CC Pies
I worked today to clean up the office a bit at Nifong. That decision was probably driven less by actual need and more by a futile attempt to control my anxiety about the coming weeks ahead. (I would be remiss here to not mention that Thanksgiving orders close in just 10 days. It’s all we basically talk about at PJP.)
I did find an old menu from the early years of PJP, circa early 2000s. And what would you guess a baby pie cost in 2000?
THREE DOLLARS AND NINETY FIVE CENTS.
Can you even imagine? In 2024, we have more than $3.95 in raw costs in a baby pie. The sticker on the box alone is .24 cents and when we misprint and throw the stickers away, I can get very fussy and it makes me feel like an an overly difficult person. Ahem.
(There were no stickers sealing the boxes in 2000. That’s super weird now that I think about it. I guess those were the halcyon days of low cost pies in boxes that could be opened by anyone. I would ask Jeanne how that worked, but she won’t remember. Someone that currently works for us had a friend that worked for Peg and Jeanne in the mid-1990s and that person said Jeanne wore out with him because he was narcoleptic and therefore not the fastest baker. Would you believe that Jeanne didn’t remember this narcoleptic baker? I feel like I would. And also, she must not have been too worn out with him or she would 100% remember the whole situation.)
I also found a piece of history from this version of PJP. We used to order pads and pads of paper order forms. For at least six years of our existence, we would handwrite each order we received and then hang it on a clip on the wall with the day of the week clip. Even typing it makes me wonder how we survived it.
Obviously, this process was wrought with error.
We spelled things wrong all the time. (On the upside, I’ve taught at least 30 college kids to spell “meringue” correctly.)
The abbreviation “CC” can mean so many things. Chocolate Cream, Coconut Cream, Chocolate Chess, Cherry Crisp, Chocolate Chip, and more. You don’t know panic until you stand there at 5 in the morning and try to decide what it means.
Order forms would end up on the wrong clip. So maybe the person wants to pickup on the 8th and so you think, oh well, that’s Tuesday…but it’s actually Wednesday. Yep.
Once the clip got too heavy, it would slide down the wall and that’s how we would decide to close orders for that day.
It wasn’t really until Jason joined PJP that he automated the process. I just hadn’t really thought about it until I saw that leftover order form laying in the office and it felt like a life we lived 100 years ago. It’s only been a few years, but probably one of the most significant changes that has helped streamline us and make us more efficient. Shoot, I’ve probably gotten at least five hours of my life back in not making guesses about CC pies on order.
