Destination Location

Well, we are all still recuperating from the busiest Father's Day weekend in PJP history.  And by the time I arrived home late on Saturday afternoon, I noticed that our cat Miranda looked exactly like I felt...

Without question, we were a hard working team all through last week.  And I know this is stating the obvious, but it was SO HOT IN OUR STORE.  At one point, it was 86 degrees in the store and thermostat was set to 69.  Gah.  I'm not sure if it was all the people in a small space working, or that both ovens were running most of the day, or if our air conditioner is slowly dying.  (Hey, have you noticed that I always tend to jump to the worst case scenario super quickly?  It takes real skill.)

So, beyond my complaining about first world problems, THANK YOU so much to everyone that made PJP part of their Father's Day weekend festivities.  We even had two sweet ladies drive from Springfield to Columbia just to visit PJP.  They drove all the way here, had lunch at Sophia's on our recommendation, and then stopped back by to pick up their pies and headed back south to Springfield.  I had to hold back tears because I was just so proud of our PJP and that she is blossoming into a veritable destination location.

Which brings up something that is on our minds quite a bit as of late.  To be honest, everything at PJP feels like it is in an awkward adolescent stage.  She's grown 78% since her earliest days, if you can even imagine.  And we are out of space as we continue to grow.  And goodness knows we have ideas for days about what our future could look like.  That said, we often solicit feedback and in the last two weeks I've heard:  1) stay where you are and get better at what you do, 2) open a second location in Columbia so that PJP saturates the market, 3) rent the space next door to us and knock down the wall, 4) move somewhere else entirely in a bigger location, 5) stay in current location but use the money would have spent on rent and buy a pie truck.  Or I guess, 6) do nothing and stay the same...which is probably the easiest option, hahahahahaha.

Goodness.  We have no idea what the answer is (though we are seriously going to have to stop soliciting opinions because give it another two weeks and there will be another 18 ideas I hadn't even considered).  I think this is where large companies with deep pockets go on retreats in tropical locations...in order to clear their minds and make huge decisions fueled by 12 hours of sleep and drinks with umbrellas.  Ahhh...wouldn't that be lovely?

In lieu of deep pockets and exotic locales, we are going to have to work on some answers.  And read up on air conditioning optimization.