Hey, the
Argo has a great post up on the day after the fire. As many of you probably know, I was, at one point, a full time Argo employee. Scott offered me a job (I had no previous restaurant) at the Argonaut when I REALLY needed a job. Having worked there (including during Inauguration, and a minor kitchen fire) I can say that Scott, and his wife Shaaren, are all about the community. We worked some crazy hours at that point, and I've truly never had a better boss, or team. Scott signed on to the Argonaut almost four years ago as a bar manager. Since that time he has:
-moved to the community (they own their home);
-met his wife (who worked at the Argo);
-had a wonderful daughter;
-created a community that was not just a bar, and restaurant, but also a wonderful gathering space for a very diverse clientele;
-become a partial owner of the Argonaut.
-created a Wednesday night that welcomes families downstairs, and pub quiz goers upstairs.
-made some local changes that make me so proud of him I can't event say.
The Argonaut was the first of the newer bars to open on the H Street Corridor. It holds a warm spot in my own heart, as well as that of many others. There have been some bumps along the way, but the Argo wants to come back strong, and I believe that it will come back better than ever. I know that plans were in the works prior to the fire to put in a walk in fridge in the basement that would have allowed for 12 beers on tap. The Argo now seeks to (while they rebuild) obtain a tavern license, rather than the restaurant license they have held. They have massive expenses, and who knows when the insurance stuff might come through. I strongly urge people to support the application for the CT license. The Argonaut has proved to our community that it wants to operate as a restaurant. I hope we won't punish them for a fire that wasn't their fault. I'm going to do something I don't normally do and grab most of a
post from another blog (I think I'll be forgiven for stealing from the Argo blog):
day 2. dichotomies and sharing the love.
There's something about the day after that's been both worse and better. Even though reality has started sinking in and nobody's really running on adrenaline anymore, it's really nice to start seeing a (very loose) time-line for putting stuff back together. And, to learn that we CAN put stuff back together!
Great news in that it might not be unreasonable to be open in a month (upstairs and outside only), but frustrating to maybe have to wait 14 days for the fire Incident Report in order to get a demo permit (which we need to start working).
Emotions are both a little more raw, yet stable, too. On my run this morning I feel like I skipped almost every song: Nope, too sad. Nope, Argo memory. Nope. Nope. Nope. But yesterday morning's sniffles about what we had lost have made way for tears of joy and gratitude about what we've gained. I know how much The Argonaut means to us, I just had no idea how much The Argonaut means to the rest of you!
The outpouring of love and support has been really overwhelming and I cannot emphasize enough how much it's helped me (and Scott!) get through these last two days. Instead of jumping into panic mode, your support has helped us stay grounded and full of gratitude. I'll include most of the tweets and emails I've received at the end of this post - I hope people don't mind. I just thought you all might like to see what a fabulous and amazing community you are - and how lucky we are to have you.
Some more thank yous:
* Many thanks to our handyman, Herman! He came right away yesterday with the intention of boarding up just the downstairs windows and by the evening (in that blazing heat!) he and his crew (of 3!) had boarded up ALL the windows AND theTWO holes in the roof!
* Thanks to Mark (of Pour House, Trusty's, 18th Amendment and Star & Shamrock) for loaning us their Home Depot card so we could buy supplies to get the building boarded up.
* Thanks so much to Rock & Roll Hotel (and Steve, especially) for putting together our first fundraiser! The money will benefit both our full-time staff AND Argo in general. As I mentioned on the fundraiser post, it can take years for insurance money to come through, if at all. Meanwhile, bills and mortgage payments still pile up, so Argo's only chance for survival is to get up and running as quickly as possible. We've found temporary jobs for some of our full-time staff and with the fundraiser's money we can pay the rest of the full-time staff (and others) to clean and rebuild.
* Thanks to the very nice patrons of Granville's last night who bought us (Chris, Debbie and me!) a round of drinks. Really sweet and appreciated.
* And again, thanks for all the emails, texts, calls, facebook posts, tweets and, you know, regular hugs. They mean so much to us.
![Philly%20Cheesesteak[1]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2764/4049202173_674cdfefdc.jpg)
