Website update

A quick point, we have seen our new website and it is good. Our fantastic website builder is incorporating some photographs we have provided her (some of these same photographs will also appear in the MarketCafe). We should have a core new site up and running in the next couple weeks. If you have any suggestions as to functionality for our new site, things you like, things you don't like from your web experience, please pass you ideas along.

Z&H Shopping Bags

Sure we have made plenty of (belated, if you want to know my feelings, but that is a different post) of progress this week. As of this writing the entire front portion of the floor is in, the floor directly in front of our 16 feet of deli cases is in, and the nicest bathroom floor in Kenwood has also been laid.

But the real story is that our Z&H reusable shopping bags arrived. They are red (we think they actually lean towards color of the finest Hungarian paprika ever grown, which is unfortunately no longer cultivated - another interesting story to touch on later), and they are very cool. As cool as a very nice fabric shopping bag can be. We donated a case of them to the QCDC for use in relation to the new Farmers Market on Cottage at 45th (10AM-3PM on Sundays), not sure how they will deploy them but keep a weather eye out for them. They will also be available in the MarketCafe once we are open. It is easy to be Green (and Red).

Funny and Sad

OK, This made me laugh. As mentioned earlier, we had an entire pallet of Z&H label water stolen. I received a phone call today asking me details about Z&H2O bottled water. It turns out that this man had purchased some of our bottled water from a guy in the BP parking lot sometime last weekend and wanted to know more details about the water. Huh.

Terrazzo & Porcelain

The floors are about 30% complete at the point, with more getting done each day.We got a great deal on our floor tile, and as a result the floor behind the deli and coffee counter is a very cool terrazzo. The rest of the floor space is an interesting combination of a dark and light porcelain tile. We are expecting to have the floors finished this week, or early next week.

If we can get the City to cooperate at this point....

What a week

There is now a ceiling, with HVAC, and lights...and (gasp) tile is being laid, we even have tile guys working on Saturday. Oh, and the plumber are the most incredible plumbers in the world (MIPITW), There will be no PVC in our plumbing. only copper and cast iron.

All of this progress was not crushed by the fact that we had an entire pallet of Z& logo bottled water stole from our location. Weird. If you happen to see bottles of water labeled "Z&H2O" they are stolen merchandise. Our glass being half full (pun inevitable) we needed to tweek the label color for our next pallet of water anyway. Like I wrote, what a week. In a great way.

Aziz, LIGHT!

Not only do we have much of the ceiling in place, we also have light fixtures in the ceiling. Every day, we grow closer and closer to opening. The pace is slower than we like, but it teaches us patience, right? Nice words, but the waiting is slowly killing us.

Nerts.

Yes, nerts.

A bridge from east to west

Lots of activity today. Some movement from the City. We are hoping for the good news we have been patiently waiting for for 16 weeks from the City this week. But, time does not stop, and in fact it seems to move faster each day. We actually put up a bridge today in the space. Let me explain, there is a point in the space where the east and west wall close together to about 12 feet. This is where we had to build a bridge from the east side of the space to the west side of the space, in order to support the ceiling across that expanse. It is also where the ceiling drops from 13 feet to 10 feet in height. Additionally, we 'turned' some water pipes today; we a have very nice window on the west wall, strangely it is about ten feet off the ground, and we did not want to bury behind drywall (as it was when we took over the space). It will add some very good natural light. So, as you see, there was a flury of activity today, now to keep up the pace moving forward.

Food for thought. Literally.

So, I posted over on the 'Hyde Park Progress' blog, and in the post was this comment, "Eating quality food is not a function of income, it is a function of food education. Also, many people do not know how to cook from ingredients (or don't think they have the time), or understand how delicious food prepared from scratch actually is."

I did not see this as a hot-button comment, only a topic that is dear to our hearts at Z&H, and an area where we think we can make a difference locally. Food education is a topic that is among the core of our mission. We have a project (that we may actually move up in our time-line, now that we see how important this topic is) that we are committed to fulfilling. As we get closer to our opening date, and getting more of the mundane opening work behind us, we will share more details. More on the build-out status by midweek.