A Dreamy Thought.
Nothing terribly interesting happened at PJP today, unless you count making 546 tarts and bagging each one in a cellophane bag and tying each bag with a ribbon and oh, and putting a sticker on each one. (Coincidentally, 546 also seems to be the number of times Gunnar has been asked in the past two days if he feels any different since getting married last Saturday. Spoiler alert: he basically feels the same.) After we finished the tarts, we bagged them all up in large bags and set them on the front bench until the customer picked up so that we could have room to work on our baking schedule for the day. Almost every person who stopped by before they were picked up looked in the bags and asked about buying the tarts. Because we had counted and recounted and then triple counted ourselves on those tarts in the wee hours of the morning, it was ridiculously easy to say no to the requests. But it made us think of a PJP where tarts were readily available each day. And Jelly Jar pies too. And maybe, if we dare dream, a baking party calendar that wasn't booked out 10 weeks in advance.
And what it comes down to is space. Currently, PJP Buttonwood is 1,050 square feet. As we've consistently grown over the past year, we've really noticed more and more a push on our working space. Either we have too many people in the space and we are in each other's way or the ovens are full and can't hold another tray. Or both. Finding open working space at our tables can be a struggle on the most average of days as we are consistently baking more, so finding space for several people to roll out tarts while others bake for the shop is darn near impossible in our current setup.
Which led us this afternoon to stare directly at the south wall in PJP Buttonwood and envision knocking a huge hole in it to access the vacant space next door. I haven't done the research, but I would guess that our landlord would charge $1.2 billion dollars to knock a hole in a wall. And the city would want architectural plans, 41 different permits, and the blood of my first-born child before even considering the removal of the carpet next door, much less the hole in the wall. In sum total, I would guess adding on to our space would cost us all of our sanity and a trillion dollars, give or take $10 bucks.
But a space to house the PJP Tart Division, Jelly Jar Division, Wedding and Events Division, Shipping Division, and Dough Division...well, it is a dreamy thought, no?
