First Walk In Customer

Today Jeff and I stopped by the store to lay out where the track lighting needs to be set up for the contractor.  It was a bit of a fiasco.  We had brought some tape and were going to tape on the floor where the cash wrap is going and where all the lights need to go.  However, have you ever tried to lay tape on top of a very dusty concrete floor.  It doesn't stick at all.  Luckily the general contractor showed up.  It took him about 2 minutes to do what Jeff and I had worked on for 20 with no success.

While we were there two guys peaked their head into the store.  They were looking to buy some cigars, saw the sign outside and looked us up on Yelp.  Too bad we had to turn away our first customers.

Construction is almost done.  The contractors were in today prepping to pour concrete over the trench they dug for the bathroom plumbing.  This is going to have to cure for a week before we can stain the concrete and then that will have to cure for a week.  So minimum of 3 more weeks until we open.  I think it is more likely like 4.

How we will open:
First we are going to have a private opening with just friends and family.  We want people to buy some stuff, enjoy some cigars and test everything out.  This will be people with patience as we find kinks in the process.

Then we have a "Soft Opening"  where we are open, but not really pushing the fact.  Let some people come in and buy but not a huge rush.

Finally, the Grand opening.  This is where we have a big fanfare, we already have a cigar manufacturer letting us know they want to support the opening!  Food, wine, etc.  I am putting money on sometime early April.  April 7th would be awesome but we need some good luck and strong tail winds to hit this date

Retain front of the store

The place is really starting to feel real.  The drywall and ducting is up.  Here is a picture front he front of the store as you walk in.  Along the wall to the left will be all custom made humidors all the way to almost the doors in the back you see.  The cash wrap with display and cash register is way at the back.
One thing I think we really did right was to have a lot of storage space.  I'll take some pictures once we get the lights on in the store room.

View of the lounge.  It feels really big.

The lounge feels much larger than I thought it would. This is going to be a very nice place to hang out and enjoy a cigar and if there is a game on this is going to be a great spot to watch the game.  The holes you see there in the far wall are where we are going to hang at least one large TV but we have drops for a couple of others and will have the ability to add TVs easily if we need to.

I mentioned in earlier posts our second biggest expense, and largest construction expense, is the air handling system from Alton Air in Fremont.  We are all building this lounge to be the place we want to hang out in.  So, there will be no smoke at all in this lounge.  There are three sets of air.  One is coming in with clean fresh air, the second is a return to scrub and clean the air before putting it back in and finally there is a straight up exhaust for events or when it gets crowded.

Keep following the blog and as always you can find updates on the web page Ohlone Cigar Lounge.  You can also sign up for e-mail updates at info@ohlonecigarlounge.com

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