As posted previously, if it’s the first week of a new year, we’re going to be closed a few days.  We need a short break, our equipment needs to be tended to (granted, equipment needs tending more than once a year), walls need patching and painting, and everything needs a darn good scrub.  Also, it’s traditionally one of the times when Chef does a major re-arrangement of tables and equipment.

This year, we did a little extra upgrading in addition to our normal maintenance.  The production-area floor got a new, industrial grade top-coat.  Previous years had seen some attempts at using a top coat that we installed, and, well…it worked ok, but we needed to patch and reapply on a regular basis. The industrial epoxy coat that was installed last week should hold much better against what we throw at it.  The floor is now a glossy grey as opposed to the kind of patchy cream color- it also looks like it was painted with sand thrown down, because it essentially was.  The sand-looking texture improves traction and reduces slipping, which is always a good thing.

What should be more immediately noticeable is in the cafe space.  We had marble installed to cover or replace some pretty beat-up wood tops.  We went for a classic look using Carrera marble instead of granite or a composite (our stone surfaces in production are granite).  It has a honed finish instead of polished, as the glossy polished look would eventually show a lot of wear and turn matte anyway. We like the lighter color and somewhat more classic look to the stone, and marble is just such a nice, relatively easy upgrade to make. 

The bulk of time for the shutdown was required for the floor- between cleaning and texturing the underlying concrete, and applying and letting the floor cure (it was a low VOC, quick cure), it took the better part of four and a half days.  We then needed an extra day for ramping production back up.  The marble installation went remarkably quickly, taking well under half a day (for stone, it seems the bulk of time required is for cutting and polishing to the correct finish). 

For those that are interested, the marble was cut, finished and installed by Sam Clark (http://clarkstoneinstallations.com/), who is local to West Seattle and also works on home installations.  The production floor was coated by Coatings Unlimited, Inc. (offices in Kent, WA, and I’m pretty sure they are industrial or commercial only). 

As for the re-arranging of the production space, we have actually returned to a more linear arrangement, with several stations trading places.  We also freed up a little production space by removing an under-utilized two-door cooler, and shifting a chilled table to that spot.  Why all the shuffling?  The basic answer is efficiency.  Which mixers are being used mostly by what station, who needs to be closest to the gas range top, what needs to be closer together, or possibly farther apart, who might need to be able to work from a number of racks at a time- these and others are considerations that are being continually evaluated.  The general production areas (dessert, bread, pastry, and savory) are pretty well marked out at this time, but as our team grows and our product mix adjusts to our sales, different production groups end up with modified needs.  A shut down is a good time to make adjustments based on the previous several months’ production. 

Since everything was taken out of production for the floor coating, it was a good time for a radical adjustment.  The space flows much better now, with less congestion in some areas.  We’ll have to sit on it for a few months to catch a couple of really busy cycles, but so far, it seems to be working well. 

So, that’s a brief recap on what happened during our close.  We’d like to thank everyone for their patience and understanding!