Pi(e) Day Recap.

In case you are curious how Pi(e) Day went down at PJP Buttonwood, please know this felt like the scene outside our door at 9 am...

We had a fair number of orders for pickup on Saturday, and so we started in the wee hours of the morning to focus on baking for orders and for stocking our shelves to capacity in every sort of pie.  Which was an excellent plan...until we ran out by 10 am or so.  In fact, we ran out of free t-shirts, free Mimosas, and eventually even out of pie to cut for samples.  No worries though, we kept on baking like we would never bake again.  It was just that most customers had to be okay with buying a pie bubbling hot off the tray instead of cooled and in a box...(the old lawyer in me considered typing up a quick liability waiver to acknowledge the receipt of really hot pie, but there simply was no time).

While there were a few moments on Saturday that smacked of Thanksgiving desperation (especially when I was making a pumpkin pie on order), overall I experienced 100% less crying.  The mood was certainly more jovial, the weather was beautiful, and also, I hadn't been up for 35 hours or so.  We were also offered help by many and we accepted without a second thought...great customers showed up early to help us pop champagne corks and mix Mimosas, Behind-The-Scenes-Tech Guru Jason washed dishes and then baked after I sent a panicked "I NEED HELP" text to him.  One of my Inner Circle besties showed up and manned the cash register for three hours, freeing me up to box and figure out what pie could be sold directly from the oven trays.

As we go through each milestone event in our first year of business, trying to figure what is going to happen is A CHALLENGE, INDEED.  Trying to figure out exactly how to bake enough pies to meet all the demand without completely over-baking is one of those things that has driven me a bit mad over the last few months.  Without question, we could have baked three or four times the amount of pie that we did on Saturday and sold it all.  That said, we have space limitations and staff limitations...and sanity limitations.  And if we are going to stay true to our craft product, where is the sweet spot of making just enough to keep the masses happy, but not too much to waste time, product, and effort?  I have no answers...just some rhetorical questions to throw out into the sweet void of the Interwebs.

If we learned anything, it is that we know how to throw a Pi(e) Day party.  And that the people of Columbia know how to celebrate Pi(e) Day in all the right ways.  I've made a note on the calendar for Pi(e) Day 2k16..."BAKE ALL THE PIES HUMANELY POSSIBLE.  And order more t-shirts.  And buy more champagne.  A lot more champagne."