A Grease Trap Mea Culpa

So, I don't even know how to tell you this story without sounding like a total idiot.  I honestly thought about not even sharing it, but the whole point of this blog is transparency in the process of opening a business and plus, the whole story is sorta hilarious. Yesterday, I showed you this picture:

I made reference to the grease trap that the City of Columbia requires we install and I referenced that white box at the top as said grease trap.  It all seemed sort of dubious to me because "grease trap" makes me think of a vat of grease for deep frying, not pie baking.  Plus, I kept thinking about how often we would have to clean it out because it just looks like a white square to me and so where does the grease go?

Guess what?

Who knew?  I mean besides Susan, Wayne, Glenn, the entire team at Quest-Tec, all licensed plumbers, and probably 50% of the general American population.

I went into PJP Buttonwood this afternoon and found the plumber like this:

When I asked him what he was doing, he was all "oh, I just dug down like three feet and installed this here grease trap."

OH.

So I said with a smile, "Isn't that white box there already installed?  That is the grease trap, right?"

Poor plumber guy just looked at me.  And it was silent (well, as silent as a construction site can be).

Blink.

Silence.

And he said "uhhhh....hahahahahahahaha, no, this box is a grease trap."

So that we are all clear, the grease trap is a super big box in the middle that sort of looks like a coffin for all the grease.

From what I gather, you dig a big hole in the ground and put the grease trap in it and then they will pour concrete back over it (I'm completely unclear if this is what will happen.  For all of my grease trap knowledge, maybe they pour concrete around it.)

The white box thing is the floor drain for the dishwasher.  And yes, I have learned that we will have to have that grease trap cleaned out.  I didn't even ask how they suck the grease out of the coffin/box or how often it might have to happen or how you need to know when it needs to happen, because frankly, I didn't even know what a legitimate grease trap looked like until 4 pm this afternoon.  (That said, I bet that coffin/box doesn't nicely text you with a polite request for a cleaning). I wish I would have paid more attention when that show Dirty Jobs was on because "grease trap cleaner" is totally one that would be a good feature on that show.

So now you know the epically embarrassing story of how I had no clue about grease traps.  And how the plumber may think I'm the dumbest person to ever interrogate him about coffin/boxes of grease while taking poorly lit iPhone photos.