So what do you do after you get a big, fat $10,000 check from PETA? I had plans. Oh, I had plans. By the time that check found its way into my hot little hands I had spent it a dozen times over. It arrived already dissected, apportioned, cut into wedges and ready to be disbursed.

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And then I realized that my air conditioner was failing.

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It’s no secret that the original contractors who built Dirt Candy were incompetent at best and criminal at worst, and I’ve gone through four HVAC companies since I opened trying to have someone explain to me why this restaurant is cold in the winter and hot in the summer – the exact opposite of what I’d initially requested. If you’ve eaten here you’ve seen the space heaters, you’ve witnessed the fans.

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A Dirt Candy human customer

six weeks ago.

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A Dirt Candy bunny customer

six weeks ago.

(Our carrot buns are very popular!)

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Finally, Astoria Mechanical came in, recommended by John Fraser from Dovetail. The first thing they discovered was that most of my heating system wasn’t actually installed. Ducts weren’t taped, pipes were capped rather than being connected, and the whole thing was working at about 50%.

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They fixed that and then I asked them about the air conditioning. They wound up installing a new unit, the only option available since the original unit wasn’t big enough for the space. I trusted them so much that they did the work while I was in Italy, and when I came back, Dirt Candy was finally cool on the inside.

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Price for the work? $10,000 exactly.

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*sigh*

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A Dirt Candy customer now.

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(PS – I recommend Astoria Mechanical very highly. If you want their contact number, let me know. They are the first contractors to work here that I didn’t subsequently wish would be crushed in a wildebeest stampede.)

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