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Speed Bump vs Roadblock
Bill Fishburn • October 22, 2021
This is a (half) marathon...
Wow! It's been a minute since my last post. I can't believe how quickly time flies when you're focused on big work products.
First things first. Since my last post, we had the honor of picking up another Founder. For those of you keeping count, we're up to 21. Founder #21 is my bonus mom from way back, Becky Cox. Her son and I were best friends from junior high through high school, and the Coxes became like a second family to me. Rob and I lived at each others houses - literally. Becky dedicated her package to two of her grandkids, Amber and Nick, who I think of as a bonus niece and nephew. I hope it gives them reasons for regular visits to Washington in the future. There's nothing we'd love more than to see them as regulars in the brewpub - even if it's only annually.
Another significant accomplishment since my last post is we worked with a long-time friend, Mike Smith, on a podcast. You can listen to it here: https://www.irishmikesmith.com/podcast-six-pennies/ I used to write beer reviews for Mike's northwest food blog, and you can read those at https://www.irishmikesmith.com/category/brewbeat-nw/, if you're interested. Our relationship with "Irish Mike Smith" is a great, small world story: A friend saw Mike's post on Twitter ages ago. He was looking for folks to help him get his nascent food and drink blog off the ground. My friend knew how much I was into beer, and told me about Mike's tweet. I reached out, and soon I was writing for Mike's blog. Before long, we figured out we were both from Spokane. Then we discovered we knew someone in common: Mike had gone to high school with some of my cousins, and graduated with one of them. Such a qwinkydink! Anyway, give the podcast a listen and let us know what you think.
Now where was I? Oh, right... As you might recall, a lot of my time the last few months was writing a business plan and working on our cash flow model. Both documents require a lot of time, energy, and commitment. There's way more research that goes into a fully-developed business plan than we were expecting, and it took the better part of the summer. There's also a lot more work that goes into populating a cash flow model template than just plugging in numbers. However, the work has paid off, and we have a couple of really detailed, well thought-out artifacts that we hope will help us land a lender.
Ah, lenders! Unfortunately, lending is the reason for the title of this blog post - 'Speed Bumps vs Roadblocks'. To explain, we'd been working with a local bank since we learned Sonja's Diner was up for sale back in May. We got right up to a closing date at the beginning of October, and the lender backed away. That was almost two weeks ago, and I finally started feeling sufficiently less discouraged to write a post. While it was a discouraging experience, we've definitely embraced the experience as a speed bump, and we're not letting it stop us.
We've spent the last week-plus trying to mentally recoup. We've spent the last couple days trying to convince another lender this is a really viable vision with a lot of potential. We've also regrouped on the real estate side and engaged a buyer's agent to help us negotiate any future deals with our original property or a different one.
This all brings me to the subtitle, "This is a (half) marathon." Our good friends over at Headless Mumby told us when we started on this, "Everything takes way longer than you expect, and nothing ever goes as fast as you'd hoped." As you might have guessed from this post's picture, I'm a runner (actually, so is Beth; she's the one that got me into it). In June, a friend invited me to run Ragnar's NW Passage race with her and a group of her friends, and I got back into running shape. I ran the Bellingham Bay half in September, and finished in the top 10 in my age class (okay, okay, so I was number 10 out of 35 in my age class, but I'm pretty damned proud of that accomplishment). Further, it wasn't my first half marathon, and it won't be my last.
This all brings me to the subtitle, "This is a (half) marathon." Our good friends over at Headless Mumby told us when we started on this, "Everything takes way longer than you expect, and nothing ever goes as fast as you'd hoped." As you might have guessed from this post's picture, I'm a runner (actually, so is Beth; she's the one that got me into it). In June, a friend invited me to run Ragnar's NW Passage race with her and a group of her friends, and I got back into running shape. I ran the Bellingham Bay half in September, and finished in the top 10 in my age class (okay, okay, so I was number 10 out of 35 in my age class, but I'm pretty damned proud of that accomplishment). Further, it wasn't my first half marathon, and it won't be my last.
All this to say we can both do the long haul. We know how to pace ourselves. We know how to set a goal and achieve it. Neither of us is the fastest runner in the pack, but we've got endurance and stamina. This brewery is going to happen, and we can't wait to see you all at the finish line.
Let's start with my apology. Several years ago (11, I think), one of Beth's high school classmates invited us to a get-together at her place on Vashon. We met a really nice couple there, David and Lisa Manners. Beth and Lisa friended each other on Failbook... er, Facebook... and they've stayed in touch since. Frankly, David and Lisa turned out to be better friends than the host who introduced us, and we've enjoyed getting to know them better over the years. (Yeah, I grouse about Facebook, but it does have some good things to offer.) Since we met, they moved to Yelm, and when we started working on the brewery, they started following our process. They became Founders in August, and I completely and totally failed to update our Founders page with their info and photo. I can't apologize enough for this oversight, and I'm super-grateful to David who reached out to me and let me know I had missed them. They are our real 20th Founders, and not my bonus mom (so apologies to Becky, too, who is our 21st Founder). I don't make excuses. I don't find them helpful in addressing mistakes. I prefer apologies and looking for corrective actions to prevent the same thing from happening in the future. From now on, I'll post a placeholder on the Founders page the day we receive payment for an order. The picture can can come later. David, Lisa, and Becky - I hope you'll accept my apology.
First, no I haven't forgotten about the blog. We went to Hawaii, and then I've been heads-down on the never-ending business plan. However, we made major progress this week, and I've been busting to share with everyone... WE GOT APPROVAL FOR OUR LIQUOR LICENSE!!! Yes, I know all caps is for yelling. Yes, I know that really bugs some folks, but WE GOT APPROVAL FOR OUR LIQUOR LICENSE!!! Okay, so as the title of this post suggests, it's conditional, but it's an approval. Words don't exist to describe how relieved we were to get this. After sweating it since June when we started the application process, the assigned WSLCB agent let us know on Tuesday our 30-day conditional approval can be extended if we don't have the requested documentation (property bill of sale) and two inspections completed by then. That's another big relief. So, the picture on this post symbolizes the elation we felt and the celebration we held when we got the news. When you read this, raise one to join in the celebration. Cheers!
That's our granddaughter in the roller coaster. Isn't she beautiful? That look of excitement and subtle apprehension captures so perfectly the emotional trip that planning a new venture like Six Pennies can be. As the title of this post states, there have been ups and downs. Staying focused on the ups gets us through the downs. As I'm writing this, I realized maybe the roller coaster concept is a bit backwards from how we typically think of ups and downs. I mean, on a roller coaster, the "ups" are usually filled with suspense, apprehension, and anxiety as you approach a crest or a drop. The exciting parts are the "downs" where the adrenaline soars and the coaster plummets. I'm probably overthinking this, but I thought I should address an obvious (to me) hole in the analogy. What's been going on you ask? So much. So very, very much. The Business Plan continues to occupy the majority of my time. It's an onion with multiple layers, and that makes progress much slower than I'd like, which is a total down. However, I'm making progress, and that's an up. I met with a local restaurant owner and went through our high-level plan and menu. That was a super-encouraging conversation, and I got some great tips on menu development and layout, staffing practices, supply chains, and physical layout of the restaurant. He even unknowingly supported a strong recommendation from our friend and restaurant consultant, Karen, to add liquor to the menu. The meeting was a complete up. I finally heard back from the consultant at the EDC. The EDC offers a great service in helping small businesses, but the consultants seem to be overloaded; responses can be slow and require multiple follow-ups. When I did finally hear back from the consultant, I re-learned the market research request I made would take four to six weeks. What a total down. Thankfully, it was paired with an up of getting time on the consultant's calendar. My latest interactions with the WSLCB have been encouraging. Despite my repeated explanations to the contrary, the agent thought we were trying to open the full-scale brewery on the day we took possession. I was finally able to make it clear we'd be on more of a homebrew scale at possession, and got a tentative agreement to consider a revised layout; that was an up. However, in the same exchange with the WSLCB, I asked about adding liquor to the alcohol license. Nope. To do that, we'd have to withdraw the current application and re-apply. That was a big down. I spent a good deal of time discussing the business plan with a good friend who has a lot more experience writing business plans than I do. We had a really good discussion that helped me focus some of the language and concepts in the business plan. Then he gave me a genius idea I'll describe more in a later post, but for now, let's just say, "Bill is the BoMB!" Total up. We got our 20th Founder pair (welcome David and Lisa Manners of Yelm!), and that was a huge up. I think that's a good note to end on.
The past week has been more paperwork. Our primary source of paperwork continues to be the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board. I counted, and I submitted more than 35 forms in our first pass of form submissions. We are in what I believe is our third pass, but it might be our fourth or fifth, depending on how we count. My favorite resubmission so far was a form that asks for "Name." On all of our formal documentation, Beth and I have used atypical forms of our full names for. ev. er. FOR. EV. ER. (Queue 'The Sandlot.') The agent asked me to resubmit with our "Full Names." As luck or fate or the internet would have it, I couldn't find the original form they asked us to fill out, so I tried to find the form from WSLCB's website. That link was broken. The document I'd sent couldn't be edited because, well... Adobe. So it was an hour or so of maddening frustration before I eventually found the original email from the agent with the working link. But then, the agent informed me, I forgot to sign the updated-with-full-name version of the form. That was the point where I got a beer (okay, it was a couple/three beers, but really, who's counting?) That same afternoon I had a lengthy email exchange with the agent. Twice they had asked me for my "internet provider," because who knows why? They had never heard of the internet provider I gave them (who, by the way, serves most of south Thurston County - the county where the agent resides and works). I finally realized they didn't want my internet provider, but rather the company who was providing our storefront (which you can interface with when you order your Founders Club Package from www.SixPenniesBrewery.com/store). The lengthy email was trying to just get us both on the same page with respect to vocabulary. There are huge differences between, "internet providers," "webhosting services", "content management systems," "commerce platforms," and "domain providers," and after explaining the differences, the agent managed to work with Enforcement to determine our commerce platform was on whatever approved list they were concerned with. Once we had that all sorted out, I decided I was going to take a break from WSLCB paperwork to think about our menu. It was also a good excuse to procrastinate the dun, dun, DUN! Business Plan - which I've been struggling with for months. So the pictures you see for this week's post and at the top of this page are beef brisket and burnt ends (made from pork belly). All I can say is I hope we never perfect these, because they I won't have an excuse to practice making them. Oh. My. Gosh! These two dishes were so good! The brisket was on the Big Green Egg for a total of 11 hours, and we have just a couple tweaks to make to it before it is utter perfection. Of course, we'll have to go through another round of practice when we switch to an offset smoker (which I'm going to build myself), but such is life! The burnt ends were pretty much finished after six hours, and between the rub, the bbq sauce glaze, and the broiler crisping -- yeah, that old Lay's commercial came back to haunt us: "You can't eat just one." We also made a decent batch of smoked jalapeño-cheddar sausages this past week. That recipe will also need some more practice and some more tweaks. "Unfortunately" we'll have to work through about 15 lbs of our first batch before we make the next batch. Before you ask, no - we're not shipping this stuff. First, we're not satisfied with the current results, and two, food safety (need I say more?) If you're in the neighborhood, though, and you want to give it a try, shoot us a note. That's about all for this week. Stay safe, stay cool, and wear your masks in indoor spaces, even if you're vaccinated.
First, I can't seem to get on the weekly cadence bandwagon. All I can say is I will continue to have weekly posts as a goal. It seems achievable, but time will tell. Second, we cleared a major milestone. If you follow us on the Socials, you know we got our Brewer's Notice. This was huge and not nearly as difficult as other licensing is turning out to be. If you're not familiar with the Brewer's Notice, it's one of the first steps in the process of opening a brewery. It is a document required by the federal Tax and Trade Bureau (part of the US Department of the Treasury). It doesn't cost anything, but there are several hoops to jump through. The last step was doing a brief interview with the specialist, and after helpfully walking me through answers to some of her questions, she approved our Brewer's Notice. Getting the agent on the phone was much more challenging than the interview. All that being said, getting the Brewer's Notice approved is pretty momentous, because without it, we can't clear the next hurdle - getting our Washington Liquor License. If you decide to embark on the process of starting your own brewery, my one tip would be to mentally prepare for the Washington licensing aspect. Multiple agencies become involved, and its not at all obvious what triggers their involvement, what their involvement will be, or what you will have to do to satisfy their involvement. Thankfully, some of the agencies reach out to you once you submit your business license application with the relevant endorsements. For some, that approach may be less daunting. For me, I like to see as many of the steps and processes as possible up-front. The other thing I can say about the licensing process is the liquor license application process is onerous. We received a six-page letter listing the documentation we would need. Each page had multiple links to documents we needed to fill out. After submitting all of them to WSLCB, they responded with ones that didn't apparently transmit, as well as changes and questions about the ones that did. We are currently in Round Two of submitting documents. Last, I want to welcome our newest Founders. Since my last posting, Stacy Lowe (Glendale, AZ), who I've known since junior high, joined our Founders Club, and Rebecca Grant, a friend from college, and her husband, Brian Smart, have joined. Welcome, Stacy, Rebecca, and Brian! Remember - if we can get to 25 Founders we'll make more swag available. Please share with your friends, family, and social media feeds.
Bureaucracy expands to keep up with the needs of an expanding bureaucracy. - Isaac Asimov The last (almost) two weeks have been a complete blur. We had our preliminary interview with the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board on July 8, and they sent us a several-page list of forms and documents they want. Many of the forms get into significant amounts of detail. They were very clear with us: they need all the forms back two weeks after the preliminary interview. Oh, by the way, you can't technically apply for your liquor license until you have a Brewer's Notice from the feds (we all know them as Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, but the division responsible for the Brewer's Notice is the Tax and Trade Bureau or 'TTB'. ) Technically, you can't get a Brewer's Notice until you have possession of the property. In other words, you have to purchase a place you might not be able to get approved for a license before you can apply for a license. On top of it all, the TTB website is a little glitchy, and for three days we've been trying to enter our names as the managers of Six Pennies Brewery. The TTB doesn't return phone calls, either. That's just the tip of the bureaucratic iceberg, but it gives you a flavor of what we're working on and dealing with. To make matters a little more "interesting", the financial model template we've been using links to a secondary template we don't have and can't get without paying some consulting fees, so we're starting that anew. It's been a rough, very fast two weeks! All that being said, bureaucratic hoops are something we're both accustomed to jumping through. We learned in college there was always an appeal process or an approval process of some kind; you just had to know who and how to ask.So, we'll get it done, even if we have to pull an all-nighter and sacrifice some creature comforts like sleep. All that being said, we've had some good news: We've gotten three new Founders since our last post! We welcome our second community-at-large members, Liam and Karen Macomb (Yelm) and another former classmate and her husband, Tammy Fellin and Dick Zais (Olympia). Our second family member Founders signed up tonight, so welcome to Uncle Ralph and Aunt Karen Fishburn (Spokane). If you or someone you know is interested, please check out our Founders Club Package at www.SixPenniesBrewery.com/Store . When we get to 25 Founders we'll be putting some more swag in the store, so you can really help by spreading the word.
So first things first. I forgot to post a real post last week. There's a post there, but you have to infer what we did. The implicit post is I worked on trying to make the blog subscribe-able. Big thanks to our friend Donna at Totera Web Systems for her help in making that happen. Now you'll see a nifty little box at the end of each blog post giving you the option to subscribe. We really don't like to receive a bunch of updates and emails just for the heck of it. Why? Because we're busy, just like you. So, if you want to be notified when we make new blog posts (again, they should be weekly-ish), you get to decide. We're not going to make you (but we'd appreciate it if you did!) Second, there is just. So. Much. To. Learn. I mean, we already know a ton about cooking and brewing, but we've forgotten more about restaurant operations than we thought possible. Thankfully, an old friend has jumped in to help remind us. With her experience in the restaurant business and the consultations she's been providing, we're even more confident in what we're getting into. Everything from scheduling and wages to menu design to kitchen inventory/layout and building capabilities (think air conditioning, electrical, etc.) We spent a good deal of time the past two weeks researching glycol systems, walk-in coolers, draft systems, and miscellaneous kitchen equipment. We spent a ton of time on the phone with different networking leads who are experts in refrigeration, restaurant supplies, and heating and cooling. Then we did a great walk-through (probably my third or so) of another local brewery to better understand beer lines and tap systems (thank you Paul at Well 80 Brewhouse - that's where this week's picture comes from.. We had a great conversation with the bank representative assigned to our effort. We spoke late in the day before he was leaving for an extended Fourth of July weekend, and he was still super-gracious and spent a long time taking questions and listening. Last, we got two more Founders! Big thank you to Sid and Sharon Maxwell (of Anchorage, Alaska) and Marty and Marilyn Walther (Olympia, Washington)! Pictures are forthcoming, and we still need more Founders. Please share the word.
Once upon a time, Beth and I went skydiving. We weren't even dating yet, but we both independently came up with the idea, not temporally separated by much, that jumping out of a perfectly good airplane would be a good idea. Fortunately, we both survived, and I'm here today to tell you about it. In an interesting parallel, two recent, independent conversations with Founders Club members brought up similar emotions to our skydiving experiences. Starting on this adventure is a little like jumping out of a plane. It is at once both terrifying and exhilarating. The full force of that realization hits us both a couple times a day. Thankfully, we have Founders who are friends who can bolster our confidence and remind us that we have this. That all being said, you're probably wondering what we've been up to. It seems like it's been a pretty busy week, and like we're gaining some momentum. Where to begin... Beth and I shipped our first ten Founders Club packages (big thank you to the First Ten!) Mitch visited Hoh River Brewery to look at their layout. We had previously visited Well 80 Brewhouse for a similar purpose, and we learned a lot about a larger operation. Mitch and I took interior measurements of Sonja's Diner and learned more about its history. We received an email from our agents confirming we could assume the existing liquor license. I made contact with the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) and got encouraging news. We got both our logo and our tradename trademarked with the Washington Secretary of State. We applied to the Washington Department of Revenue for our business license with the microbrewery endorsement and the restaurant beer and wine endorsement (aka the existing liquor license) I continued re-vamping the business plan We submitted our personal financial statement and tax returns to our potential lender The coming week we'll continue to build out the expenses and revenue forecasts, to work on a staffing model, and build out the equipment list and costs. We should hear back from the WSLCB in seven to ten business days from June 17th, and that will start the clock ticking on some notification periods to different entities in Rainier (the school, the city, I'm not sure who else). Like I said, it's exhilarating and terrifying, but we've let go of the plane's strut. Waiting for the chute to open is as adrenalizing as I remember.
So I've probably felt this way multiple times since about February. Back in January, on New Year's Eve, I set a goal. I didn't make a 'New Year's Resolution'; I set. A. Goal. I've been dreaming about and talking about starting a microbrewery for more years than I can remember. I think when I took my first 'real' job out of grad school, my goal was to make it to my first sabbatical (such a cool benefit!) and start my brewery on my sabbatical. Well, the market and the whole 'stages and ages' thing, didn't really work out for that timing, and I put it off. In fact, I've been putting off The Goal for more years than I care to admit, but here we were in January 2021 with a lot of pandemic in our rear view and probably more than we wanted in the view ahead. That was the environment in which I set my goal: Come hell or high water (does anyone even say that anymore?), I was going to break ground on a brewery this year. That was my Goal; not my resolution, but my New Year's Goal. I immediately started working on reviving a logo design we'd had created back in 2017. I contacted our friend, Donna Winter at Totera Web Systems, about creating a website and put a plan in place. We decided on the contents of a Founders Club Package, and I started working on the swag that would go in it - leather growler cozies, growlers to go in them, coasters, key fobs, and t-shirts. A crap-ton (or maybe it was a buttload) of stuff to get ready and place orders for. Let me tell you, the capital-intense nature of swag is not something I was quite ready for. We plunged ahead, anyway. That was about where my expertise ended. So I reached out to a life-long friend and architect to talk about design support. We've been meeting weekly since, oh, I don't know, late January? Early February? I couldn't be more grateful to Mitch, because he's kept a foot in my backside when I didn't think it was worth continuing. I mean, Rainier? Really? Who was I kidding? There are like three vacant lots on our main strip (Highway 507) through town, and one was tied up in a feasibility study, one was way more land than needed, and one was/is a former gas station site in need of much cleanup and reclamation. Then in May, that all changed. Mitch found out that the only sit-down restaurant in town was on the market. I'd been working on a lot of the other stuff on a pace that would potentially allow me to break ground by December 2021 (The Goal). Things like developing a Founders Package, exploring website hosting, finding out about Thurston County resources that could help, etc., etc. - it all changed. I contacted the restaurant owner, and did a quick meet-and-greet. She walked me through the diner, and showed me her space. We talked some about the history and her experiences at the diner, and she gave me her selling agent's name. The next day the agent called me, and by the end of the week, we had made a tentative sales offer. Whooosh! That happened fast! Then the pressure was on to build out the website and make sure our social media was ready. Facebook? Check. Twitter? Check. Instagram? Check. That's about where we are. The website is up, and we've started getting Founders signed up. The last 24 to 48 hours have been exhilarating... and terrifying. When the orders started coming in, I wasn't quite sure what to do, but here we are, and we should ship out our first Founders Packages on Monday (6/14). I hope you'll subscribe and follow along on what I'm sure will be an amazing (if not nerve-wracking) journey.
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PO Box 888, Rainier, WA 9857
360-602-2722