electric burrito

A lot of miscellaneous details I could throw your way today, but the one you really want to know is: When are you opening? Well, here’s when:

MAY 15

We’ll be open from 11am-9pm, Tuesday-Thursday, and 11am 10pm on Friday and Saturday.

As for other details:

My other blog will tell you what the final beer list looks like. You can find that here.

The menus have been printed.

Staff training starts tomorrow.

I attended the EntreBash last week, and found it to be a good resource. If you’re thinking of opening a business, give Beth or Stacie a call to find out more.

There’s but a handful of Electric Burrito readers that know about my other blog.

An ideal condition of harmony, beer and joy, brewvana is about good beer in a good life. I’ve been neglecting it like mad as of late, but yesterday was a brewvana moment at the Burrito, so I took some time to post. As it applies, and has good info and links that you Burrito followers ought to check out, I’m simply going to post the link here and ask you to go there for your update:

Testing, Testing (and getting testy?)

Within the last week, we moved one step closer to what everyone’s been asking about: are you going to have drinks?

The answer has always been in the affirmative, but it’s all the more pending with the city council approval Electric Burrito received at last week’s meeting.

And while we’re actually several steps closer than that, it seems we’re spinning our wheels at times. In the week and a half since we took possession of the building, I’ve found myself scooping sidewalks twice. That north side is loooooong, mind you. To quote a former boss to explain what it’s like to try to move forward on a big project while daily hassles like snow removal needle at you, “It’s like trying to change a tire with the car still moving.”

Moving it is, and moving we are. Forward. See you when we get there…

I suppose you think it’s easy starting up a restaurant. There are many elements to consider, and I’ve spent a lot of time on the details of outfitting a kitchen, a decor plan, regulations, insurance and contacting suppliers.

We’ve been cooking Mexican for years, so the food seems an incidental part of what we need to think about. However, all my beverage energy generally goes into beer. With determination in our hearts, we’ve recently started down the road to crafting the Electric Margarita.

Mind you, we’re not taking this lightly. Over the course of the last week or two, we’ve tested over a dozen different concoctions with 3 separate lime scenarios and 2 tequilas. Yesterday, we did 8.

There’s nothing like a blind tasting, which is how we did Round 3 yesterday. It revealed that more expensive tequila is better than less expensive tequila. While we’re honing in on the Electric version, we have more plans slated.

I don’t know about you, but over the years, I’ve developed a real appetite for doing things locally.

It started by appreciating good beer, and grooving on eating at brewpubs, where they brew on-site. Then I remembered that garden fresh tomatoes are way better than the stuff shipped to an Iowa grocery store in the middle of January. Aside from the fact that it tastes better, is better for you and is better on/for the environment, eating locally is good for the economy.

When I was doing research and putting together my business plan, I learned that each Iowa restaurant dollar translates to an additional $1.17 spent in related industries. For a small town like Corning, a statistic (or dollar) of that kind is even more important. Just think of the positive benefit of eating out in Corning once Electric Burrito is off the ground.

In addition to the gas money that will stay in Corning, you might just decide to walk up the street after your meal and take in a movie that otherwise may have been viewed in Creston, or even Des Moines. You may stop by Corning’s Hy-Vee for a gallon of milk that you otherwise may have purchased elsewhere. You might recall while walking back to your car that you need to replace your leaky bathroom faucet. Fortunately for you, and Corning, Gadberry’s Hardware carries bathroom faucets.

Specifically at Electric Burrito, we hope to spend as much money in our own community as possible. We hope to have some of the best beef around as a result of doing business just down the street with Corning Meat Processing. In the summer, we’ll strive to find local corn, tomatoes and onions.

We’re excited about our plans to feature the wines of Corning Winery and Vineyard. A little bird told me that there’s a chance that at least their white wines will be bottled and ready for our opening. And where beer is concerned, we’ll have a number of Mexican choices, as well as a concentration of regional microbrewed beers from places not a whole lot further away than Kansas City, Chicago, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Colorado. With any luck, I’ll be able to secure some Iowa brewed beer (hard to come by in these parts) and hard cider.

Still in the start up phase, I’ve got a lot of good Corning people I’m working with on everything from signage to flooring to paint to insurance to plumbing to business cards. I’ve tracked down used equipment not too far down the road in Greenfield and Villisca. Long story short, we hope to be a positive element to the local economy, in more ways than one.

Hopefully, when this little Mexican joint opens up on Davis Avenue, you’ll turn into a locavore as well–for not only dining out, but also for your banking, heating and cooling, dough nuts, medication and gifts (really, this list could go on forever).

Those that know we very well would be surprised to know that I don’t have all the beers sorted out yet. A serious beer geek, it’s only just now that I’m giving the topic any thought.

When I lived in North Carolina, I knew all the beers available and was well-tuned to the laws in that state. I knew all the distributors, what beers they had in their portfolio, and in some cases, I knew the reps on the streets. Part of that is because I spent time working for a brewery, and it becomes your business to get that kind of intel. Still, I knew a lot of that simply because I was an involved beer dork.

Now that I’m in Iowa, I have a whole new beer world with which to acquaint myself. Now that certain elements of this business are up and running and in the realm of red tape–a place over which I have no control–I may as well think about beer.

Yesterday, I contacted the one packaging microbrewery in the state–Millstream Brewing Company, in Amana. While they don’t distribute this far west, I might be able to sort out a way to carry their beers. This would be great, as I’m a big proponent of keeping it local. Our other beers will generally maintain a regional focus: KC, Minnesota, Chicago, Wisconsin. Some of those beers will be accessible through the one distributor I made contact with yesterday. Others, I still need to track down.

As of last night, I’d nearly talked myself out of installing a draft system and just sticking to bottles–at least to start out. But then I said to myself, if I’ve got two beers on tap at my house, it would be ridiculous to not have at least a couple of tap handles at my restaurant. One of those will be brewed in Iowa, if I can work out the logistics.

For the reader looking forward to our opening day, I’ll encourage you to shoot me an email and tell me what you like, but I’ll also say that we’ll be focusing on micros. That means it’ll be unlikely that I’ll carry much in the way of Bud, Miller and Coors. I’ll carry a few Mexican beers and represent beer styles widely, and I’ll look forward to answering your questions and educating you on all the amazing flavors out there.

If beer just isn’t your thing, I’ll be carrying the wines from Corning Winery and Vineyard as soon as they’re available. And if that doesn’t slake your thirst, then maybe a margarita will. I’ll get the red tape rolling for our liquor license today, if everything works out as planned.

Cheers!