Meetings with contractors all day

An important meeting today at the spot happened, and it looks like I've found my GC to build the place, pending a reasonable bid. These guys really understood what I needed (perfection at a low price.. and fast) and were excited to see the space and work with me. They are locals too that have built tons of commercial retail food services locations in Santa Monica, which is notorious for being extremely hard to pull permits in. They also are just nice guys who are old pros, which goes a long way!

-Ryan

I'm pleased to announce a vital partnership...

I'm very happy to announce the official partnership between Flying Saucers and Supreme Bean Coffee Roasters, based out of North Hollywood, CA. I'm blown away by their coffee and tea, simple as that. The coffee is roasted fresh at their facility daily, and sent right away out to their clients, ensuring the freshest cup of coffee possible. They have a full line of organic coffees that we'll brew, most notably their famous Espresso Abruzzo and single-origin Ethiopia Yirgacheffe

As for teas, Supreme Bean has a great line of loose leaf senchas, black teas, oolongs, herbals and even those cool hand tied Flowering Pearls that unfold and "blossom" in the tea cup.

Thank you Supreme Bean!

-Ryan

Ok, so forget sandblasting!

Today the sandblasting guy came out to give me a quote on blasting the paint off of the facade, and possibly the huge 38' wall on the inside (it's plaster covering beautiful brick).

After hearing the price and hassle, the verdict is in:

Looks like the facade will stay painted, and the huge wall will have to be taken off manually. Too bad!

Went sign shopping today.

Wow, are signs expensive. The place I've nearly decided on using prices pretty standard, but it's still easily going to run $4000-$7000 for one worthy of Saucerness. Sigh.

Price aside, this place rocks and really makes some amazing stuff!

Here's some examples of signs they've done:



A combination of the two shown might be really cool. Any opinions?

-Ryan

Done with the front!

I'm beat, I just spent about 4 hours painting the damn place.. I didn't think it would take so long!

It came out pretty nice, but the facade is so high (at least 18') I had to paint it with one of these extenders that stretches out to a whopping 12':

Because I was nowhere near the top of the building, I couldn't paint in the grout. I'll have to figure that one out... likely I will need a gigantic ladder and a valium.

-Ryan

Painting today

Cool, I've secured a 11' ladder (not easy to do when you drive a 2 seater) and I'm going to paint the facade today. The issue with the facade is that it's all brick (a good thing) but it's been painted a horrible bright red color (a bad thing). Short of somehow sandblasting off the paint, which would surely include sandblasting the skin off my forearms, I've decided to paint it as close to "real" brick color as possible.. and do a little faux weathering on it to make it look proper. After then, the flower pots come and the clinging ivy gets planted, which will eventually cover most of the front anyway. No coffee house is perfect unless it has ivy covered brick as a facade!


So I found a great color, and a gray color for the grout (yes, I have to paint the grout too for full effect) and I'm getting down and dirty today.


Now the skin on my forearms will just be red from paint, not from being sandblasted off!


pics to come..


-Ryan

A few pics

So I snapped a few "before" pics of the old Benway Records store (RIP) before I go crazy on the place.

You won't recognize it when I'm done with the place..






































Next week: Lawyer/Painting/Demolition

Introducing Flying Saucers Cafe and Art Gallery!

Welcome to the official blog of Flying Saucers, located at 306 Pico Blvd. in Santa Monica, CA!


Allow me to introduce myself...

My name is Ryan MacLeod Morris, professional musician/painter/paranormal enthusiast and coffee and tea junkie! I guess you can add businessman to the list now, because I'm striking out on my own and opening the coffee house/art gallery of my dreams (or nightmares, depending on how the next 6 months pan out!).

The mission of Flying Saucers is simple; promote and sell artwork of the best painters Los Angeles has to offer (I know some great ones), while serving an amazing selection of organic coffee and tea. Hopefully in the process, a little awareness of the weird world of UFOlogy will be poured into the minds of the unsuspecting citizens of Santa Monica. Don't get me started on the UFO thing unless you are ready for a passionate history lesson on the subject. Seriously.

My experience with the coffee business goes back over ten years, when I took my first "real" job (that wasn't gardening or sprinkler repair) at the amazing Palo Alto Cafe in Palo Alto, CA working for Keyvan Kermanshahi doing a lot of dishes, serving customers, and helping him roast coffee on Wednesdays on his huge Franciscan coffee roaster. I had a lot of great experiences at the PA Cafe under Keyvan, and it planted the seeds for what would become a important part of my strange and multi-pronged career.. which has included playing in various rock/metal/prog bands, painting gigantic portraits of a couple of C-List celebrities dogs and cats, joining a paranormal investigations team, and running the #1 most profitable and fastest growing Coffee Bean location in the company! That was a priceless experience that led to me taking the leap to open my own gallery/cafe.

Sound strange? It's bound to get stranger. Thanks for reading!

-Ryan