A Sloppy Opening

So it was Jerry's 27th birthday this past January 25th, 2012 AD.  We were racking our brains on where to celebrate and we thought why not kick things off at the new spot and give some of our friends a little preview of what we had in store for our er...store.

After Jerry forced me to have dinner at my own restaurant, not that I don't love the food, it's just hard to sit through a meal there during business hours without feeling like I should be helping out, we hopped on over to The Iron Press just to find out that neither of us had our keys handy!  Here's a snap of us at dinner before heading out to kick off the real party:

But I digress...we started handing out cans of cheap beer outside to keep people happy until, luckily, Jaime (after blowing up his phone non-stop) swung by to drop off an extra set of keys and knock back a birthday beer before darting back to tend for his wife and soon-to-be-popping-out-into-this-world son.  Right after we swung open the doors, Bobby from Brewski's got right to work and set up a Jockey Box (Yes, Jerry.  Not a Jimmy Box.  It's a Jimmy Hat and a Jockey Box).  For the night we were previewing a half barrel of Anaheim Brewery's Red Ale and a sixth of Huntington Beer Co.'s Thug Life Malt Liquor:

We plopped down all flavors of Lucky Habanero Salsa and the night descended into one filled with body liquids and the eventual coining of the term "Shuke".  Please do not ask us to explain this story online, this will be only told in person by Jerry himself, as he was the only witness to what truly happened.  Silliness ensued when we ran out of beer for flip cup and moved on to bubbly.  Not just your run of the mill Korbel, but Jerry insisted on rocking a game of flip cup with:

Yes...Dom...Flip...Cup.  Needless to say, it was a first for most if not all of us in the game.  Thanks to everyone who came to celebrate Jerry's birthday and for all those who, after turning beer pong into Jameson pong, decided to fertilize the new landscape around our patio.

Smoochies, Len and Jerry

So in Disguise that We Missed This

So apparently my head has been stuffed around my back side and I missed an update to Foodie in Disguise's first interest into what we were doing.  Here's a little banter between the man himself, Scott Mindeaux, and me a little while back about our vision for The Iron Press:

http://www.foodieindisguise.com/2012/01/22/update-iron-press-waiiha-sushi-soco/

Honestly, as pumped up as we are for the momentum we are gaining, I am freaking out ha ha.  Scott, I just dug through my email and realize that I owe you a reply.  Take a gander at your inbox within the next few hours, yeah?

If you still haven't popped over to the link above, Scott also talks about Jerry's and his mom's, Linda, crazy tasty Lucky Habanero Salsa.

Smoochies, Len and Jerry

Stick a Fork in Us

OK, well this would be the second time I've had a fork stuck in me, but the first for The Iron Press.  We had a quick mention of us when OC Weekly's own, Edwin Goei, gave a shout out to our newly opened neighbor - Waiiha.  Check out the entry here:

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/stickaforkinit/2012/02/a_sushi_restaurant_and_a_beerw.php

Waiiha has opened up for lunch already and the are gearing up to prop open their doors for dinner soon.  Swing by and check out their new spot and peek through our windows to see what we are up to!

Big ups for my friend, Penny, who gave me the heads up on this entry.

Smoochies, Len and Jerry

We'll Squirt in Your Glass

Ok, so technically these little glass rinsers will be squirting (water) in your glasses.  We added these suckers in just to give that final touch and ensuring a properly cleaned up vessel for your beer!

We know it's been a while since we have updated the blog, but we have been busy little bees tidying things up and trying to get everything in order for our last few inspections.  Though it is scary to say, we are now in the home stretch, at least we think so...In the meantime, here's a little peek at our main patio area  that is juuuuuuust about done:

Things are getting really close now, so we are all a bit anxious *chewing on finger nails*.  Please be patient with us, we simply want to make sure all of our P's and Q's are in order before inviting you guys through our doors.  Check back with us soon, as we will be throwing up some more pictures of the interior.  Keep your fingers, toes, and eyes crossed for us!

Smoochies, Len and Jerry

Mmmmmm...Beeeeeeeer...

So like, we have been kind of busy (drinking) lately.  A lot.  A lot a lot.  Of course, it has all been in the name of research!  In the past few months, we have been tasting all sorts of local brews.  It is now getting down to crunch time, so we are narrowing down our selections.  We love what the guys over at the Bruery are doing and already have our minds made up to carry as much of their beers as we can make sense at, but it's always fun to stop by their Provisions shop.  What was even more fun this last visit was a chance to guzzle down some of their Black Tuesday coming in at a whopping near twenty percent (20%) ABV!  It was double bubble fun as we were also able to meet the author of Brewed Awakening, Joshua Bernstein, and pick up a signed copy of the book.  If you guys love beer, this puppy definitely needs to be on your list of to-reads!  Between drinking some delicious beer, we popped over to chat up Josh a bit and snapped a quick shot:

Hangar 24 stopped in to show us some beer they have been brewing up and some stuff they are carrying for the guys over at Taps:

We had a couple winners out of this bunch, most notably an Orange Wheat beer that has whole pureed oranges wound up in every batch.  The biggest surprise was a cider we tasted that was blended in with beer yeast and malts.  Talk about a cider that both guys and girls can swig, wowzas!

Lost Coast Brewery dropped their Great White years ago, and I can honestly say this was the beer that got me started on seeking out great beer.  Since then, they have been putting out some rad stuff so we can't wait to have a few of their handles over in our little shack:

Big thanks go out to Jeff Lieu for helping us drink, the Tagge brothers, Lauren Chiang with the female palette, David Chi for just being a drunken fun guy, and Eric Chiu for well, driving us ha ha.

Sorry we are going to have to cut this short, but we are jetting out now to HB Brew Co. for another tasting!

Smoochies, Len and Jerry

Waffling About

So after weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks of coordination and trying to get a hold of someone to demo these for us, we finally got our hands on our waffle irons!  The sucker you see above was missing it's handles, which was quickly fixed, but not before Jerry and I (delirious from lack of sleep) managed to sneak in some fun:

After some silliness, we got back to business.  We mixed up some of our waffle batter and then had Greg dive, errr pour, right in and show us how it is done!

Needless to say, their waffle irons made everything a cinch in comparison to the waffles we were making using home equipment.  Within ten (10) minutes, we had adjusted the temperature and timing to how we liked it and knocked out a few waffles that were just about right.  We will be getting in a few more of these guys in the next week or so.  After that, we will work on getting the waffles just the way we want them.  For all our friends out there, yes yes we know, the tastings shall begin soon!

Smoochies, Len and Jerry

Rocking Out

I have no idea what Jerry is doing with that ruler, but he looks like he's doling out military orders or something...anyhoo, Jerry and I planned on stopping by our good friends Dan and Joe's office really quick to take a peep at some shirt colors and styles for the shop.  We ended up spending an entire afternoon there like kids in a candy store! We went in thinking that we would come out with a t-shirt decision, but we walked out with two (2) shirts, maybe three (3) sizes of glasses, probably vinyl stickers, possibly some coasters, likely a baseball cap, and a slight chance of a newsies cap.  Ridiculous.

Regardless, these guys have always been good to us, including squeezing in all of our shirts for California Shabu Shabu (between designing and printing for clients such as Atreyu, Kat Von D, Monster, Jagermeister, Rock Star, High Voltage Tattoo, blah blah blah).  Big noise for Rock World Merchandise!  Check them out here : http://www.rockworldmerch.com to get a glimpse at just a few things they have been brewing up.

Smoochies, Len and Jerry

Sometimes, I Like Paperwork

See that stack of paperwork?  Normally (from 20 years of corporate upbringing), I would place these types of things in neat little piles and forget about them until they're nice and dusty and I have to clear them up.  These, though, are glorious...OH SO GLORIOUS!  This little stack is not your run-of-the-mill, boring, yawn inducing, procrastination activating paperwork.  No my friends, that cute little colorful mess collecting dust from construction, not from neglect, contains our approved building permits and our inspection punch card!  That little scribble on the bottom left sheet is our sign-off on our rough plumbing already.

Our next step?

All those mounds of dirt lying around need to get shoveled back into those trenches and watered so the dirt settles.  Then, cousin Cal and Kevin, get to work this weekend to lay down all their electrical conduits to shock up the shop, just in time for our(optimistically) beloved inspector to come back Monday morning in the hopes he scribbles down his illegible signature once again!

Smoochies, Len and Jerry

We Tear Up Rug

Tearin' Up Some Rug

So like...that's Jerry and me tearing up some rug *ahem*.  Where the heck were we you ask? This is to be our new office, conference room, man cave, and crash pad!  We rented out some space within a seven (7) minute walk from The Iron Press because there wasn't enough space to build an office at the restaurant (plus, if/when we drink a little too much, we can "rest" up here for a bit).

 

We wanted to keep the design simple and professional, but wanted to maintain a warehouse feel to it (well, I did. Jerry took a little convincing but he's slooooooowly coming around).  We'll post up some sketches and ideas we have for the space, or better yet, if we get going on some rennovations soon, we'll toss some photos up on the blog to show you guys what we are up to.  Just so you get a mental image of what we are trying to achieve, we yanked out all the carpet in the space to expose the concrete.  We then removed all the asbestos filled drop ceiling panels to open up the area as you can see here:

We also peeled back all the aluminum foil to display the orginal wood ceiling.  We are planning to leave all the t-bars in place, but pull up the lights so that they will make a grid on the floor when turned on.  It all looks like a big mess at the moment, but hopefully my vision for our spot will pay off, though we are on a crazy tight budget.The thing that we wouldn't compromise about our space was that it had to have a large roll-up door so that we could flood the warehouse area with natural lighting and air when we wanted to.  The idea was to have the ability to bring the outside into our joint with the simple yank of a chain.  Here's Jerry rolling down the door after we finished up after our first day with the keys:

 Anyhoo, it's time we close up shop for the night, as well.  Jerry's got an early morning rendezvous with the OC Fairgrounds to peddle his effing delicious salsas, and I've got a long day of bouncing between the two construction sites making sure things aren't getting crooked!

Smochies, Len and Jerry

Cousin Calvin

See that handsome fellow looking back at you?  That would be my cousin Calvin who, incidentally, happens to be one bad @$$ mofo of an electrician.  The other dude in the orange shirt is Kevin.  Kevin works with Cal and has become a friend and drinking buddy through the last couple of years!  I called them on Saturday October 29th, 2011 AD to tell them they were ready to start, they showed up the next day at 8 AM PST to survey the job, and got to work on Monday.  Talk about efficiency, yeah?

We needed to have our electrical box relocated to it's new home so that Jaime and Fortino could finish up with their demolition and framing.  They're still making quite a raucous over there with all the saw cutting and jack hammering.  So, if you are reading this and are one of our neighbors over at SOCO, soooorrrrrrrrryyyyyyyy!

Things seem to be moving along at a nice pace, so I won't bore you guys with too many of the same pictures.  In other news, Jerry and I got the lease to our warehouse right down the street from the restaurant.  We'll be making some improvements to the space, but once we are done with them, we'll throw a giant shin dig over there!

Today is also a special day because Jerry and I have vowed to abstain from drinking for the month of November (OK, Jerry is allowed one free pass on our friend Joe's birthday) to discipline ourselves and really focus on getting our little baby up and running as soon as possible.  According to Facebook, our friends think we are going to fail miserably, but take heed all you naysayers, we shall prevail!

Smoochies, Len and Jerry