Thanksgiving 2022 Recap
So, I didn’t mean to fall off the grid for a solid FOURTEEN days, but uh…THANKSGIVING. As it turns out, scaling to Thanksgiving in two stores is a time consuming and overwhelming process. But for all of you that have emailed me, Facebooked me, and texted me to see if we survived and how it all went…here you go:
We did, in fact, survive. By the time it all shook out, we baked just around 3,800 pies. And that’s a feat, even with eight ovens and two baking spaces. For the first time ever, we also opened on Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. It was a good business decision but by Saturday afternoon, I was seriously over being in our stores.
For the most part, pie pick up in two locations was smooth sailing through calm seas. Overall, 98% of our visitors were happy. (Let’s not talk about the other 2%. Woof.)
We did not run out of ingredients and endured no madcap runs to Hyvee, Aldi’s, Walmart, or Sam’s (minus one quick visit for eggs to tide us over until the delivery truck arrived). Do you remember that first Thanksgiving when we had to go to Hyvee and buy all their pumpkin and they said no? I do. And not repeating that level of pumpkin desperation is a crowning achievement in my professional life.
We also did not run out of pie tins, pie boxes, or bags. At either store.
Now, all that said, making just under 4,000 pies is no easy feat…even if you have the ingredients and the packaging materials. So let’s not for a hot second imply that I didn’t question all of my life choices at least five separate times last week.
Team PJP, as you might guess, was the MVP through it all. It takes a special group of people to look at a baking schedule that asks for hundreds of pies and not be daunted by the day ahead. Travis flew back from Dallas on Tuesday night and my heart was full when I walked in early Wednesday morning and found him at his baking table.
We had a line out the door for approximately 90% off the day on Wednesday, which smacked of the overwhelming chaos of our first Thanksgiving at PJP Buttonwood. Except this time we had pies for everyone and that time, we didn’t. Thank goodness for progress.
Most people always wonder which pie we make the most of and it is always pumpkin. I’m going to submit myself to Guiness Book of World Records has the human who has make the most pumpkin pies from scratch.
I did cry twice last week, breaking a two-year no cry streak. Once on Sunday because I was tired and once on Wednesday afternoon when Travis left.
And if you are curious, I heard no less than four Team PJP members express today how happy they were that Thanksgiving - and all the stress we were under - was over until next year. Tru dat.
