At last . . .

After all of the worry, the frustration, and the fleeting thoughts of giving up altogether, we have our building permit for Tomari's! Through some extraordinary efforts of our General Contractor, Larry Kunz, Tom came home with it yesterday. Lots of hugging and kissing and celebrating yesterday! This means we can now move forward with inspections for the already completed plumbing, heating, and electrical. Once the inspections are successfully passed it's on to the finish work and equipment. Then, well, you know, we'll be opening our doors. Finally! Our original hope was to be open by the end of June, next we thought July - latest, then it was August and now realistically it will likely be late October. Oh the perils of a small business start up in Jefferson County.

Tomari's is becoming actualized through an amazing network of community, friends, and family. It is a true representation of the six degrees of separation. One need leading to an answer, one problem leading to a solution. The flow seems almost magical. An example:

Late last year we were at the soft opening of a restaurant of a friend of ours. Sitting at a booth next to us was a friend of Toms. Tom went over to him and said; Larry, what are you doing here? Larry said; I built this place! The restaurant was beautifully constructed. We hadn't yet conceived of our place but as soon as we did we naturally went to Larry. He's been with us from the beginning. What an amazing, serendipitous, sequence of events. It has been absolutely incredible to work with someone who cares as much as we care and works as hard as we work, slogging through one problem after the next, to make our vision a reality. We love our GC!