Diary of a Restaurant on the North Coast
November 1st.
Today we met the cement guy, Enrique, and got a quote for labor?which he said should take no more than 30-days. Melky brought three guys to work and they started cleaning the refrigerators, deep fryers, ovens Bay Breeze, and other stainless steel kitchen machines. They were scrubbing all day long with bare hands?no gloves?using acid, bleach, and Brillo pads. If they had any skin left on their hands, it would be a miracle. They scrubbed off all of the stainless steel and then they started scrubbing all of the tiles down to the concrete in the kitchen.
Meanwhile, two guys started breaking up the concrete where the bar once stood. All of the mahogany wood was carefully taken off and placed in the hallway. Melky gave us his quote for how much he thought it would take to re-wire everything inside the restaurant. All the wiring needs replaced. The salt air has eaten through everything?including my 10-strands of hair, teeth enamel, and foreskin. Everything metal has been turned into a pile of oxidized rust. The piles of rust would rival looking into Medusa?s eyes. Nothing has escaped the wrath of the salt air. Nothing. Not even a half decent erection.
In many places, the wood has been eaten by termites so thoroughly, you can stick your finger through q 2-inch piece of wood. The restaurant was supplying generations of termites for 15 years. By my estimate, given the gestation and pregnancy period of a termite, the restaurant must have supplied and supported over 10,000 generations of termites and their offspring. They were so fat that they didn?t even bother running away when Jesus peeled back the wood from the bar. They just turned their heads and then slowly turned over and laid back down. Never seen anything like it. To say that they were fat would be an understatement. They were obese, and clearly related to their North American cousins.
Everything has been pulled out of kitchen?the refrigerators, Bay Breeze, stoves, deep fryers, cockroaches?and their extended families. The cockroaches were so fat from bacon grease that they simply turned their heads and laid back down and went back to sleep. They didn?t even bother getting out of the way of the workers. Instead they worked on their suntans.
One of the Motoconcho guys has gotten whiff of money and jumped into the cleaning rolls. He has rolled up his sleeves and started cleaning refrigerators and anything shiny. Every 10-minutes or so, he runs up to me and asks if he can take this or that home. He tells me things like, ?No es bueno. Es muy malo!? and then he pushes his lips out in a sign of disapproval and shoves aside a $5,000 stove or a bottle of Kettle One.
A lot of things have started to walk out of the restaurant whenever I go into the toilet to urinate. By evening, the restaurant starts to look less cluttered. It won?t be long before the restaurant is cleared out of anything too heavy to carry away.
We cut down the steel design that adorned the restaurant entrance. It had nice designs on it and resembled something you would might find on an Irish porn set or in art deco garden from the 1960?s. We cut the metal free from the concrete and carried it out to the front to get it out of the way. Before I made it back into the kitchen people were already picking it up and carrying it down the street. Did it matter that it weighs more than 200lbs and had no less than 40 coats of green paint on it from being painted dozens of times? No, they simply walked off with it and headed to the nearest scrap yard where it will be melted down and made into cheap costume jewelry that will be sold up and down the beaches of Dominican Republic from an army of beach sellers yelling out, ?Happy Hour!?
Nearly all of the refrigerators had to be thrown out. They all had holes in the bottoms of them from having a combination of salt air, beer, heavy cream, and fruit sitting in them for years. When we lifted them up and out of the bar, they looked like swiss cheese. When the sunlight hit the bottom of the refrigerators, it shined completely through...they had dozens and dozens of small rusted holes that ate clear through the bottom of them. They were unusable...or so we thought...some Dominicans came by and piled them into a back of a small 100-year old Datsun truck and drove off with them even as the lights shined clear through them like magnifying glass.
to be continued...
November 1st.
Today we met the cement guy, Enrique, and got a quote for labor?which he said should take no more than 30-days. Melky brought three guys to work and they started cleaning the refrigerators, deep fryers, ovens Bay Breeze, and other stainless steel kitchen machines. They were scrubbing all day long with bare hands?no gloves?using acid, bleach, and Brillo pads. If they had any skin left on their hands, it would be a miracle. They scrubbed off all of the stainless steel and then they started scrubbing all of the tiles down to the concrete in the kitchen.
Meanwhile, two guys started breaking up the concrete where the bar once stood. All of the mahogany wood was carefully taken off and placed in the hallway. Melky gave us his quote for how much he thought it would take to re-wire everything inside the restaurant. All the wiring needs replaced. The salt air has eaten through everything?including my 10-strands of hair, teeth enamel, and foreskin. Everything metal has been turned into a pile of oxidized rust. The piles of rust would rival looking into Medusa?s eyes. Nothing has escaped the wrath of the salt air. Nothing. Not even a half decent erection.
In many places, the wood has been eaten by termites so thoroughly, you can stick your finger through q 2-inch piece of wood. The restaurant was supplying generations of termites for 15 years. By my estimate, given the gestation and pregnancy period of a termite, the restaurant must have supplied and supported over 10,000 generations of termites and their offspring. They were so fat that they didn?t even bother running away when Jesus peeled back the wood from the bar. They just turned their heads and then slowly turned over and laid back down. Never seen anything like it. To say that they were fat would be an understatement. They were obese, and clearly related to their North American cousins.
Everything has been pulled out of kitchen?the refrigerators, Bay Breeze, stoves, deep fryers, cockroaches?and their extended families. The cockroaches were so fat from bacon grease that they simply turned their heads and laid back down and went back to sleep. They didn?t even bother getting out of the way of the workers. Instead they worked on their suntans.
One of the Motoconcho guys has gotten whiff of money and jumped into the cleaning rolls. He has rolled up his sleeves and started cleaning refrigerators and anything shiny. Every 10-minutes or so, he runs up to me and asks if he can take this or that home. He tells me things like, ?No es bueno. Es muy malo!? and then he pushes his lips out in a sign of disapproval and shoves aside a $5,000 stove or a bottle of Kettle One.
A lot of things have started to walk out of the restaurant whenever I go into the toilet to urinate. By evening, the restaurant starts to look less cluttered. It won?t be long before the restaurant is cleared out of anything too heavy to carry away.
We cut down the steel design that adorned the restaurant entrance. It had nice designs on it and resembled something you would might find on an Irish porn set or in art deco garden from the 1960?s. We cut the metal free from the concrete and carried it out to the front to get it out of the way. Before I made it back into the kitchen people were already picking it up and carrying it down the street. Did it matter that it weighs more than 200lbs and had no less than 40 coats of green paint on it from being painted dozens of times? No, they simply walked off with it and headed to the nearest scrap yard where it will be melted down and made into cheap costume jewelry that will be sold up and down the beaches of Dominican Republic from an army of beach sellers yelling out, ?Happy Hour!?
Nearly all of the refrigerators had to be thrown out. They all had holes in the bottoms of them from having a combination of salt air, beer, heavy cream, and fruit sitting in them for years. When we lifted them up and out of the bar, they looked like swiss cheese. When the sunlight hit the bottom of the refrigerators, it shined completely through...they had dozens and dozens of small rusted holes that ate clear through the bottom of them. They were unusable...or so we thought...some Dominicans came by and piled them into a back of a small 100-year old Datsun truck and drove off with them even as the lights shined clear through them like magnifying glass.
to be continued...