All quiet on the western front

A chance to breath today, after an unbelievably intense day yesterday. David is back at his office, not in great spirits, his colleagues will be sorely missed. Let's hope they find good jobs. If anyone needs, absolutely brilliant computer experts let us know, one of them is based in Manchester NH.

The Grill is drying out, thank goodness, and we are really looking forward to the concert on Saturday. See if we can't cheer David up with a dance! We are in negotiation to find a semi permanent concert venue. If it works out, great, if not we will ask for ideas. The musicians have been fantastic about the uncertainty, sending many supportive messages. We will find a place, it would be nice if it was one place we could call home for a while. 

 On a lighter note, in the middle of this crazy mayhem, we have a new puppy. It was arranged in January. That seems like a life time ago. Kayla, our West Highland Terrier, is often baby sat by Meghan, our fudge maker, who has two dogs. We noticed she liked being in a bigger pack. Kayla, that is, not Meghan :) One thing led to another! We sure needed the laughs we have had watching Kayla "train' Sasha not to touch her toys. 

Link to Reaganta music

http://www.reaganta.com/music.html

The Mill Cafe and Friends of The Mill present....

This Saturday April 4th 7.30pm at The Masonic Lodge 18 Pleasant Street Bristol. Cover $5 for the band, $2 for our expenses. THE FRIENDS OF THE MILL will provide food and drinks by donation. Please don't bring beer or wine, the Masonic Lodge don't allow that. This is a night not to be missed. The atmosphere will be very special, great community spirit, fabulous music, maybe even some dancing! See you there!

This in from Regina of Reaganta, "I have faith, linda....our only tech requirements are:   5 chairs, water and a table to sell our cd's.  IF space permits....we can teach and call some ceili dances at the end of the concert.  We'll bring our own sound.

All the best,

Regina

The plot thickens!

So much has happened in a few days, and it has taken up all of our time just dealing with it. Here is the diary.

Thursday:  We attended the selectmen meeting and David read a statement from all three of us. We handed them a very impressive petition of 450 names and many great comments. There should be no doubt in their minds that we have a lot of local support. As is the nature of the meeting, there was no new information, just some words of support from the chairman. We know that most of the selectmen feel supportive on a personal level. We also know that on a town business level, we are just one small part of a very big mess. They will do what they deem right for the town and that will not necessarily be right for The Mill. Our job with your help is to convince them and the town that The Mill is very important to the future of the downtown area, that it brings much needed income to Bristol, employs local people and could employ a lot more in years to come. And it will not exist if the Mica building does not come down very, very  soon. The selectmen, to their credit, had agreed as of Thursday, to pay us another month rent at the Grill. That will take us up to April 19th. The earliest the Mica building could come down is May and the latest is anyone’s guess at this point.

Friday: We got a call from the town manager, the fire chief, and the code officer. The fire chief had checked the file on the Grill and found that there was an agreement made between the previous fire chief and the owner, that a sprinkler system be put in by September 2008. This had not happened and therefore we could not have public gatherings in the building. We had one open mic the Saturday before, which went really well, and we had intended to keep them going and to have our concert series start on April 4th. 

Saturday: David and I raced around Bristol all afternoon looking for a place to have open mic that night. We visited a few places, made a few calls and drew a blank. We returned to the Grill in a very low state of mind. Sara of Blue Sky Whole Foods, was calling around for us too, and she spoke to Joe Denning. He came to the Grill with an hour to spare and took us to the Masonic Hall on Pleasant Street. We were able to have a great open mic. The feeling of community was fabulous. I got more hugs than I have had on one night, Lil Furbish and Ruth brought food,  Steve from Uncle Steve Band sang a song about The Mill written by Melissa, his daughter in law. We laughed, we cried, and we decided to fight on. 

Monday: David went in to work (his day job, the one that actually creates money!) and was told that the company was laying off sixty people. He lost all but one colleague including his boss, who he loves. It is shattering. I just came off the phone with him when Meghan, our fudge maker, called from the Grill to say the apartment above had a burst pipe and we were flooded! Needless to say I did not tell David. Meghan and I dealt with the situation together.

 Monday evening:  I am slightly spooked, praying nothing else goes wrong. We are going ahead with Saturday’s concert. “Reaganta”  the musicians, are absolutely wonderful. It will be a foot stamping night for sure! We will be at the Masonic Lodge, 18 Pleasant Street, just out of the Square next door to the library.  We will have food and drinks, thanks to FRIENDS OF THE MILL, a group that formed to support us and make sure the Mill survives. The cover will be $5 for the band, $2 for us and food will be on a donation basis. The room is very nice, and we will possibly have a little space for dancing. Do not bring beer and wine as it is not allowed in the Masonic Lodge. 

Uncle Steve Band holding benefit

Lil (Steve's wife) and Buzz of The Uncle Steve Band are not going to take the demise of The Mill lying down. Despite Buzz's recent open heart surgery, he threw himself in to help,  SAVE THE MILL.  Lil emailed me this morning to tell me that things are,  "Coming along well.  Buzz secured Joel Cage, Audrey Drake and company( Lou and Paul) and is waiting to hear back from Woody and the Bean Hill band...great!  we are so happy. People are great  this is a good lesson for me as well..to have faith back again in human kindness." Lil

It will be May 9th at the TTCC in Bristol  12-5pm.

Thank you guys, this kind of thing is what is keeping us going!

Update and great article

Hi,

I was about to add a long overdue update to our situation vis -a -vis the Mica building, (apologies, for the delay, very challenging to run a business and fight this fight simultaneously) Anyway, this great article was published today, which says it all. Thanks to brilliant and concise journalism from Bea Lewis of The Citizen of Laconia. Here is the link. 

http://www.citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090324/GJNEWS02/703249859/-1/CITIZEN

We are in touch with the Reynold family and the Reiss family. Both Dawn Reynold and Kelly Reiss have been employed by us at different times, so we know them well and are very concerned for their welfare. Dawn was one of the wonderful people who many of the regular customers know we could not have done without in the first summer of opening the  Mill. I will be talking to both  women tomorrow to ask their permission to blog more details about their story as we go along. 

If you haven’t yet signed our petition please add your name. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/TheMillBristol/  We feel it is still important to keep gathering signatures.  The Selectmen voted to support us till April 19th, a fact that gave us enormous relief.  We wish to express our gratitude to those selectmen who voted to support us, Joseph Denning, Paul Fraser and Rick Halpers. However no one can tell us for sure when the Mica building will be taken down, and there is no assurance from the selectmen that they will support us beyond April 17th. This means, unfortunately that our business continues to be at risk as we cannot afford to pay both a mortgage and rent indefinitely. 

Link fixed

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/TheMillBristol/

Hi,

We fixed the links so here it is. Please read our petition and add your signature. The more signatures we get, the greater the impact,

Linda

Welcome to our blog, our crisis and how you can help:)!

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to our new blog. For now I will be posting and Noah and David will, I am sure, join in at some future time. I just read the book WHAT WOULD GOOGLE DO by Jeff Jarvis. I was very inspired to start a blog and follow his advice to embrace the new way of doing business and create an online community around our Fudge Factory as a sister to our already wonderful Cafe community in Bristol NH. Little did I know how vital this idea was going to become to our business and personal well-being. 

As some of you will know, this is a time when more than ever we need community. To update those of you who are not aware of what has been happening, we are in the middle of a crisis! Our building, The Mill Ice Cream Cafe and Fudge Factory, sits dangerously close to a four story building that is in very bad shape. After years of neglect, in October last year, part of the roof started to cave in. By mid-February the building was inspected by the town's structural engineer and it was considered a very real hazard to our building and the house on the other side. A family and our business were evacuated indefinitely. Right now we have relocated to the empty restaurant next door. We face the prospect of carrying double expenses with no resolution either from the town or the owner of the hazardous building for an indeterminate period of time. Clearly our business, young as it is, and not yet profitable, is in danger of not surviving! With the economy as it is this is very bad timing. 

Noah, David and I are committed to doing everything in our power to keep going. We are looking at ways to trim down our operation. We may stop serving sandwiches during the day and stick to our  ice cream. That would cut down on seasonal staffing levels and save money. We want to keep our open mic and concert nights running for sure, the music is the heart of the cafe side of the operation. We could offer a full menu for those evenings. We are considering offering beer and wine, as everyone knows, that adds considerable to profit without prep time. We have to keep the fudge factory operational as it is has the most potential for profit. We sell fudge all over the country from our online shop at www.TheMillFudgeFactory.com. People fundraise with our fudge, we wholesale it to country stores, and sell it at fairs and markets. We have made great inroads with this part of the business, but it is early days and our sales have not reached a level that could sustain the survival of the business.  THIS IS WHERE YOU COME IN.  Several people have asked us if they can help. Their care has kept us going. We ask that you stay in touch via our website and blog. We will be emailing everyone on our list in the coming days with suggestions and we welcome any ideas about any aspect of this that you may have. I will be updating the blog with information as it comes in. 

According to WHAT WOULD GOOGLE DO, "Your best customer is your partner." We already knew that, and we are asking you to partner with us and together we can SAVE THE MILL!

Much love,

Linda