Monday, November 9, 2009

I cannot believe it.....I have tap beer!!

We opened Olives a little over two years ago. Throughout the years we always found things here and there we wish we would have done differently. Nothing tops my list more than not having tap beer behind our bar. For two years I had beer experts come in and try to figure out what could be done - we got nowhere!! Everyone I spoke to told me it was impossible for me to have taps at the bar, which made me want it even more! My hopes and dreams diminished just like that. Guests would ask on a daily basis "What do you have on tap?". My answer never changed "I don't have any beer on tap, but I have lots of beer in bottles". Inside I would just cringe! Why didn't I think about that when we built the bar!!!
Then one day I was at Menard's. I saw a cooler for single kegs you could have at home. My mind started spinning and I wondered why I couldn't have one of those at my bar. I started looking for commercial keg coolers that day. And that is were the dream began! I examined the bar and we concluded we could take out one of our sinks that was barely used. I talked to my beer distributor and he explained we could make this happen. I wanted to ask him why a girl who doesn't drink beer figured out how to get a keg at the bar, while a bunch of beer bellied dudes were standing there scratching their heads thinking it was impossible!! I didn't want to jinks my dream of tap beer with bad karma, so I kept that comment to myself, which doesn't happen very often! After many weeks of thought and rearranging we decided we needed to move some plumbing to make this happen. I spoke with our plumber and he said it should be an easy fix. I couldn't believe this was finally going to happen! I got everything ordered and everyone scheduled.
The extra sink came out with ease. One task down two to go! Next in line - the plumber. He walked in and starting puddling around the bar. I was near him working on paperwork. I looked up from my computer to see him pacing back and forth with a confused look on his face, which is NEVER a good sign. He couldn't find the valve to shut off the water to just that area. Without that, amongst other things, he couldn't redo the plumbing, which meant I couldn't get my cooler. He wasn't sure if he could get this to work. I looked at him with the biggest puppy dog eyes and said "Look here, if you want to start off your day by crushing a girls dreams and be alright with that, than tell me you cannot figure this out. Otherwise, I would suggest you call someone and make this happen. You don't understand how much I want this." He just looked at me and cracked a little smile and said "that's a lot a pressure on one guy". I just responded by saying "Yup, sucks to be you!!" I'm happy to announce that after four hours, three guys, some phone calls and a couple of electricians - the plumbing was fixed (thanks to Peter, the plumber). We had many more complications that are too exhausting to relive at this time, but at the end of it all - I HAVE TAP BEER! Not just one kind - but FOUR! I poured my first one tonight! It was amazing! Who thought something so simple would make a girl so happy! I couldn't stop telling people all weekend about it. They looked at me like I was off my rocker. Oh well!

The moral of the story is - don't let some beer bellied dudes stop you from achieving your dreams....and who says dreams start in open fields of lilies, mine started at Menard's!

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