echo_coffee_logoWe don’t always appreciate the minutiae that goes into opening up a new business.

Steve Belt gives a good sense of this as he chronicles the opening of his new cafe—which, if all goes well this a.m., will come around noon today:

As a quick status update, we just missed getting our Certificate of Occupancy today. There were two very minor problems: the building’s fire monitoring had lapsed allowing 3 batteries to fall dead, which needed changing (you have to laugh at some of the types of things that can hold up such a huge, complicated project). That’s a landlord responsibility, which was quickly corrected, shortly after the fire marshal left. As well, the Men and Women signs were not hung by the bathrooms (they were inside the bathrooms on the counter), so we didn’t pass structural. Both problems were fixed in a few minutes, and we expect to get CofO at 8am Friday morning.

With CofO all but in hand, we’ve schedule the health department inspector for Friday morning at 11am. They were just at the shop last Friday, so the only significant differences will be that refrigerators are now plugged in, soap and towel dispensers are present, and water is hot. Although it’s certainly not a slam dunk that we will pass health inspection, we do believe we are ready.

This means that around noon on Friday, April 23, 2010, we will officially be allowed to open for business at Echo Coffee.

Echo Coffee is on the northwest corner of Thomas and 68th St. Details here.

(h/t: PhxREguy on Twitter.)