Beer is right around the corner. So it's time for a Founders Party!
The four months since signing the lounge lease have been amazing. Constant growth. Constant new challenges. Constant learning curve. And we’ve achieved a lot: not only building everything from scratch, but learning how to build everything from scratch as we went. We're thrilled and proud to share we're nearing the end of phase one. With our basic kitchen up and running and our beer and wine license days away, it’s time to actually declare the Raygun Lounge open! Which means it’s time for our Founders Party. Our official Invite-Only Kickstarter Backers Party will be on Friday, November 30th from 7pm until… whenever, really - it’s your party, we’ll back you up. We’ll send out digital invites to everyone on the list early next week.
I’d hoped to have all of your swag ready by the Founders Party, I really did. But restaurant buildout turns out to be very different than retail buildout and with the steep learning curve, the transitioning of management teams to make sure that the store ran smoothly throughout, and the tightness of the budget we were bold enough to work with, I just wasn’t able to pull it all off as fast as I thought I would be able to. Now with Christmas coming, I’ve accepted that it’s better to get you what I can now, piecemeal if I have to, than wait to try and bundle it all together. Starting with the preparty, we’re going to begin fulfilling on everything that we can, as soon as we can, especially the intangible stuff like draft passes and game nights. We’re likely going to have some of our swag items in time for the holidays, but not all of them. This means that some of you will receive multiple rewards spread out over the next few weeks/months. But don’t worry, we’re keeping close records on what everyone has been promised and though we’re behind in our schedule our record keeping is top notch and we’ll make sure that no one is forgotten or left out.
And, more to the point, WE DID IT. It worked. We’re officially opening doors December 1st. Thank you so much for being bold. And hopeful. And believing in community so much that you built your own lounge. I look forward to serving you and continuing to develop your lounge for years to come and working to make it all it can be. As always, if you have any thoughts, comments or concerns, you can reach me through the Kickstarter messaging service, the email on our website or by coming by the shop or lounge to talk with me directly. Most days you can find me in or near one of them from around 10:30am until 10:30pm...especially with the holidays coming.
I’ll see some of you at the Founders Party and the rest hopefully soon after.
-Eric
P.S. If you have a Founders Party invite but simply can’t do Nov. 30th we’ll set up an alternate night for a backup party once we figure out how many people need it and what their schedule constraints are.