Shwanito

There have been a handful of people who have really stood by me during this process and given much more to the effort than I could have ever hoped for or ever expected. I'll get to the others in time but I figured today was an appropriate day for this post. After all it's Shwanito's birthday today (well, by the time this is published it was yesterday).

 Shwanito is actually Shawn Hoven, a custom woodworker and a friend of ours who Zoey used to work with at Resource. When we lived down the street from him he was our handyman on the trailer. Look around our house and most any interesting furniture in our place was made by Shawn.

From the moment this idea began to take hold I knew I wanted Shawn involved for a few reasons. One because he laughs at my jokes; two because he has the cutest goshdarned family one has ever seen; three because he has an ability to turn nothing into something, add some personality to the restaurant, and source some found materials that not only look cool but also save me a boatload of money. 

He's been hard at work for the better part of the month on my stuff. He found the church pews we'll be using for bench seating. He found the flooring we'll use for the counter tops. He built our table tops out of reclaimed doors from Resource. He built the boxes that will become our counters and today he'll be busy installing our cabinets, the first big push towards getting the final finishes in place. He's got a long couple of weeks ahead of him but he'll be first in line for a burrito or two and a margarita. I think he'll deserve it at the end of this. 

Happy Birthday Shawn! (and by the way, once you're done with the restaurant can you come over to our house and build some cool stuff for our house?)

And a special thanks to the rest of his family, Liz, Inez (below) and Oliver who have shared him with us.