still stalled

rain has passed, should have a slab poured by the end of the week. even still it will be another two weeks before the steel gets here. have a job site review meeting tomorrow at 12:00. been designing the smoke stack for the pit furnace. wed. night i drove to Murphysboro, IL to spend some time with mike mills and his genius daughter amy tunnicliffe. been trying to get up there since late last year but something has always come up.....ice storm, inland hurricane, all kinds of stuff. very quick trip (only 3hr drive though) went up wed. came back thursday. we just hung out and had dinner.......also it was nice to see tommy houston (checkered pig) as well.....great guy! very nice operation they have going up there......and what tremendous people they are! they were getting set up for their competition this weekend and with amy in town from boston i decided to run up there and see em'. my buddy kirk duggan went with me and we worked on my books (quickbooks) while we drove. kirk has been helping get caught up on my books, ive gotten behind on reconciling my transactions on a daily basis and now feel like im behind Mt. Everest. i would drive and kirk would ask me what each transaction was for and what account it needed to be placed under. just data entry but dadgum it was very helpful - really made a lot of progress.
last week ended up pretty well, especially as rainy as it was. as you've read on here in the past the month of September is an enigma. i have learned that its an enigma for everyone, not just martins bbq. very tough to predict/anticipate. but as its done the past 3yrs the last week of september starts to heat up again and october is or at least has been strong relative to the season. added to the front of the house over the past couple of weeks......very encouraged by them! the back of the house is still trucking....stronger - and leaner - than ever. still avg under 10min ticket times on our peak service (saturday night), under 4min on weekday lunch (unless you order a burger). putting that second line in back in july was the best decision ive made since opening up, its just been like night/day. now the line to place your order is still and/or can be still pretty long, but once your order is placed you ain't there long. the new joint wont have that worry of waiting long to order, its set up to get you in and get you out if you so please......really looking forward to that kitchen!