I Don't Laminate.
We are three days into our new space at PJP Buttonwood. While our opening days were tremendously successful, it has become clear to me that I completely overlooked some of the basic items we needed to make our opening days a little smoother. Case in point? An open/close sign. Ink pens. Paper towels. You get the idea. I've been to Office Depot more this past week than in all of 2013 (or any other year for that matter). It is well documented around here that I'm not a detail person. I've been focusing for months on opening the space and so I've been a little overwhelmed this week by the dozens of little items that have come up this past week that I never even considered. Here is a prime example of where our big picture thinking leads us all astray on occasion: do you know how many people have walked through our doors in the last three days and looked at us expectantly and said "what kind of pies do you make?"
Yeah. Perhaps because we live in a pie-making, pie-baking, pie-focused world, we simply assumed that everyone would walk in and know exactly what we are capable of in the pie world. After I responded to the first few requests for a list with complete awkwardness, I made some grand plans to fire up my computer and make a list and then be really fancy and laminate it. (And for those of you that know me pretty well, you are probably thinking "she was willing to laminate? she must have been really concerned about this"). By the time closing on Saturday rolled around, I was even willing to make two or three of these lists and laminate them. And honestly, I would more likely consider giving you a kidney or part of my liver than willingly laminate because I'm not crafty and stuff like that never works out for me.
And so I thought about it all for a bit today (rest assured, if I have to laminate, it won't be on a Saturday night. Or a national holiday). And then I started to think about each of the PJP locations and realized that NONE of them ever had a board listing all of the available-to-order pies. That is an interesting note because we've spent a lot of time analyzing what we know worked for PJP v. 1.0 and what we know didn't work for PJP v.1.0 and never once did the sign thing cross my mind. So this is probably a scenario that is a little too hard core for my dubious laminating skills...I think we need something professional. And by professional, I mean "not made by us with glitter markers". I have no idea what that is going to look like, but I do have some ideas of where to start.
All that said, here comes the full list of pies that we can currently create at PJP. Some of these you will see pop into regular rotation in our retail display, but any of these can be done in the 9 or 12 inch size with 24 hours advance notice for pick up at PJP Buttonwood...
- Apple
- Dutch Apple
- Caramel Apple
- Drunken Apple
- Blackberry
- Blueberry
- Gooseberry
- Boozy Blueberry
- Cherry
- Sour Cream Cherry
- Peach
- Peach Praline
- Rhubarb
- Strawberry Rhubarb
- Almond Rum Raspberry
- Mixed Berry
- French Silk
- Key Lime
- Coconut Cream
- Coconut Custard
- Banana Cream
- Chocolate Banana
- Chocolate Cream
- Lemon Cream
- Lemon Chiffon
- Raisin Cream
- Sour Cream Raisin
- Sweet Potato
- Southern Pecan
- Chocolate Bourbon Pecan
- German Chocolate
- Pumpkin
Just seeing the list in bullet form makes me realize that trying to type that up all fancy in Word wouldn't have ended well with my limited skill and tendency to overanalyze font choices. And it makes me realize that we make A LOT of different pies and how can we expect anyone to just know that? (I'm talking to you, Raisin Cream). Hopefully we can come up with something cute this week that makes ordering your favorite pies all the easier. And hopefully it won't require that any of us use glue or burlap...