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Papering over retail/restaurant windows prior to opening


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#1 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 28 February 2017 - 08:07 AM

Ask George: "Why do restaurants put paper in their windows during construction and prior to opening?"

 

 

armadillo.jpg?cb=661efef72bf057319c35057

 

 

Ask George : Why do restaurants put paper in their windows during construction and prior to opening?  Byron K, St. Louis

 

That depends on whom you ask.

 

Ask a general contractor and he might tell you it’s to keep wandering eyes from wandering inside, as power tools are worth serious money on the resale market. One contractor confessed that it works the other way as well: a papered window keeps a worker’s eyes from being distracted outside, by all the pretty passers-by.

 

Ask a municipality and you'll learn that “papering the windows is not a requirement but rather a strong suggestion,” according to Tom Niemeier, President of SPACE Architecture + Design, a company responsible for many local restaurant renovations. “It serves two purposes,” he said. “It’s both a theft deterrent and it shields all that's unsightly.”

 

Ask a restaurant owner or tenant and you get more answers. Some want to maintain the element of suspense until the space is spiffed and spit-shined...at which point the paper gets ripped down en masse, akin to unwrapping a giant gift. Others want the privacy that a papered-up window affords. Vendors and salesmen who “just happened to be in the area” (to say nothing of nosy Dining Editors sniffing out the next scoop) often barge in without appointment and disrupt whatever the owner/manager had otherwise planned for that day.

 

Chris Sommers, co-owner of the six Pi Pizzeria stores, got so bothered by interruptions on previous projects that when he was building out the Pi 2 Go space in Chesterfield, he devised an elaborate smokescreen just to throw off intruders. He created a fictitious entity—Armadillo Joe’s Tex-Mex & Taxidermy—complete with color logo (at left), and placed it in the papered-up window, which led the curious to a website complete with Western-themed music. Ian Froeb, the RFT’s restaurant critic, noted that “half the new restaurants in town don't bother throwing up a site even half as rudimentary as Armadillo Joe's!” The ruse was successful and Sommers revealed the spoof just days before Pi 2 Go’s opening.

 


<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

#2 FirstTimeHomeCrier

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Posted 28 February 2017 - 10:37 AM

Before it opened, Famous Original's was papered over with signs that said Blockbuster Videos was opening soon. It definitely piqued my interest.


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#3 Nparker

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Posted 28 February 2017 - 10:41 AM

Shine Cafe on Blanshard has its windows papered over for a renovation scheduled to last all of this week I believe.



#4 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 28 February 2017 - 10:45 AM

Before it opened, Famous Original's was papered over with signs that said Blockbuster Videos was opening soon. It definitely piqued my interest.

 

Oh that's right, it threw us all!


<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

#5 Mike K.

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Posted 01 March 2017 - 07:18 AM

It was also supposed to be a new location for Guy Fieri's restaurant empire.

 

Good times: http://victoria.citi...front-revealed/


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#6 johnk

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Posted 01 March 2017 - 10:10 AM


Windows papered over with pages from EAT magazine at Confit resto on OB Avenue. The guy chiseling off the exterior signage said it was changing names (again) but same ownership.

#7 Matt R.

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Posted 01 March 2017 - 11:44 AM

Oh yah it closed a couple of weeks ago, valentines was their last service.

Dwane is an awesome guy and a great chef, not sure what he's planning next though he has started up a local food blog. He mentioned what's going in there next but I can't remember what he said. I think it was Asian.

Anyone remember that space when it was Small City Bistro? Oh man.

Matt.

Edited by Matt R., 01 March 2017 - 11:49 AM.

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#8 johnk

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Posted 01 March 2017 - 03:28 PM

Oh yah it closed a couple of weeks ago, valentines was their last service.
Dwane is an awesome guy and a great chef, not sure what he's planning next though he has started up a local food blog. He mentioned what's going in there next but I can't remember what he said. I think it was Asian.
Anyone remember that space when it was Small City Bistro? Oh man.
Matt.

It was Chez Michel just before it was Confit, wasn't there an iteration (my word of the week) between Small City and Chez Michel?

 



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