Bella's Creekwalk — Open Items & Advisory

A Note on Scope — From Brother Luck

A GM and Kitchen Manager
Solve Most of This.

The operational decisions in this project — station staffing, recipe standards, table turn protocols, prep schedules, plating standards, seasonal rotation — those are not owner decisions. Those belong to the people you hire to run the operation day to day.

Your job is to hire the right people, make the decisions only owners can make, and then get out of the way and let them work. The faster you hire the GM, the faster this project stops needing you in every operational conversation and starts needing them.

Everything in this document is yours. Everything in the Menu Analysis and Brigade Breakdown belongs to your team.

01 · Urgent

Owner Actions — Cannot Wait

Start the GM Search — This Week

Jason & Michelle

The GM is the single most important hire in this project. They are what keeps you running the business instead of working in it. They are what keeps Brother Luck in an advisory role instead of an operational one. A great GM needs 90 to 120 days before opening to learn the concept, shape the culture, and own it. If you start today, you have enough time. If you wait until September, you don't.

Post the role this week. Not next month. This week. The search takes longer than you think and the right person is already employed somewhere else.

Liquor License — Move It Forward This Week

Jason

Jason has started the process. What needs to happen now: confirm Vince on legal, engage Sylvie and Liquor Pros on neighbor canvassing, and get a timeline from your attorney on what to expect from the city. The bar program is built. The menus reference it. The revenue model depends on it. The city moves on its own schedule — you cannot accelerate it, but you can stop slowing it down by leaving the ball in your court.

Bar staffing, bar training, and the bottomless program cannot be finalized until the hotel/restaurant classification is confirmed. Every week of delay is a week the bar lead can't be fully onboarded.

Start Recruiting the Head Baker

Jason & Michelle

The baker arrives at 4am and defines the brand before anyone else shows up. This is a specialist role — bagel and bread experience is not optional. You cannot train this from scratch in 60 days. The baker also needs time to dial in schmear production, bagel variety lineup, and output volume for a dining room and marketplace running simultaneously. Start recruiting now. The right person is working somewhere else today.

If this hire is wrong or late, every daypart suffers on opening day. There is no backup plan for a missing baker at 4am.

02 · Decision Needed

Owner Decisions — Come Ready to Close

Concept Name — Final Sign-Off

Jason & Michelle

"Bella's Creekwalk" is the working name and it's strong. "Bella's Bagels & Bistro" was explored and set aside. Nothing gets designed, permitted, printed, or branded until both of you have signed off on the final name. Every week this floats is a week of brand asset work that may have to be redone after a name change.

This is a five-minute decision that has been waiting too long. Signage, menus, POS, social, health department permit, liquor license application — they all need a locked name. Make the call.

Kitchen Drawing Revision — Two Items Need Your Approval

Jason & Michelle · Brian Johnson

Two items are outstanding with Kitchen Tech and need your decision before the next revision can be issued: (1) Walk-in freezer — convert to walk-in cooler with freezer section, or keep as three reach-in freezers? Brian needs to provide a cost-benefit comparison before you can decide. (2) Half-size combi oven placement on the cook line — needs to be confirmed in the next drawing set. A call with Brian is scheduled. Walk in with a position on both.

Every downstream drawing, plumbing rough-in, and electrical layout depends on these two decisions being locked. The longer this floats, the more expensive the correction.

Operating Model — Confirm the Brunch Decision

Jason & Michelle

The package you're receiving recommends one unified brunch menu — daily, 7am to 3pm — replacing separate breakfast and lunch dayparts. Dinner stays its own world at 5pm. This is a strategic recommendation with significant operational and staffing implications. It needs your explicit sign-off before the team is hired and trained against it. Read the Executive Summary and the Brunch Menu. Come to the call with your reaction — questions, concerns, or confirmation.

Everything downstream — POS setup, staffing model, training, scheduling — is built around the operating model. This decision needs to be confirmed before any of that work begins.

03 · In Progress

Moving — Keep the Momentum

Kitchen Tech — Call Scheduled with Brian Johnson

Brian · Jason · Michelle

Brian confirmed the call to review bakery flow, equipment adjacencies, and the client feedback from both Jason and Michelle. Consolidated revision notes have been prepared and are in this package. Go into that call with a clear position on the two blocking items above — WIC vs. reach-in freezer and combi oven placement. Everything else Brian can work in parallel.

Menus & Operating Framework — Complete

Brother Luck

Brunch Menu, Dinner Menu, Bar Program, Menu Analysis, Org Chart, Brigade Breakdown, Open Items, and Executive Summary are all built and in this package. These are working documents — your feedback shapes the next revision. Read them. React to them. The menus in particular need your eyes on the dishes, the pricing, and the overall feel before anything gets printed or trained.

Cindy Senger / Senger Design Group — Market Area

Michelle · Cindy · Brian

Michelle requested Cindy be looped into the market area layout conversation. Cindy has been on the project's space utilization thread since May 13. The prep line direction — whether to reverse the order feeding the market — is still undecided and needs Cindy's input before Kitchen Tech draws it. Schedule that brainstorm session with Michelle, Brian, and Cindy as a priority this week.

Open Items& Advisory

Open Items
& Advisory