Schatzi's is Smokin

Last night at 11:42 I received a phone call from the Iowa county Sheriff's office advising me that Schatzi's was on fire. I poured myself into some clothes like I was a fireman summoned to a fire.

I arrived on the scene, to find 5 firetrucks and 3 squad cars surrounding the scene. Schatzi's neighbors had spilled out onto the street and they were watching the firemen and firewomen do their work.

Smoke was coming from the roof and shortly after I arrived, it was announced that the fire was extinguished. The fire was confined to the rear storage room, but the entire building has extensive smoke damage.

Its too early to predict when we can reopen our doors.

Already I'm missing my Schatzi....and the community will sorely miss the their Schatzi.

Flood 2008

We had a major flood in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. I have not been to Iowa City for any first hand views of the damage, but I have been to CR (thats what the locals call Cedar Rapids) several times after the flood.

I have not had a post for a long time, mainly because I have been busy with the Schatzi project and general summer things.

I wasn't going to write about the Flood because when you are here you are inundated with major media coverage almost 24/7. But then I realized that a lot of my bloggies are not from here as demonstrated by my Stats Tracker software. Some of my faithful readers are from Bombay, India...most likely they stumbled upon my blog by searching the word Bombay..which was the poison offered up by Dr. O and her gracious assistant. A lot of my bloggies are from Florida, my second residence. I have readers from Switzerland, Landskrona Sweden, Sydney Australia, London England, and Tanzania in Africa.





Since they may not have seen all of the news accounts, I am posting some pics at this time. Most of the pics are from the aftermath and were taken as recently as yesterday. One of the twin towers surrounded by water is our condo in CR.

I will post more pictures soon.


P.S. Billy is afloat.

Billy has a "Schatzi"

Sorry if I have been neglect in my duties reporting about the trial and tribulations of my friend Billy, but its been hectic around here.

You see Billy likes ice cream and all the trappings that go with it and has been missing the Schatzi's place since it closed two years ago. Hardly a week goes bye when we don't get a query from him about why the Schatzi's store is sitting idle. He has suggested that I reopen it...."No way" has always been the response....."What do I know about ice cream, fast food and all that" Well you know its not what you know, but more importantly who you know. So the idea was to partner with someone who did. Enter Dr. Phil.

Phil has been successful in the restaurant game and during a recent conversation, I asked him if he was ready for a new challenge. In about one weeks time the new Schatzi emerged from the rubble. Phil barks out instructions faster than the average brain can record and works at cyberspeed in making things happen.

Phil, the mystery lady and I partnered in the venture. We were open Maifest weekend and it seems that all who visited were pleasantly surprised. The menu is varied, the food is quality and the ice cream is yummy. Sounds like the right formula.

Notables who were there to experience the opening, were the likes of Billy's Godparents, Billy's
hero...The Hopper and his misses, and my niece Nicole, to mention a few.

Of course Billy was there too....ice cream all over his face most of the time and a bonus synergy was discovered. You can hook the iron lung in parallel to the ice cream machine and eliminate that portable power supply. So Billy was behind the scenes most of the time....the only reminder was an occasional screech of the belt pulley when both kicked in at the same time.

Stop in sometime.