When In Doubt...

Not long ago, we made it Facebook Official by creating an event for Slice and Serve Saturday (scheduled for August 19th).  The event is just as it sounds...we will make just about every pie on our menu and slice them into six generous slices.  We will sell off the slices for $3 each including tax, fork provided at no additional cost.  And like so many other things we do, there really isn't a point...except to have fun and to satisfy the often asked question..."do you serve slices??" Our timing for the 19th isn't totally random, as Columbia will be inundated with thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of visitors for the eclipse two days later.  Selling slices is something a bit different for us, but an idea we've had for a while and the 19th seems to be a perfect day for testing it out.

But as for the rest of the weekend and for the actual day of the eclipse, we've struggled with a plan.  We had reached a tentative decision to participate in the Totality Festival at Cosmo Park that Sunday by selling tarts.  And then we planned to allow for preorders of Moon Pies for pickup in a short timeframe window early on that day of the eclipse.  But the plan felt very unsettled to us both, no matter how many different stabs we each took at figuring out exactly why we couldn't get on board.  And this morning when I had my bi-weekly meeting with our business coach and he started asking all the questions about our eclipse plan that I couldn't really answer (namely, how doing any of that would further the core business of PJP and the goal of #WPD), I realized why it just feels like a bad fit for us.  Because it is.

(Not that we aren't excited about the eclipse and not that we aren't excited about the value of the tourism coming to Columbia...because we are for all of that.  It's epic and once-in-a-lifetime and I'm certain there will never be more prayers for no rain than early in the morning on the 21st.)

But lean in close because I'm getting ready to impart some Jeanne wisdom that has guided most decisions in my life:  WHEN IN DOUBT, DON'T.  Now, I don't know where she learned this, but she's said it to me in at least 6,000 different situations.  (The only time I've ever seen her waver from her own advice is when it comes to hats.  Especially given her love for large and festive hats...no, I don't understand it either.) When it comes down to the truth, we both felt like we would rather not be shilling Moon Pies but rather watching the eclipse as a family from our #PJPCompound.  So that's what we are going to do.  (Goodness, I adore entrepreneurial freedom.)

In the days leading up to the eclipse, we'll make sure PJP Buttonwood is stocked with plenty of options for our regular customers and our hopeful new friends visiting for the first time.  We'll sell Moon Pies all week (traditional, coffee, AND peanut butter moon pies because we couldn't decide on the best in our taste off).  And we will slice and serve on Saturday from 10:30 to 4.  That will be pretty epic and a once-in-a-PJP-lifetime.  And we don't even have to care if it rains that Saturday.