Get Your Planners.
Well, here we are on Day Two of Spring Break and we are fairing well at a marginally understaffed PJP. WHEW. I went to the mall yesterday with one of my kids and there was basically like seven other people there (and we were all in the same checkout line at Target). Because of the mall's slowness, this morning I created a fairly light baking schedule in anticipation of slow sales on a rainy Tuesday...and then we turned out to be significantly busy, selling almost everything we made. I may have guessed all wrong on how many pies to bake today, but here is a few things I've scheduled correctly that you'll want to know about...
- We are planning for a Slice and Serve event next Saturday, April 7th. We've done this once before and it was wildly popular...in short, we only bake nine-inch pies and we slice them and sell a slice for $3, tax included. It is a super fun event and a great way to try flavors you've always been curious to sample. Due to high demand, slices will be sold first-come, first serve.
- I also added the April Epic Pie Tasting to the calendar. It is scheduled for Thursday, April 26th at 6 pm. This event typically sells out within a day or so of being posted, so grab your planners now and check your availability. Tickets can be purchased over the phone starting at 8 am tomorrow. (Also, pro tip: due to an impossibly overbooked May, we won't hold a pie tasting event in May. We will resume in June.)
- And here's a new one for you...I'm getting ready to post the details of a MasterClass Workshop with Jeanne. It is planned for Saturday, April 21st at 2 pm and capped at only four guests. You'll spend two hours with Jeanne as she teaches you the finer points of dough rolling, the tips and tricks of lattice work, and most importantly...how to make a beautiful meringue. And she will probably dispense a fair amount of Jeanne wisdom that could potentially be life changing. You may want to even go home and watch Gunsmoke when it is all over. Ticket prices are $99, which includes all materials and supplies, the two baby pies you create (the latticed and the meringue), a PJP pie server, a $10 gift card to PJP, and an all access pass to Jeanne's thoughts on life and baking. And probably her thoughts on cleaning, too.
- Coming to PJP soon are reusable PJP tote bags and we are super excited. The perfect size for nine-inch pies or several babies, once you purchase a reusable bag, you'll get 5% off your purchase every time you visit PJP for-evah.
- And this last thing has nothing to do with anything really, but on Saturday we received a phone call from a person claiming to be from the City of Columbia Utilities office. He was in transit to turn off our electricity because we were past due. EXCEPT WE WEREN'T. And when I said that our March payment had actually cleared earlier in the week, he goes, "no, you are two months past due and I'll be there in a few minutes". And then I responded that he couldn't be more wrong, so he should hang up if it was a scam call. So he did. Here are my thoughts:
- I feel like calling random businesses to scam them out of payments to the utilities office takes a lot of patience. First, you have to find a business that has someone available that has access to the finances. And then you have to find one that agrees they haven't paid the electric bill. And then they have to have the funds available on a card. And then the scammer (in this case, his name was Michael) has to have a way to process the credit card. Overall, I feel like whomever cooked up this scheme didn't think the whole process through that well. And I would think Michael could use his time more productively.
- Also, I wonder if Michael ever thought through the whole "I'm driving there now to disconnect you unless you pay me" part of that spiel. I feel like the conversation was full of a lot of dumb things, but that was the most dumb. Not well played, Michael. At all.
- I feel ill to think of how many personal residences he called with the same story and terrified them into paying because he was threatening.
- You'll rarely hear me announce this publicly, but I'm super happy my Quickbooks was all up to date so that I knew immediately Michael was a big liar. I feel like the Quickbooks marketing people are missing a big angle with this.
- I should have invited Michael to the MasterClass. I feel like two hours with Jeanne's advice on baking and the world in general might be a game changer...