Sam Kidd's thoughts on business

I'm sorry for the lack of updates and new photos but the last week has just been one of the hardest weeks ever for me.
Sam&Dan's is now open and trading to the public!! I can't believe it myself, I thought we would never get there.
I'm a bit up the walls at the moment trying to get all the small things sorted out so I will post a more detailed blog later on.

In the short time below are a few pics from the shop. I also have a few more photos on my flickr page.

Yesterday was manic inside the new Sam and Dan's shop, at one stage we had 9 people working away in there and space is tight with the kitchen sitting in one corner.
Yesterday, the counter we have running around the shop was finished off, all that is left now is to have it varnished a few times.

The back store room was worked on and all the holes patched up. The ceiling throughout the shop was also painted. We then had the hoods for the kitchen installed and all the steel work on the walls behind where the kitchen will go finished off as well.

Now we just have the painting of walls, Kitchen to be installed, and the second fix of the electrics to be completed and also jacks to be plumbed in. We are hoping (praying) to have most of the work completed by Tuesday so we can open during the week.

We also have our first shipment of Hot dogs arriving from Germany tomorrow as well, I have to say I wish we were finished with the construction in the shop, because we have stuff stored all over the place such as, bar stools, donut machines, donut mix, T.V's. Ahhhh so much to get sorted and so little time.

Work in Digital Crew is manic as well at the moment I was in Galway on Friday looking at the new Galway webworks building, we are doing the website for it, nice place all very modern. 

The days are very long at the moment with trying to do loads of Sam&Dan's work during the day along with Digital Crew and AREA51  trying to get all my written Digital Crew work done at night. Still I have to say I am enjoying but also finding it a bit stressful too.

Below are the latest pics from the shop.

Just thought I would quickly upload some new photos from the new Sam and Dan's shop before I head off to bed.
You can see the steel walls are nearly all up on the left hand side of the shop and the wooden counter top is in the process of going up as well.
Tomorrow the steel is going to be finished along with the counter, and then the mirrors above the counter top go in as well.
Also the kitchen comes into the shop towards the end of the day.
So i hope the photos i upload tomorrow might actually look a bit more like a real shop, and is now
another step closer to becoming the first Sam and Dan's shop!

I have be meaning to update the photos and fill you in on what is going on with Sam&Dan's but finding time to sit down and write a blog post has been very hard to come by.

Work in Digital Crew at the moment is crazy as well, every man and his dog is looking for new sites
or application to be built. We even finished a pretty cool internal app. for Lidl Ireland in the last week.

Any how as you can see below Sam&Dan's still looks like a bomb went off. So much for the builder saying most of the work will be done by Tuesday. There should be big changes made by Friday this week. I would be hoping that the shop will be pretty much ready to rock and roll by next week. (fingers crossed)

I have just uploaded some more photos that I took, with my now broken camera, down in Sam&Dan's
tonight. The floor is nearly done now throughout the shop.
You can check out all the photos I have in my flickr account here



We hope to have all the wiring finished tomorrow and the ceiling started to be
slabbed. Kitchen should be going in early next week, I know looking at this pic it
seems hard to believe, but that's what I'm being told. Somehow don't
think I would bet too much cash on that happening, guess I will see.

Sam&Dan's is now well under way to actually becoming a real shop and not just being an idea.
I have posted some photos from the construction below.
We decided to rip the ceiling down on Tuesday, we discovered there was about 2 feet of dead space above the old one. Denis (the builder) said it was an easy enough job so we gave the go ahead and down it came. The frame for the new ceiling is now up, and we got almost 2 feet of extra height inside the shop now, and man it makes a savage difference to the room. I'm so
glad we decided to go ahead with it.

We also had a small bit of a headache during the week when we realised we would have to
re-tile the floor. Once we took the old internal walls out we found out that the existing floor
wasn't level the whole way through the shop. We thought this was going to turn into a massive
job, taking the whole floor out then levelling it off, but Denis was able to just remove the parts of the floor that were too high, then level it out. We are then able to tile over the existing tiles. You
can see in the end pic half of the shop was done today, I hope the rest will be done in
the morning.

The shop once all the internal walls were taken down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

             The new ceiling. You can see the mark from the old one on the right.

               The builders working on the shop.

              Photo from the back of the shop towards the front. The tiles are being prepared for the
new ones to go in.

                        These are the new tiles which are going in to Sam&Dan's.
Well that's the update so far, I will keep you posted over the week and let you know how it's turning out. I hope to see the shop start to take shape this week and not to look just like a construction yard.