Rebuild Update: slab poured

Dear Friends,

We hadn’t really planned on it but we were both feeling stale and a bit overworked. So last week when the opportunity arose, Carissa and I fled the heat for Taos, New Mexico and spent a few days in the mountains. We had been there all of 24 hours and were still trying to catch our breath in the thin mountain air when we opened an email from Sawyer, our construction supervisor, with the picture below.

Apparently the concrete team was ahead of schedule. Our topping slab was poured last Saturday. We returned a few days later to find that indeed our construction site is beginning to yield clues about the shape and feeling of our future home.

I wanted to send out these pictures of the slab getting poured now because by next week Live Wire, our steel fabricator, will be erecting columns and bolting on joists that will support the shell of the building and we’ll be in a whole new place. Speaking of which, the parking lot will likely be almost completely blocked the first few days of next week to accommodate the crane that will be used to assemble all of the steel framing.

The larger point is that this thing that we’ve worked to dream into existence over the past three years now seems to be kicking into a higher gear, gaining momentum and moving from planning into reality. And I feel a bit like the little kid who has waited in line all afternoon for the roller coaster, only to finally make it to the front of the line, get strapped into a seat, ride up to the peak of the initial drop - and realize what a long way it is to the ground below, uh oh... An exciting time to be sure. But the butterflies in my belly are intensifying.

In the before times - back when we lived right down the street - if I felt worried or unsettled, I would just wander down the block and find something that needed doing. Maybe that meant squeezing in at the bread bench and helping shape a few loaves. Or stepping in and rolling a few croissants. I might bake off the night’s dinner bread or make a fresh batch of butterscotch budinos.

More often I simply checked in with our team throughout the building, making sure everything was in order and running my mental traps. I’d check the lighting in the dining room and look at which playlists were queued up for the evening. Finally, I might spend a few minutes tasting our btg (by the glass) offerings. And as service got rolling I would greet our early guests as they began arriving. In short, it was a set of routines so practiced I could do it in my sleep, like muscle memory. It was incredibly soothing and whatever might be troubling me tended to dissolve and float away as I focused on the tasks at hand.

These days we’re more spread out. I can’t just walk down the block and put myself to work. There’s not enough room in the trailer for me to step in and help out. And the commissary is a 20 minute drive north. So I’ve probably spent more time than is entirely healthy stewing over our future - this time that we hope will be so wonderful, that is coming into view, but that still lies just out of reach. We can’t really start practicing yet. It’s too soon for hiring and training. So I sit, tapping fingers on my desk, thinking about the when and how of all of it. Wondering if our carefully laid plans can possibly be enough.

Will we open on schedule? Will the building still be beautiful - will it still feel like TFB? Have I ordered all the right equipment? Will we be able to get the word out in a way that brings folks back after all this time? Most importantly, will we be able to recruit enough great people to rebuild the team that will be needed if we are to operate as a full service restaurant again?

We are picking up speed. I look at the ramp in the center of the picture above and think about the day the doors will open and people will walk in and see what we’ve created. Stay tuned.

bon appetit,

murph