Gah.

If you’ve been around here for a hot second, then you are well aware that we are OUT OF SPACE at PJP Buttonwood. In no particular order, we need more room for: people, ingredients, supplies, retail, and oh…the elusive seating area everyone wants, with the elusive fiber Internet connection and the elusive coffee bar. Oh, and the elusive office space that we so desperately want (because crying in the alleyway is terribly overrated and swearing at Quickbooks in private is terribly underrated).

And whatever, because we’ve all known this for at least the last 36 months…though the space situation has really reached critical mass in the last year. We’ve weighed a lot of options and attended a lot of meetings about possible spaces over the last six months. And as a spoiler alert, most of them include mortgage or rent payments that make me want to throw up in our overfilled dumpster. I’m not above using our bathroom as a quiet space for a conference call if it saves us $7,000 a month, holla.

But, we’ve begun to slowly gather information and put some pieces together…all the while thinking that our Plan B would be the simple lease of the space next door. If you recall, we rent it each Thanksgiving season and so we’ve been in the space quite a bit. The roof leaks and the back door requires the strength of an Olympic athlete to open, but it is affordable and a safe option for a doubling of the space in our current store. Plus, we would have a legit reason to knock a wall down and that sounded like an interesting distraction for when I’m deep in the throes of hating January.

Do you want to guess where this story is going?

SOMEONE RENTED THE SPACE LAST WEEK.

Gah.

(I won’t say who rented it, as it isn’t my story to tell. I have no idea when the storefront plans to open or any other details. But still, GAH.)

There’s no one to blame except for us, since we’ve had ample opportunity to explore the idea fully. BUT GOODNESS. We straight up took that space for granted because it’s always been empty. Siiiiiiiiiigh. Lesson learned, universe.

Not long ago I said here that I needed a scroll to fall from the sky with a directive on it and on the upside, this certainly makes a few key decisions that much easier. On a more urgent note, I have no idea what this will do for our Thanksgiving pickups. I plan to give myself a solid seven days of being righteously indignant about the whole thing and then I’ll start thinking about the logistics.

If you see us in the alleyway, well…TEARS.