Community Support

It's never easy to ask for help but I have been strongly encouraged to do so by so many good hearted folks in the service industry these past few days.In the past six months, we have endured three completely separate flooding incidents, the most recent of which threatens our existence. After the Elder show in early May, we closed up shop having had one of the best days ever at Black Circle. The next morning I was jolted awake by a phone call informing me the building we occupy was flooded. Sometime in the night, the mop bucket dislodged in the kitchen and somehow caught the handle of the bucket on the faucet which subsequently ran for presumably many hours before being discovered. We share the kitchen space with our new food partners and their other tenants, one of which discovered this disaster the morning after the show. A remediation company was called by the building owners and after a couple of weeks the basement was back to normal. We did mop that night, so initially we attempted to file a claim with our insurance. They will not cover it because it was not directly caused by one of our employees and it's not in our space.I had to have a difficult conversation with our brand new kitchen partners, a less than ideal way to start that relationship. They agreed to file a claim under their kitchen's policy. I spoke with their insurance and thought everything was being processed. On Friday I received a phone call from the building owner informing me the claim had been denied and the remediation company was threatening a lien on the building which would disallow them the ability to refinance etc. Given the depth of the issues we had when our previous kitchen partner was here with the sewer lines etc, we were told that some serious changes needed to be made after this mop sink flood occurred, and we could only renew our lease if there were no more major issues. The fact that this issue persists is a time bomb that I am left to diffuse on my own no matter who, or more accurately what, is responsible or what actually happened or ultimately we will be kicked out. We are still actively suing State Farm for our basement flood on Christmas. We have paid out of pocket for many expenses because they only reimburse a tiny depreciated amount until you front the money for replacement and turn in receipts. We have yet to replace more than half of what was lost. Sales were impacted by multiple shut downs related to the second flood and not having a kitchen partner for many months. As I write this I'm also keenly aware that this is the one year anniversary of our Gator being stolen as well, another $10,000 loss. There is an exhaustive list of other issues that have happened these past months you may or may not be aware of that have left me in a position that I need to ask for your support. We are just finally hitting our stride in this space. It would be a financial disaster to have to pick up and move to a different building. Support takes many forms. Obviously this GoFundMe is a means to an end, but simply sharing this, leaving a good review, sharing a kind word, coming in for a drink or to play some pinball, maybe buy a tee shirt or a bottle to go at Loom. It's a lot easier to get through things like this with your people around, even just seeing the place busy is a huge lift. To stop the remediation company from placing a lien, I will have to pay them $8,000 this week. The total loss is closer to $35,000. It's simply not surmountable without causing major long term damage to the business or to me personally. And the question remains, why are we even having this conversation? What is insurance for if not for accidents like this? As a final insult, I'll give you one guess who the insurance company is that denied this claim. I'll obviously be selling some personal items and extra equipment of my own to help reach the goal. I'm grateful as always for your continued support and for getting us this far. We have so much left to do here. Thanks for giving us hope that we can continue our work.