So, in one week on February 11th, Honeybee Pâtisserie LLC will be 1 year old! Time really flew by. One year ago, I was so confident that the shop would have been opened by summer. Little did I know!
The brainstorming really began in the fall of 2013. I was initially going to name it 5Thirty, which was based on a favorite album (05時30分) from my unhealthy childhood obsession with Hong Kong pop star Andy Lau. The story behind that name is it represents the time when most employees get off from work and get to relax. I had wanted the shop to be an oasis from the rush of NYC where people can kick back and enjoy some cakes. That's still the focus currently, in case anyone is wondering. The name was eventually scrapped because I was afraid of copyright infringement of some sort. How heartbreaking would it be to get sued by Andy Lau! My dear friend Pocky suggested naming it after my blog and after some thought, I did. In the following months, I met with a few contractors who enlightened me on the entire process regarding architects and engineers. "What? I need to have approved drawings for you to start work? I can't just tell you I want an oven here and a sink there?" Apparently, that's not how the DoB rolls.
I decided to quit my job and seriously do some research while looking into architects and engineers. It took some time before I found an architect whom I could afford and was somewhat on par with my aesthetic likes. He was officially hired in February along with the engineer. That was when I slapped down the $210 fee to form this company since I needed a registered business to file the drawings under. Then, I had the luxury to discover through lots of direct mail marketing that I was legally bound to publicize the LLC formation in two local newspapers for 6 consecutive weeks within 3 months or else face consequences. I scrambled to get those inserts in and I'm betting not a single person read my notice or even knew it existed. This obligation varies from state to state by the way.
Anyhow, fast forward to May and with just one revision, drawings were approved! I held onto those stamped documents so close to me with tears of joy in my eyes. It was back to the grind again with searching for a contractor. Gosh, those meetings were so utterly painful. They were like disappointing blind dates. Some of them were the type who gave the false pretense that we had a spark but they would never call back or worse, ignore my calls. It took nearly THREE months to finally find someone, who surprisingly lived just around the corner from me. No, I didn't find him by walking around my neighborhood but I did look up licensed contractors on the DoB site under the last name "Chan". I admit, not the best method but it was my last resort. Why "Chan"? That name is more common and yielded more results than "Ng" or any other Chinese name did. Also, I picked Chinese so that they can communicate with my mom if there were any circumstances that needed it (and indeed there were many). I did Google-search these companies as well for their portfolios and some background check so it wasn't entirely random. On a side note, I found out who did the renovation of Saint's Alp Teahouse at St. Mark's Place while I was doing this DoB searching. Too bad they never responded back to my inquiry.
It was at this point that I realized my original budgeting for construction was way off, hence, launching the Kickstarter campaign. Sorry folks, I really did try to find the most cost efficient crew to do the job but unfortunately, given that we're in NYC, there's no escape from exorbitant prices. I think everyone knows the rest of the story from thereon.
This brings us to today where I'm trying to get the gas meter set up but am getting denied because the gas company cannot find DoB's approval in their system. Why do you do this to me, DoB? Why did you miss your payments so often that the meter had to be removed, previous tenant? At least I was able to submit the application for the Food Establishment Permit. Let's see how DoHMH will treat me. Fingers crossed.
Anyhow, I hope that you enjoyed my little history of the 1.5 years into the making of Honeybee Pâtisserie. Did you know that business names are not allowed the use of any accent marks? Legally, we are just "Patisserie" so it does get a little confusing sometimes because the correct way of spelling it is with a circumflex over the "a". I don't think this matters to many people anyway, aside from proficient French speakers perhaps.
Sun is about to rise so I best head to bed. Oh yeah, I was grooving to the 5:30 album as I typed this up. hah. Have a great rest of the week y'alls.
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