i said that the fat tuscan was on the corner or 8th ave and ne blvd, but it’s 8th ave and ne 1st street. sorry about that mistake.
we’ve got a new homepage for lightnin salvage. i loved the photo of the building when we bought it so it was hard for me to let go of that image but i finally decided it was time to update the homepage image to reflect what lse has become. click here to go there. soon when you click contact hopefully the original photo of the building will come up.
satchel’s hoodies coming soon. stay tuned… fyi: the black santa magnet below was stolen from our shop… there is a $2 reward offered for the return.

so, things are looking up. the 3 problems i’ve had ongoing for 6 weeks are all in their final stage of correction this week, or so it seems. sewage line fixed, alarm system working properly, and the cooler fixed. i ate at the fat tuscan for lunch yesterday and the soup and sandwich i had were great. that’s a new place on the corner of 8th ave and ne blvd. it’s in an old house and it’s a small lunch place. they’ve got a great outdoor courtyard area too. check it out.

well, it was another busy weekend, homecoming and all. friday went pretty smoothly but saturday night had its share of problems. i can’t remember all of them and i’m not going to strain to rememebr them because i’m glad it’s over and a new week is here. there was the one issue that i won’t easily forget and that was the guy who called and ordered 3 large pies with all of the meats, (that’s 7 toppings, pepperoni. steak. beef. sausage. meatballs. ham. bacon.) this chump ordered THREE of those and TWO large pies with double cheese and double pepperoni. i find out later that when the server turned in the ticket he said, “this guy’s gonna screw us.” and screw us he did. he showed up with a bad check and no other way to pay except this check it looked like he had fished out of someone’s trash. $122 worth of pizzas… and the server who took the order knew it but didn’t alert me to any issues… i didn’t ask about what tipped the employee off, because frankly i was too upset to talk to the employee at all. anyway, that, along with the ongoing sewer line clogs, and alarm system failures and the alarm company waking me up at 3 am THREE times this month, and well, i’ll just stop there. all of this stuff has me feeling more anxious than i want to feel. all of this has me working longer hours than usual. i’m not taking any days off this week, but working right on through my “two days off.”
however, the pies i made were looking good. the homeless folks downtown had a treat saturday night, even though it was cold by then, those meat pizzas provided some needed protein to some hungry people. and i’m optimistic that i can get some finishing touches on the fountain this week, despite the fact that i need to thaw out some freezers and organize the dry goods shed. sound like fun? oh, it is.

some weeks are easier than others, but at least i’m taking this friday off to go trick or treating. happy halloween all you people, i gotta run.

i pretty much worked my butt off all week to get this thing up and running today. i had help. john patterson piped it, josh myers brought the pump and gave advice, john orth did the filming and gave moral support, my boy silas helped a lot along the way, and his friend blake helped some too. i’ve had a vision for this fountain for a long time. it’s nice to see it finally appear and work. it will be getting improvements too like lights. you can read some of the menu backs about the journey here. i think 2 more menu backs will tell the last bit of the tale.

so, it took 6 months, not bad.
i’m beat down tired now and i have homecoming weekend ahead, oh boy. i know i’ll be fired up once i get in there.

hope ya’ll like the fountain. satch

okay, so i never did get a photo of the ice cream i made. it turned out pretty darn good but i put waaay too many chips in it. it was quadruple chipped and you might think that’s a good thing but it was actually overboard. anyway, now i know.
i put in a long day today. i was at lowe’s shortly after 7am and at work working on the fountain by 7:30. then the plumber came to troubleshoot the pipes. then his snake got stuck and he called GRU in for help. GRU guy came and we found a sewer manhole cover we didn’t know existed right there in the garden. after cutting 3 irrigation lines, we got the manhole cover off and lo and behold a 20′ deep pit that is the city sewer. the plumbers snake was all twisted up in there so they freed it up and we made another appointment to have a look with the camera down the pipes tomorrow morning. at some point during this, the cooler repair guy shows up to troubleshoot the cooler that is down. he makes some progress but makes an appointment to come back before we open. i notice that one of our pumps is out, that sends water to the garden but that’s a good thing since we cut 3 irrigation lines anyway. so i got a call in to the pump master for a new pump and told him to bring it when he brings the pump for the fountain, tomorrow.
then the guy shows up who is supposed to give us a quote on garbage and recycling collection. the new company in town trying to win our business. then my wife and daughter show up for lunch. then i finally get back to working on the fountain for many hours. ran out of materials around 3pm and back to lowe’s and back to work on the fountain.
finally after 5pm, i get this shot of the fountain. pretty much finished. it is my hope that tomorrow, or thursday early, i can pipe the water feature and crank her up. i feel like tv20 and the gainesville sun should be there. actually, i feel like the new york times and cnn should be there. anyway, maybe i can get it on film for my satchel’s movie.

on another wavelength today, we unveiled the satchgrant program. i put the poster on the door about our new grant program for non-profits. the link is now online here. before lunch we had our first applicant. how does that happen? how did the non-profits already clue in to the satchgrant when the program has only been up and running a few hours?? wow. i think there is a need for funds these days for charities and i imagine that funding is harder and harder to come by. anyway, i am excited about this new opportunity to serve the community and give back. if business stays good, we may be able to expand the program after the first year. currently, there are will be 8 grants awarded per year for up to $500 each.

alright good people. you know the inside scoop for real now. you know more than my wife knows. you know all the inside workings of the machine. it is well oiled. it is humming along… fountains, grants, and snakes in sewer pipes… we do more than just pizza.

this is the week for the fountain, i think. i have a few hours of work left and i have every intention of turning it on before friday this week. i can’t guarantee that but i can, like obama, hope.
this weekend was super busy and even with our new to-go system, we still got backed up on in-house orders. it was just so busy and so many tables order 2 or 3 pizzas. both nights went pretty well, but friday night i was having some allergy issues and not quite as composed as i would have liked to be. i put the wrong toppings on a deep dish and that is frustrating. somehow i was able to make it up to the people although they had somewhere to be and had to take the corrected deep dish home.
saturday night would have been much better if it hadn’t been for the backed up toilets. this is the 4th time in less than 2 months. it seems that we either have roots in the sewage lines or people like to flush brown towels down the toilets. either way, our system is delicate and it seems to back up on busy friday or saturday nights. all 3 toilets are on the same line, so once one goes, they all go and we have a lot of antsy people around. fortunately, the plumber came quick and we were down only for an hour. the plumber is there for 20 minutes and charges $171. ouch. dealing with this crisis, and also with the onslaught of tickets coming in, was hard. this happened at the peak of business so i had to walk away from the oven several times to talk to the plumber and find out the status of our toilets. now i will spend my monday off meeting with a couple plumbers to see if we can figure out whether we need hand dryers in the bathrooms (to stop the towels getting flushed) or maybe we need new sewage lines… in any event it will be expensive. if i get too caught up in the issue it may push the fountain back a week. hopefully, the pipes can get fixed and i can finish the fountain, we’ll see.

welcome to ruth, the new face at lightnin’ salvage. she’ll be working on the weekends and hopefully filling in some other shifts here and there. that place gets pretty busy as christmas comes around.

tonight i’ll be attempting to make some homemade ice cream. i’ll let you know how it turns out, maybe even get a picture.

just about everyone knows who storm roberts is… well, he writes me the other day to tell me that he loves satchel’s pizza. he had read the blog about the other radio dj’s dissin’ us and had to lift my spirits and give me some compliments. god love him.
shown is a project i just finished… a stained glass window i made for my studio. there will be 4 panels side by side when it’s done, all about this size (about 3′long x 14″ high) and i am hoping that when all together it will make sense as a series. this was the first i’ve messed with glass in about 10 years and back then it was only taking a community ed course. i have forgotten a lot of technical stuff and fortunately you can’t see how bad my solder lines are, but i think by the time i’m done i’ll be better at it. anyway, i’m excited about this new hobby and hoping i do improve.

the pies are still cranking and on the money. it’s still “never a dull moment” kind of thing going on daily up there. i’m working a lot this week and most of the work isn’t even in house. soon we’ll unveil our grant program. i’ll give you details on that right here on the blog very soon. stay tuned…

another great week in pizza land usa. wednesday we sent 20 pies to the philosophy department, and saturday, we sent 18 pies and a lot of salad to the thomas center for a wedding. satchel’s pizza served at the wedding reception, that sounds like the kind of wedding i would love. i was married at the thomas center too, over 10 years ago, but there was no satchel’s pizza back then.
well, the gators won, so that’s good. there was a radio show on wednesday on 99.5fm. it’s a sports show and this past week they were trying cheese pizza. we sent a regular and deep dish in for them. there were 3 guys and although i didn’t actually hear the show myself, i heard about it. they said that each guy chose their 3 favorite pizzas and not one of those guys picked satchel’s as #1. hmmmm. so, even though the gators won, satchel’s lost… i mean, here we are honestly trying to make the best pizza in the world, and we got 3 radio sports jock dj’s and not one of them can pick us as best in gainesville. something’s wrong there. oh well, i am going to try and not let that get to me.
the weather is cooling down nicely and don;t forget about all the wonderful outdoor seating at satchel’s. the fountain-o-junk is coming along, and there’s always something new to see.
i don’t have much else to say. i won’t get into the details of the behind the scenes dramas. i’m just glad that i brought home enough satchel’s pie to get me through my 2 days off. bring us yoour old keys. we’re trying to bulk up our collection.