For All Seasons
It’s the end of an era this week, as our much discussed shipping container is sadly leaving us on Friday. If you recall, we rented it just before Thanksgiving last year in order to store enough pie boxes, pie tins, flour, and sugar for our busiest two holidays of the year - plus our 6,000 tart commitment to the Holiday Light Show. And it must have been a slow news week when it arrived, because local media even stopped by to cover the arrival of the container. (In the past year, I’ve been on local news to discuss a shipping container and on national news to discuss the price of chopped pecans. Owning a business takes you in unexpected places, for sure.)
Honestly, the plan was to return the shipping container after the holidays. But then we were massively behind schedule on PJP West and we needed a place to store items that were in a holding pattern for the new store. And then we opened a new store and we were in a holding pattern as we figured out how to order and stock supplies for two locations. And then springtime inflation arrived (and I guess now we can also refer to it as summertime inflation), so we tried to buy bulk quantities of flour and sugar in anticipation of fall and winter inflation. (It’s like Girl For All Seasons from Grease 2, but the inflation story.). And now here we are.
The Kroenke Group has asked us to have the container removed because they plan to paint the back of the building and repave the parking lot. That sounds nice, because goodness knows it needs it…but also, it will likely cause our common maintenance charges to go up by $145,000.
We need to have it emptied by Friday morning. So this morning, Travis moved out 1100 pie boxes, 1600 pie tins, 900 shipping boxes, half a pallet of flour, and two Christmas trees. Tomorrow, I’ll need to empty the fall and holiday merchandise and find a spot for all of that, which should be easy with a combined 5,000 square feet of space in two stores…but it won’t be.
Here’s what else happens later this week:
May Epic Pie Tasting is sold out at both stores. We have some fun flavors planned.
We have big tart orders at both stores for weddings this weekend. It’s such a Sophie’s Choice for me because I like to be in both places and micromanage both events.
We have a lot of holiday weekend orders, so pre-order if you are adamant on a certain flavor.
We will be closed on Monday, May 30th for Memorial Day.
And no lie, the thought of a Sunday/Monday off is 10/10. Except we will probably be transporting Christmas trees to our house…
