The only question I keep receiving these days is - when are you opening? 

I know you are all very eager to visit the new place, and we completely understand that. All that excitement regarding our opening gives us much-needed strength. We hoped we could make an announcement today and open up the bookings, but we received more bad news yesterday. 

There are still few issues that need to be fixed at the new site, but one of the biggest ones is the heating system. Before our builders started their work, we had an engineer come over and do a service test of the existing heating/air-conditioning, and we were told the system is good to go for 7 to 10 years if well maintained. We decided to keep the system as is, and the builders were told not to touch anything related to this. 

Since then, we have learned that they have cut off all the wiring and ripped off all the sensors and other bits related to this HVAC system. They are refusing to take any responsibility for this. We have hired other technicians to help us fix this, and they were confident they could fix it by yesterday.

But sadly, after working on it for the whole day, they now can’t guarantee when they can fix this. This would mean I cannot give you a fixed date for the opening. I know they are trying hard, and I know they will find a solution, but until then, we cannot have a date for the opening. 

Believe me when I say we are at the last stage of staying sane. We are struggling to keep some of our employees. We don’t know how long we can maintain the new employees we have hired recently. We have maxed out all our credit cards and our OD. Some of our friends and family are in debt because of us. We need to open this place ASAP.  

At every stage, I was assured by the builders that they would hand over the project by the end of September. Sometimes I tried to point out that the project seemed behind schedule or that the site manager did not seem to understand the drawings. All those times, I was almost bullied into silence. 

I tried to stop a scheduled payment once because the project was nearly three weeks behind by then, but they threatened to walk out. I should have let them do that and found someone else to finish the project. Instead, I paid the full project value except for the 2.5% kept for snagging. That may be my biggest mistake. I have this extreme urge to pay all the bills on time! 

There are too many nightmare stories from the last few months, all related to the builders. They used some chemicals to clean the kitchen floor that they initially messed up. That, in turn, reacted with the steel in some way and all the new shiny kitchen equipment looks very old and rusty now. 

They are killing all the joy out of me and out of our dream project. All I have now is frustration, anger and sadness. I have decided to take a day off, calm down, and start making a different plan. We may have to change our strategy a bit to see if we can start doing our deliveries first and then open up the site for dine-in. 

I already feel a bit lighter sharing this with you all; well-wishers. I will come back soon with more updates and hopefully a more precise plan. We are so close and this project will happen no matter what. There may be some delay, but we will all have a space we will love for many years to come. 

Until then, thank you so much for your patience. The only thing keeping us going is the thought of seeing all of your happy faces at our new home soon. 

Love 

Nandana