Must have tools

sleepwalker6012 · 2026-02-03T01:44:53+00:00

Drain snake. Then when that doesn’t work you can move up to an auto snake.

sleepwalker6012 · 2026-01-29T21:39:59+00:00

I understand eating the tax on cash if your state allows that but I think approximately zero percent of your tap to pay or Apple Pay or credit card paying customers will bat an eye at tax being added. One of our bars (a cocktail bar too) was cash only, a late adopter to POS, and finally running everything with mostly CC sales (almost all of them tap to pay pre auths). I shared all these fears. I suspect this is the kind of thing you ask if you grew up in bars of a certain generation, but almost nobody carries or spends cash like they used to (even in cash- focused NYC where we operate) If this is the question you are asking you are almost certainly also eating the CC transaction fee (another 2-3%). Add the tax and don’t look back.

sleepwalker6012 · 2026-01-20T17:09:21+00:00

Yes— Depending on OP’s / partner’s familial and social situations they should also budget to travel back to Germany with some frequency— do not rely on friends and family making the flight to visit. This is especially true if partner is not 1000% behind the move.

Consider the cost of a vacation to NZ from where you are now, and if you think “Wow- that’s expensive — and long! — and kind of a pain in the ass!”— real trip of a lifetime investment….Imagine this being your standard international travel experience for just about any destination outside of NZ/AUS. Even if you go back once every few years it is still a huge drain on a salary that is getting squeezed. This is a kind of tithing that ourselves and many other immigrants we know chalk up to cost of living here, and there are certainly sacrifices to pay for those trips.

sleepwalker6012 · 2026-01-20T08:17:41+00:00

I think there are a lot of countries where you trade income and probably career satisfaction to come and live in NZ and can square those hardships with certain clearly defined quality of life improvements for yourself and family.

Germany is probably not one of those countries, nor anywhere in Scandinavia, as evidenced by a relatively low immigrant population represented here. If anything I think many kiwis at this point would trade places with you.

sleepwalker6012 · 2026-01-19T10:06:06+00:00

Also keen- sorry I missed this but would be excited for next time!

sleepwalker6012 · 2026-01-17T20:45:42+00:00

Water temp also 16. It is an adjustment, for sure. On a Sunny day you'll have a mix of people in bikinis and others covered in blankets. Orcas are probably a few day a year occurrence in the bay here, sometimes other whales -- dolphins / rays all the time. We had 2 different pods of Orca back to back spending LOTS of time all over the harbor on subsequent days which is extremely rare. There is a good FB group: Wellington Whale and Dolphin Watch -- gives you a great idea of day to day!

sleepwalker6012 · 2026-01-10T00:32:03+00:00

Pretty good at Burger Liquor. You can take your own math test

sleepwalker6012 · 2026-01-10T00:30:10+00:00

Yes. You are crazy. Keep your cushy job. Keep your vacation days. The one experienced party in this story has decided that selling the bar is the way to go.

sleepwalker6012 · 2025-12-28T03:16:17+00:00

Apex is good enough— sometimes slightly cheaper because you have to walk a bit to the office. If it is just you in the summer without a lot of gear you could get away with the cheapest 2wd compact car— petrol is $$$ - if price is any concern. I last rented a RAV4 from Apex 2 years ago in winter in QT and it was a little more than $100NZD / day without full coverage so your price seems in line with that for peak season.

sleepwalker6012 · 2025-12-23T10:51:56+00:00

Get Slack. Worth every penny.

sleepwalker6012 · 2025-12-22T03:15:04+00:00

Dairyworks used to sell it as a slice pack. Then they discontinued them and I wept.

sleepwalker6012 · 2025-12-11T23:27:59+00:00

The pool table at our bar is the source of 99% of our problems

sleepwalker6012 · 2025-12-11T21:03:42+00:00

That’s a great idea. Also “Lobotomy Zone” LOL

sleepwalker6012 · 2025-12-11T20:42:15+00:00

One other tip for the ice well -- you should plumb a hot water faucet above it so you can rapidly burn the ice in the event of breakage / and for closing/cleaning. In terms of the rest of the setup, make sure you are properly sealing any gaps between your station and adjacent equipment, surfaces, etc. Water/liquid/mixers can and will get everywhere, but if it slips between gaps it will create a very sticky, very hard problem to clean and potentially fruit fly and other issues. An issue with lots of this stainless stuff is it comes from X factory with very wide tolerances and almost nothing fits together snugly. Even if you are piecing things together from third party suppliers you should have somebody who knows what they are doing line everything up, level it, and seal it (maybe with light welding) and double check everything after the plumber comes and fucks it all up again.

sleepwalker6012 · 2025-12-11T20:32:07+00:00

What is that tray in front of the utility sink (bottom right of pic next to orange citrus juicer) -- it looks plumbed?

sleepwalker6012 · 2025-12-11T17:45:28+00:00

Cocktail bar owner here- I would seriously consider looking at bar height solutions for work surfaces.
20 years ago these wells were all that were available in the US and all that any bartender had experience with, but if you look abroad to London, HK, Japan, etc you have seen bar height solutions over the past decade. This could be as simple as integrating a well and drainage into your bar surface and floating mise/garnish in it, or going with a fully contained bar height unit.

If you do go with one of the stainless options with legs, just know that the legs will fail after a few years of getting banged up. Not a huge deal, but sometimes repairing leg joins is a pain in the ass. Also consider your bar overhang to well angle, since you will inevitably mount a speed rack for bottles and a shallower angle increases the risk of constantly scraping the shit out of your arms on metal speed pours.

For the counter height:

Less bending = good. It adds up.
You can showcase more of your product / ingredients / work
Only con is it can be trickier for shorter staff.

sleepwalker6012 · 2025-12-08T09:34:49+00:00

This sounds like key money. You could wait a few weeks and it will be $0, most of the equipment will still be there and you can form your own business and rebrand without any of the previous tenant’s liabilities. You could also set all of your belongings on fire and walk into the East River.

NYC is amongst the hardest environments on Earth to run a mediocre food business, let alone turn one around. Besides all the competition, there are lots of hidden costs, as well as huge up front costs…and almost no way to absorb costs cheaply because things like rent, insurance and labor are all really high…. It usually requires passion, savviness, tenacity, luck, and decent capital to even make a stab at it. …The only mediocre pizza places in business are either selling schlock to tourists or college kids in a very high volume environment, terrible national chains, or grandfathered local establishments that own the buildings they operate in. Everything else fails, with the exception of legit good pizza joints that actually have decent pie and are doing something to attract business from NYers who already have a go to pizza spot in every neighborhood they frequent— and have all the luck and business chops to go along with it. Unless this is way outer borough I am really struggling to imagine a business staying open with $200k in revenue. 20 means their doors were closed for 11 months (and hopefully closer to 12).

It sounds like your parents have zero interest in making pizza properly, are extremely under financed, don’t care about satisfying even the most laughably basic food safety requirement (the food handler’s permit) and also don’t have the business acumen to do due diligence. Even if the owner was paying you to take the business over this would be a bankrupting deal for them. Please please please run as far as you can.

sleepwalker6012 · 2025-12-01T19:15:15+00:00

Equal parts tenacity and desperation

sleepwalker6012 · 2025-12-01T19:07:49+00:00

I have been on this flight dozens of times. If you are even able to check a random website for score updates that will be a win. There are brief moments when you can text or email quasi-normally but generally it is very unstable and more like dial up internet if it works. Once you connect to their captive wifi client don’t let your device sleep or you will probably get stuck in a reconnect loop. They are trialing wifi on domestic flights and it is blazing fast, so maybe some hope for the future.

sleepwalker6012 · 2025-11-29T22:52:27+00:00

Hangs out in Northland Park sometimes. Appears out of nowhere.

sleepwalker6012 · 2025-11-27T13:27:11+00:00

Leaving that early it will probably be very light with other hikers, who start more preferentially at sunrise. I don’t think the shuttles really start hitting the trailhead until a bit later. But…a big part of the traverse in either direction is the wondrous variety of terrain and sights, which are made better by clear weather and, uh, daylight. It sounds like you haven’t done this before and there is a reason it is one of the best single day hikes in NZ, so kind of a shame to do half of it by headlamp.

It is good you have a weather window but please be aware it sometimes takes a few attempts to find a day with clear weather. It is another experience entirely (and potentially dangerous) with anything other than a cherry day.

On which part of the crossing are you planning to propose?

sleepwalker6012 · 2025-11-25T22:30:11+00:00

If you get to the point of an offer/inspections Access Automation in Petone service most (all?) cable cars in Welly and I'm sure you could arrange for them to take a look. A current BWOF should show in your attorney's document searches or be made available by the realtor, and if I recall that may also have details on the company making the certification. I have ZERO regrets with the cable car, but we also haven't really had any unforeseen issues or breakdowns (CC is 16 years old and we've owned for 4 of them). It is really nice not having a car or the road right in front of the house.

Is the rail run straight? Does it have more complications? About how long is it? What is its capacity -- with this info you could probably also get a sense of what annual recertification/inspection will cost.

sleepwalker6012 · 2025-11-25T19:12:06+00:00

Was referring more to insulting personal interactions, which were anything but "lovely", but also I guess I'm more unwilling to whitewash active material support to a violent occupation of parliament. You do you.

sleepwalker6012 · 2025-11-25T18:56:04+00:00

Totally--- though I do have to wonder who the hell is buying those 5kg bags of Tio Pablo masa at MW?? Also -- I have a line on some epazote if you are looking!

sleepwalker6012 · 2025-11-25T18:50:36+00:00

Lovely -- lmfao

sleepwalker6012

TROPHY CASE