So if you have an ADA compliant bathroom, it must have a urinal and a diaper changing table, then you also need another bathroom, any size, for women. I think that plan will fly. The building and safety dept want to see a drawing of it before they give me an answer. I could draw the whole project on a napkin, but they have suggested that would slow me down about six months. So Riaz and I are measuring the entire building to create an auto cad drawing of the project.

Either way I am pretty certain that I am going to have to dig new sewer lines, for a new toilet and the kitchen. And it is obvious at this point that there will be no space left for a big refrigerator. Which means that we must design a menu that can be prepped from scratch six days a week. Which means we need to get delivery’s and go to the farmers market six days a week.

I am exhausted already.

Before

After

In order to turn this into that, I must file for building plans. I could just lie, build a restaurant and say I found it like that. I figure that would save me about $80,000. The health dept could walk through any day and bust me, then I would be screwed. I have been talking to contractors and designers and planners about the easiest way to navigate the city building and safety system to get my plans approved.

The city, to their credit now has a restaurant department, and assign you a case manager to help steer you through the process. I have not come out to them yet about my plans and am trying to get as much work done before any preliminary inspection.

The main uncertainty I face is the bathrooms. I have one tiny restroom. The city says that if you are a new business you must build a California ADA approved fully accessible bathroom. That is really big, almost 7 ft X 7 ft, and they do not cut me any slack for having been in a wheelchair for two months last year.

The State says that if you want to serve alcohol you must have gender specific bathrooms, and the men’s room must have a urinal as well. I asked them why and they said ” we don’t know, the rule was made in 1940 and we think it had something to do with transvestism”. They really said that.

So three different contractors came through and gave me bids on tearing up the concrete floor and hauling the rock away. The cheapest was $3,200.00      Well…

Me and my brother-in-law Riaz, got up early Saturday and rented the gas-powered concrete cutting saw from home depot. With that and some really big pry bars we had the floor broken and stacked by 6:00 p.m.    The formula for the weight of concrete is cubic feet X 144 lbs. so 966 sq ft /4 =241.5 X 144 = 34,776 lbs of concrete. or 17.4 tons Add to that the pushing of the saw, the swinging of the hammer, the breathing of the exhaust and it was quite a day. But we got it done. Now I just need to get rid of this stuff.

After scraping the walls and floor I have discovered that there is an extra three feet of concrete that has been poured on top of the original floor. Someone a long time ago poured a floor on top of a floor. Really. In order to get up to code and make the entrance handicap accessible I am going to need to get rid of that extra concrete. Worried about getting a dumpster for fear of getting caught doing demolition without a permit.

Met with two architects this week. One good, one bad. The good one told me to go it alone. The bad one asked for five grand.

We had the first work party and all my friends from the Griffith Observatory came out to swing hammers, scrape paint, and make noise. Some of Julia’s crew from the Autry came out too, but those tough cowboys were no match for the science geeks with crowbars.

We got all of the stucco off the walls and cleared out all the paneling. Starting to get a sense of what needs to be done. Overwhelmed by the amount of support that I am getting, especially from the people I did not expect it from like the career academics and artists.

I believe that restaurants are an integral part of a community. Like theaters, restaurants gather people together for a shared experience that is customized to the needs of that community. Churches used to do this for us a long time ago, as did union halls and ballrooms.

Highland Park,  which my realtor claims is the “SilverLake of 2013” is a beautiful neighborhood that has always been a bit square. Kind of place you only went to visit your grandmother in law. I bet prop 8 got a lot of votes from here. lately though all the hipsters and creative professionals have been moving East because the rents are good and you can still get a house for 300K.

Our scuzzy old bar: “The Wild Hare” got transformed into “The York” five years ago and it was an immediate hit. The place has been packed ever since. Cafe De Leche opened on the corner of ave 50 soon after and that was a strong signifier of the demographic change in the area.

So I have been waiting for someone to open a restaurant that serves fresh food and stays open a bit later. I got tired of waiting and decided to do it myself. I am tired of driving to other neighborhoods, and I want to hang out with the cool people that are in this one.

There were other factors that made me decide to do this project now but the main incentive is that the neighborhood needs a gathering spot and quality food.

After over a month of digging through building records and talking to architects and contractors about the best way to do this I am a spastic mess of fear, panic, and delusion. I can’t find good advice. Still though, Los Angeles is a scary place for bureaucracy and everyone trades stories of how difficult the government here is.

There are so many opportunists who have tried to take advantage of me already. I realize must look like a plump chicken to contractors and service providers. “Look at this dumb ass white boy whose dream it is too open a restaurant. Lets fleece this clueless yuppie!!”.

So I point out to everyone that I am building a restaurant because that is the only skill I have that will support me. I am doing this not because it is my dream but because working in kitchens is all  I know how to do!

Truth is I have been doing other work. I came to Los Angeles to make a living with my camera, I have always taken photos and wanted to earn a living from it. I did well for a while, always cooking part-time,until the Digital cameras got good enough to evaporate the industry as I knew it and turn the job of “photographer” into a minimum wage gig.

I am proud of the work I did do though and will never think of those years as wasted. www.jgrahamstills.com

I went back to school in 2008 to get my teaching certificates. I thought it would be fun to teach photography in a high school, or work in a culinary school. I took a job at the Griffith Observatory where I got to teach science to 5th graders. That was by far one of the best jobs I will ever have. By the time I finished my schooling though there were no teaching jobs anywhere. In Alaska they are shooting art teachers from helicopters. LAUSD is down 2,000 jobs this year. So I am forced to admit that my mom was right when she said: People always gotta eat”.

I have worked in kitchens since I was 16. I have been involved in several start-ups, and several renovations. When I wasn’t cooking I was usually renovating buildings with Julia.  I know how to frame walls,  hang drywall, and run gas lines. So I bristle when some slick huckster calling himself a kitchen designer tells me I should pay him tens of thousands of dollars for what I can do myself for free.

Have not been getting a lot of positive feedback on the name:  le singe et le violon contreplaqué Which I think is perfect. I do admit though that it is difficult to google. My second choice for a name for the place is: Ba. It has a lot of meaning to me, but mostly it is an Indochinese slang word. Tell you all about it when you come in. If you have an association with this word please le me know and I will add it to the growing list of meanings. Bon appetité, bad attitude, barium, Buenos Aires, etc.

Ba is pretty googleiscous though. I will be counting on the Yelpers, and Urban Spooners soon enough. This is the city where a chef got famous when he opened a restaurant with an unlisted phone number. Oh well. Beginning to think this will not be my last restaurant.

Trying to put together a building team and it is frustrating. Not sure what the status of my space is. It has always been a bakery and sometime in the 70’s it was a restaurant with a juke box, but I cannot find any official record of that in the cities files. Every building record I have found says bakery, retail. I am hoping that is enough to allow me to just remodel” as opposed to converting the place into a new restaurant. It could be the difference of tens of thousands of dollars in permit fees and architectural services.

My names is James Graham, I am an artist and a cook, and I am building a new restauarant in Highland park. I have been wanting to do another restaurant project for a while, and an opportunity presented itself. So here I go.

My main goal is to walk to work, and make fun food for my friends and neighbors. Highland Park is a cool, artsy neighborhood with no new restaurants. So I am stepping up.  I discovered this space accidentally, and got to know the owners, the Vargas family who have run Elsa’s Bakery for 40 years. They made me an offer so I decided to do it.

Because it is so small, I have decided to make a cozy, romantical, stylish place that will serve French Provincial, and French colonial food, and I am going to apply for a beer and wine license.

The place is on the South East corner of avenue 51 and York Boulevard, just down the street from Kristi Engle gallery, and  Cafe De Leche.