A Small Upgrade
Today, our new washer and dryer were installed at PJP Nifong. That sounds rather mundane, but you would have thought Santa was at the back door when the delivery people arrived because our linen woes have plagued us for years. We currently spend almost $500 a month for our aprons and dish towels to be laundered in a commercial facility. (And while I’ve never been there, I feel strongly that it looks just like the commercial laundry facility in Breaking Bad.). But imagine this - the $500 a month can’t even keep us in a full supplies of all the aprons and towels we need. It was the highlight of Jeanne’s day when she called the national linen company and basically said “it’s not us, it’s you” and then broke up with them.
In non-laundry news, here are some items of interest:
We took advantage of the beautiful weather yesterday and fully decorated the storefront for spring/Easter. And I know I’m biased, but it is adorable and cheerful. We are getting much better at leaning into the holidays and creating an atmosphere within our space during each season.
I realized today that next Friday - March 5th - is already $5 Friday again. Remember that when the calendar naturally falls with the fifth on a Friday, we sell all baby pies for $5. We had this happen zero times in 2020, but it’s already happened once in 2021 on February 5th.
And then it is March 14th - National Pi(e) Day. Last year on National Pi(e) Day, we had a line that snaked all the way to our back door AND it was the final “regular” day we had before the pandemic changed the way we live. What a difference a year makes, no? At any rate, we will discount all pies in the store by $3.14 again and just maintain a strict four person in the store at all times policy.
Then I read about Saturday, April 3rd and that retailers are finding fun promotions for 4,3,2,1 (get it? 4/3/21) and I thought that it SERIOUSLY NEVER ENDS. I’m too competitive to let it pass, but I’m too not stressed about it to figure it out. I feel like that is a 3/31/21 activity.
Finally, we’ve been working for quite some awhile on upgrading our Jelly Jar shipment packaging. We ordered a cool new machine and a solid start of 15,000 feet of brand logo thermal kraft tape to seal our shipping boxes. A small upgrade, but a total win.
