I finally took over the lease on an old, abandoned event center down the road with the plan to completely gut the main banquet hall and turn it into a high-quality dining restaurant. The main floor space looked huge and open, so I figured most of the work would just be superficial design cosmetic upgrades and setting up tables. What a total delusion. Dealing with industrial code upgrades and ancient commercial plumbing turned the whole commercial property into a giant money pit.
The first major disaster started when we tore down the old acoustic ceiling tiles above the main stage area. Decades of roof leaks that the previous owners just ignored had completely rotted out the main steel support trusses hidden behind the drywall. Every time the wind picked up, the loose tin sheets on the roof would rattle violently, which completely panicked the building inspectors. I had to halt the entire project for three days just to bring in a structural welding crew to sister brand-new steel beams directly to the rusted frames before we could even touch the interior.
Then came the absolute nightmare of installing the massive industrial grease trap underneath the kitchen floorboards. Commercial restaurants require a heavy-duty containment tank that is four times the size of a standard residential drain basin, and the event center only had a basic clay sewer line from the sixties. I spent twelve hours straight operating a rented jackhammer, aggressively smashing through eight inches of solid commercial concrete flooring just to dig out a pit deep enough to drop the heavy fiberglass tank into place.
The main dining hall floor is completely leveled out now and the new commercial kitchen line is fully hooked up to the main gas utility lines. The automated fire suppression hoods are mounted above the stoves and the plumbing system passed the city pressure tests on the first try.