which as i said above, would take around 5 months, my heart sank, this would certainly put us out of business before we began operating! I was full of dread, what now??, we're screwed!
Anyway, after about half an hour on the phone to the licensing officer, we came to a possible solution, as the liquidator that we bough the chattels of the business essentially 'owned' the business, and more importantly, the license, he could 'sell' us the valid license for us to take temporary authority and 'operate', this was easier said than done! The liquidator is at best sporadic in his responses, even trying to pay him was a pain in the back side, now we wanted something, what chance did we have? I didn't build my hopes up! I rang him last Monday and explained the situation, i said, for us to operate, and in turn repay him for the chattels, we need to take temporary authority of the license that you currently 'own'. we need a letter from you, authorising us to operate under that license. He said he needed to check with his lawyer about any possible problems with that, we said that if there were any fees outstanding we would be responsible for them. We explained that we needed it ASAP! We waited a couple of days, tried to ring him, he maded his excuses as to why he hadn't done it yet, waited a couple more days, nothing!
On Friday afternoon, we were passing close by to his office, so we decided to unexpectedly drop in, this time he was very helpful, i got the licensing officer on the speaker phone to explain the situation, and how there was no risk to him, after an hour and half, we walked out as 'owners' of the valid license with a sale / purchase agreement, that meant we could finally apply for the temp authority. This was finally granted this morning, wow, what a relief this was, finally we can stop worrying about whether we can even sell alcohol, and start stocking it and concentrating on finishing the rest of the refurb! So, one very releived OcUKer here today!
Anyway, pics of the kitchen as it currently is...
It's not perfect yet, as you can see, i'm trying to boil the chargrill branding plates in oven cleaner, i may have to buy new ones yet as they aren't perfect. And i want to replace the workbenches too as soon as we can afford to as i'm not happy with the bottom shelves, but it's a LOT cleaner than it was.
Soldato
- Joined
- 23 Feb 2009
- Posts
- 4,988
- Location
- South Wirral
Probably not. Wez is the only one it would be of value to as it would only be valid for the premises he has taken over. The liquidator can only really get whatever wez was prepared to pay or nothing.
He could have said no if he wanted to, but it wouldn't have been in his best interests to say no. It's worthless to him anyway. He could have charged us for it too, but once we were in his office, he was really good, he put on the sale / purchase agreement that we had paid him $100 for it but he didn't charge for it, nor his time in typing up the contract. Fair play to him.
This is exactly how it feels, it's like there is a new fee to pay at every step of the way, next is the building consent to say it can be used as a restaurant, which it has been anyway, that's a grand, then we have to apply for our own license which we can't until we have the building consent, that's another $1500, if we want to have any special events, like live music (which we will be), we have to pay a special license fee, it's only $69, but still, it's another fee. To be honest, it's just a massive relief we can legally sell alcohol now, that was our biggest hurdle in the last week! We'll finally be making money back into the business in just under 3 weeks
Hi all, today has been a productive day, finally got a fully functional kitchen* All my new equipment turned up, and i'm pretty pleased with what i've got to work with now
Also, made the table top for the coffee machine, it just needs staining to match the bar etc..
Also, i built another shelf under the back bar next to the bar fridges for more glass storage...
All this whilst i had a Deep creek rep feeding me beer (I recommend it, and it's on it's way to UK soon apparently)
So all in all, we are pretty close to being ready to open, i got my first couple of stock orders in yesterday and today, just dry stock so far, frsh stock will start to come in next week so i can start getting prepped for opening, however...
*i tried to turn the LPG deep fat fryer on today, the pilot will light but it won't fire up
, got to get a gas plumber in to fix that, also learned that the glycol machine (it keeps beer cold in the lines) is screwed, so got to fork out for a new one of those, it aint cheap. However, we were adding up sums on the way home tonight, and in the grand scheme of things, we're in a pretty damn good position, we're about $30k (£15k) into borrowing all together, with funds left in the bank still, that includes all stock! and almost ready to open, i'd say we were in a healthy financial position when we will be taking customers in 2 weeks today. We've had a lot of passing traffic stopping to ask if we're open too!
Today, i didn't want to come home, things are so close to being complete, it's just small jobs left now, like wiring the CCTV and general cleaning.
until next time......
Also, made the table top for the coffee machine, it just needs staining to match the bar etc..
Also, i built another shelf under the back bar next to the bar fridges for more glass storage...
All this whilst i had a Deep creek rep feeding me beer (I recommend it, and it's on it's way to UK soon apparently)
So all in all, we are pretty close to being ready to open, i got my first couple of stock orders in yesterday and today, just dry stock so far, frsh stock will start to come in next week so i can start getting prepped for opening, however...
*i tried to turn the LPG deep fat fryer on today, the pilot will light but it won't fire up
, got to get a gas plumber in to fix that, also learned that the glycol machine (it keeps beer cold in the lines) is screwed, so got to fork out for a new one of those, it aint cheap. However, we were adding up sums on the way home tonight, and in the grand scheme of things, we're in a pretty damn good position, we're about $30k (£15k) into borrowing all together, with funds left in the bank still, that includes all stock! and almost ready to open, i'd say we were in a healthy financial position when we will be taking customers in 2 weeks today. We've had a lot of passing traffic stopping to ask if we're open too!Today, i didn't want to come home, things are so close to being complete, it's just small jobs left now, like wiring the CCTV and general cleaning.
until next time......
Soldato
- Joined
- 11 Oct 2005
- Posts
- 5,712
- Location
- Derbyshire
Looking great. Pilot light may just be a dodgy thermal coupler.
The racking underneath the blue seal turbofan oven. You got enough space to get trays in and out?
Also another thing I noticed. The melamine shelving. There seems some damage to the front of it. If your countries EHO is similar to the U.K. they may pick up on that as a possible way for harbouring bacteria.
Looking great though. Bet your pleased.
The racking underneath the blue seal turbofan oven. You got enough space to get trays in and out?
Also another thing I noticed. The melamine shelving. There seems some damage to the front of it. If your countries EHO is similar to the U.K. they may pick up on that as a possible way for harbouring bacteria.
Looking great though. Bet your pleased.
Great progress - looking good
Hoppy McHopface
All this whilst i had a Deep creek rep feeding me beer (I recommend it, and it's on it's way to UK soon apparently)
Hoppy McHopface
Soldato
- Joined
- 11 Sep 2009
- Posts
- 14,064
- Location
- France, Alsace
Keep it up @wez130 doing great!!