See The Problem?
So, we are officially one week into multi-store ownership and can I just say that IT HAS BEEN THE LONGEST WEEK OF OUR LIVES? (Shouting intended.)
Here’s the most salient points from the last week:
For starters, both stores are doing well. A visit to either would never suggest these past seven days have felt like a solid seven years.
Jason and I ended up working Sunday to have prep work done for a busy Valentine’s Day. That probably didn’t help the seven days = seven years thing. Monday holidays are always an unknown quantity, but we assumed we would be super busy (and we were).
PJP West End is even outpacing PJP Nifong on some days, though almost always at least 95% of the transactions are from completely new customers with no purchase history at PJP. That’s pretty exciting to consider.
So there’s nothing inherently stressful about the addition of a second store to the family. I would guess that it is more a complete disruption to our well established routine that is making our days seem long. It’s well documented around here that I don’t care for change.
It’s probably also the eight trips or so a day we make between both stores. Figuring out how to make sure that we have everything we need in both stores seems never ending.
Here’s today: Jason and Jeanne started at West and I started at Nifong. Then Jason came to Nifong to pick up the deposit and get change. And then he brought change back and picked up pie shells and took those to West. And then when he got to West, he realized they were out of baby pie boxes, so I took a box over there about the time FedEx showed up with some. So I went back to Nifong while our son finished his shift at West and went to Nifong to make dough. Then Jason came back to Nifong to work in the office to pay bills because he didn’t have checks at West. And then Jeanne called and needed baking powder at West and so I said I would bring her some but she wore out waiting on me, so she went to the grocery store and got it over there.
Woof. See the problem?
But the baking, boxing, and selling of the pies seem to have no problems. So how can we complain?
Also, the traffic patterns are fascinating to watch at that store. People are coming in hot to that parking lot at 7 am to get breakfast at McDonald’s. I had no idea of the loyal following.
And in the midst of the whole week, yesterday was my birthday. Thanks for all the kind wishes and texts - I seriously kept forgetting through out the day that it was my birthday because we were so busy. I would just remember when I was in the car driving things back and forth. Ahem.
