A look inside the Dancing Cup Cafe

inspired by Ruth Ann at blugemtv, Rhonda makes a video

Breakfast AND lunch

Yes, we serve breakfast and lunch. And one day we'll have people in for both breakfast and lunch and that will be a good day. It seems if we have people stop in for breakfast , that's it for the day. Soon we will have our menus and fliers to hand out. We are told everyday that this is the end of " the season ". We are hoping it is the beginning of the season for us. This is not an easy business to be in ! But I still believe the people here will love us .....as soon as they find us. We need to find a way to share our dream. Which is to have the locals think of our place as their place. We want friends to be proud to bring their friends to our place. We want our costumers to be our friends and not just on Facebook. Even though being our friend on Facebook helps too ! I spent the afternoon trying to find my way around the Al. Sales tax forms. What I learned was , I don't have a Baldwin county or Orange Beach tax ID. I thought I did... I also found out that because we were set to open on the 15 th of June , I should have paid taxes ( or at least reported $0 taxes owed) ...but I didn't. So now I have fees that I have to ask to have them removed. I love this part of doing business....not really. We ride our bikes to the O.B. Public pier every morning to enjoy the sun rising over Wolf Bay. Tonight we went for a walk on the beach. ......that's why we are here to enjoy life

We're off to a slow start but it's giving us time to work out the kinks. The locals seem to be happy we are here. Today the library's refrigerator went out and everyone lost their lunch. Too bad for them but it was good for us. We need to advertise but I can't seem to find the time to get the info. Together. We need to find an accountant too ! There is so much I don't know anything about. I feel overwhelmed with everything I should do. But right now sleep is all I'm going to do.

Dancing Cup Cafe is now OPEN !

We Are Open ! I really thought I would lose my mind before we got our doors open. Now that we made it to this point I'm pretty sure I lost my mind a long time age ! Our first day was pretty slow, mostly people stopping by just to say they were very glad we are finally open. The locals have been watching our progress and are excited to finally have a place to get coffee and a bite to eat without having to leave Bear Point. Our first day we lost a freezer. We only had one. We were able to have Foley Kitchen and RESTAURANT SUPPLY, replace the bad one we bought from them and RITA HAYES AND I went to Sears and bought a " spare " freezer. That was yesterday. Today we went to work but there was no traffic at all so we decided not to open on SUNDAYS. I got a little more prep work done before leaving shop around 10:30. Then Rita , Scotty ,Scott and I went to the beach. It was the first time in 3 weeks we had taken time to walk along the beach. I'm very happy we have pasted the construction part and all the inspections. But I'm afraid now is when the real work begins.

Dancing Cup Cafe: Inspections

Dancing Cup Cafe: Inspections: Monday we passed the health inspection, Tuesday we passed the fire inspection and failed the city inspection. No handicapped signa...

Inspections

Monday we passed the health inspection, Tuesday we passed the fire inspection and failed the city inspection. No handicapped signage on restrooms, circuit breaker schedule taped to inside of box, 3 compartment sink not secure. We took care of everything but the plumbing concerns, those will be remedied today. Seems likely we could receive food Friday and start serving Saturday. We need to make a trip to Pensacola for some water filter supplies and a few other items and we will open!

there's a fly buzzing in the kitchen

I'm Setting in my favorite chair with a fly buzzing around and ants crawling all over me ,trying not to think about inspections that will take place Monday morning. Did I mention anything about it being just a little humid ? Scott's playing his favorite songs on ROKU and the cat is stretched out on the floor in front of the fan. We took today off to rest up for a full day of cleaning tomorrow. I did go to the shop late this afternoon to work on our chairs .....I put a finish on them and it didn't work out very well. They became very very sticky ! So I had to take the finish off. They are a little better now. We still don't have a mop sink. Jeannette from Oceans Pizza said Barry ( our plumber) was still putting her's in when she was getting their inspection. I guess that's what he's planning to do to me too. Maybe he has a thing for the Health Inspector ! Just kidding. My new, used stove will not be plugged in until Monday morning too. I must say I have not had a dull moment in a very long time. Jeanette also told me today she had 5000 fliers printed and needs to order more . Today I wrote out about a dozen invites to come check out Dancing Cup Cafe. I think I might not be doing it right. Well, there is only one day left of the weekend not that I'm counting. I want to say a few things about this past Friday . The man I found to work on my espresso machine made his long planned visit. I had given him all the info. On all the coffee equipment I have. I told him they were all used and I wanted him to check them out , you know ..just see if they needed new gaskets or cleaning and teach me how to use them. I also ask him to bring a filter for the bracket I had already bought. I had given him all the info on the bracket so he could bring a filter that would fit the bracket I had. He brought a $275 filter ! And not only would it not fit under the cabinet , it also would not fit the bracket I had . Which bring me to another source of aggrivation. The two brackets sold to me by a lady that owns a coffee shop in Mississippi have been out of production for 5 years. There are no filters to fit them ! We found this out after at least 2 hours of investigation. I was charged $187 for .....pretty much nothing. I guess we did learn a little bit about our machine. We also learned they needed to be cleaned. I know next week will be better . I know we will be open by next weekend . I know we will do great running this business. We will ! I know it !