Permits and Construction

We’ve been working on our design and architecture for months now, collaborating effortlessly with the fine folks from Sacred Space Studio and NO Architecture. I love how the Opo team has worked alongside these professionals to produce what will be an amazingly beautiful and functional headquarters for our company.

Currently, we’re waiting on our building permit application to be reviewed and approved by the city so that we can start construction. I’m hoping it won’t be too much longer before we hear back a positive response, but this is the phase that took me the longest when I set up Taproom (it dragged on for months and months). I learned my lesson the hard way, so this time we’ve got an expediter working for us to push things along.

The kind of hurdles that stand in the way between us and opening are as follows:

• FOG (fats, oils, grease) permit from the county

• building permit from the city

• foodservice permit from the county

• state Department of Agriculture license

• city alcohol license

• state alcohol license

• associated inspections for Certificate of Occupancy

As for actual construction work, we are using about half of the existing buildout from the pizzeria that was in the space, and then doing these major renovations:

• rebuild the front bar to be the transaction counter and espresso bar

• bumping out walls of the “pizza oven room” to be our larger roastery

• fully enclosing a back patio area to be our training lab

• replacing furniture and fixtures throughout the restaurant

If a building permit comes soon and construction goes as predicted, we’d be looking at early fall for a likely grand opening. Don’t hold me to that though!