Hail the conquering heroes!
I've been storing up things to blog about, but I haven't had a good block of time to type them out in weeks. March was a busy month for us, with more than one private event every week, which meant that whenever I wasn't actually teaching a class or doing an event, I was preparing for the next one. April is much quieter, which is not good in a business sense, but I have to admit it's nice to do silly things like my laundry.
There is much to report. First, you will be pleased to hear that Generous Servings decisively won our court battle against the evil shipping company that dropped our mixer. They didn't show up to the court date. I had to sit in the courtroom (hardly the echoing chamber of justice I was hoping for; the decorating scheme leaned heavily toward wood laminate) for the requisite 20 minutes past our court time to make sure that they weren't going to come late, which I spent in conversation with the only other person who had showed up for his court date (a guy who was being sued for $2800 for knocking over and scratching a bike in a bike shop). There were three cases on the docket, but no plaintiff-defendant pair was present, so there wasn't a lot of drama. The only other people there to witness my great triumph were the judge, who had a really impressive Santa Claus beard, and a court clerk who obviously had years of practice at cutting people off who were about to launch into long stories. When it was my turn, the judge called me up, asked my name, checked that I had the sheriff's affidavit of service (proving that the freight company had been notified about our court date), and told me to tell my story. I kept it to the one-sentence version--the freight company dropped my mixer and now it doesn't work--and since there was no one there to contest it, that was about all there was to do. The judge asked me a few questions about the estimate for repairing the mixer, and then it was over. My very first court victory. Of course, collecting the money is an entirely different matter--the court doesn't help you with that. I followed my dad's very crafty suggestion of allowing the appeal period to elapse before I contacted the company to tell them where to send the check--no point in drawing their attention to the fact that they lost while there's anything they can do about it. Now that it's been more than 15 days, I am ready to resume my usual role of Most Annoying Customer You've Ever Tried To Screw Over. Thank you very much, I'll be here all week.
Around the same time as my legal debut, we also had our first unannounced inspection by the Health Department. The inspector was very nice, and it didn't take long for me to casually mention that I have a Ph.D. in microbiology, after which we really bonded--he had a master's in biology! We had a heart-to-heart conversation about science, including the joys of labeling and handwashing. Jill had to leave the room to keep from laughing. The inspector gave us a clean report, which we have hung up in the bathroom, in case you'd like to see it. He also said he'd stop by for coffee soon, which I think should give us some extra credit, because if the health department inspector is willing to eat in your establishment, that's a very good sign.
Another exciting thing that happened was totally unexpected. A month ago, some people came in who are planning on opening a chain of coffee shops in the area, and they were sampling baked goods from every bakery they could find to determine where to purchase the pastries for their stores. They asked where we bought our pastries, and we told them we baked them all here, and we gave them some pastries to sample. A week later they called and said that our pastries were the best they'd had in Denver. So we set up a meeting to discuss the possibility of wholesaling our pastries to their coffee shops, which I have no idea how to do, but seems like an interesting possibility. That meeting was today, so I've been baking extra all week to stockpile a broad variety of our pastries for them to try. I got a little nervous about the meeting--I feel like I'm jumping into yet another arena in which I am lacking some vital information that would come with experience. I got stressed out about needing to calculate how much it costs us to make each pastry, but when I finally got around to gathering all the ingredient costs and putting my Excel skills to work, I learned some interesting facts about what we sink money into (our most expensive item to make is banana bread--would you ever have guessed that?). Also, it turned out to be fun to realize how many kinds of pastries we actually make (I've never seen them all piled up in one place before), and how proud I am of their quality. I don't know if the wholesaling thing will work out--there are a lot of practical issues (delivery, liability, etc.) that might prove difficult--but it was a good meeting, and we'll keep talking.
We're running a special on class registrations right now--sign up for three classes and get $30 off--so if you've been looking at a few classes (or want to sign up for a class with a couple of friends), now's the time. We've also got $1 lattes in the cafe through tomorrow to celebrate the grand opening of our patio (which is actually closed now because it snowed). That's it for now--I've got to do dishes from the very fun Chicken In Every Pot class that I just finished. I'll leave you with a quote from one of the participants' feedback forms: "I loved this class--I learned so many new recipes and skills that I will be able to use at home. Everything tasted amazing and Mary was a great teacher--very helpful and patient. I want to come back for more classes soon."
Awwwww, I love you guys. Group hug.
There is much to report. First, you will be pleased to hear that Generous Servings decisively won our court battle against the evil shipping company that dropped our mixer. They didn't show up to the court date. I had to sit in the courtroom (hardly the echoing chamber of justice I was hoping for; the decorating scheme leaned heavily toward wood laminate) for the requisite 20 minutes past our court time to make sure that they weren't going to come late, which I spent in conversation with the only other person who had showed up for his court date (a guy who was being sued for $2800 for knocking over and scratching a bike in a bike shop). There were three cases on the docket, but no plaintiff-defendant pair was present, so there wasn't a lot of drama. The only other people there to witness my great triumph were the judge, who had a really impressive Santa Claus beard, and a court clerk who obviously had years of practice at cutting people off who were about to launch into long stories. When it was my turn, the judge called me up, asked my name, checked that I had the sheriff's affidavit of service (proving that the freight company had been notified about our court date), and told me to tell my story. I kept it to the one-sentence version--the freight company dropped my mixer and now it doesn't work--and since there was no one there to contest it, that was about all there was to do. The judge asked me a few questions about the estimate for repairing the mixer, and then it was over. My very first court victory. Of course, collecting the money is an entirely different matter--the court doesn't help you with that. I followed my dad's very crafty suggestion of allowing the appeal period to elapse before I contacted the company to tell them where to send the check--no point in drawing their attention to the fact that they lost while there's anything they can do about it. Now that it's been more than 15 days, I am ready to resume my usual role of Most Annoying Customer You've Ever Tried To Screw Over. Thank you very much, I'll be here all week.
Around the same time as my legal debut, we also had our first unannounced inspection by the Health Department. The inspector was very nice, and it didn't take long for me to casually mention that I have a Ph.D. in microbiology, after which we really bonded--he had a master's in biology! We had a heart-to-heart conversation about science, including the joys of labeling and handwashing. Jill had to leave the room to keep from laughing. The inspector gave us a clean report, which we have hung up in the bathroom, in case you'd like to see it. He also said he'd stop by for coffee soon, which I think should give us some extra credit, because if the health department inspector is willing to eat in your establishment, that's a very good sign.
Another exciting thing that happened was totally unexpected. A month ago, some people came in who are planning on opening a chain of coffee shops in the area, and they were sampling baked goods from every bakery they could find to determine where to purchase the pastries for their stores. They asked where we bought our pastries, and we told them we baked them all here, and we gave them some pastries to sample. A week later they called and said that our pastries were the best they'd had in Denver. So we set up a meeting to discuss the possibility of wholesaling our pastries to their coffee shops, which I have no idea how to do, but seems like an interesting possibility. That meeting was today, so I've been baking extra all week to stockpile a broad variety of our pastries for them to try. I got a little nervous about the meeting--I feel like I'm jumping into yet another arena in which I am lacking some vital information that would come with experience. I got stressed out about needing to calculate how much it costs us to make each pastry, but when I finally got around to gathering all the ingredient costs and putting my Excel skills to work, I learned some interesting facts about what we sink money into (our most expensive item to make is banana bread--would you ever have guessed that?). Also, it turned out to be fun to realize how many kinds of pastries we actually make (I've never seen them all piled up in one place before), and how proud I am of their quality. I don't know if the wholesaling thing will work out--there are a lot of practical issues (delivery, liability, etc.) that might prove difficult--but it was a good meeting, and we'll keep talking.
We're running a special on class registrations right now--sign up for three classes and get $30 off--so if you've been looking at a few classes (or want to sign up for a class with a couple of friends), now's the time. We've also got $1 lattes in the cafe through tomorrow to celebrate the grand opening of our patio (which is actually closed now because it snowed). That's it for now--I've got to do dishes from the very fun Chicken In Every Pot class that I just finished. I'll leave you with a quote from one of the participants' feedback forms: "I loved this class--I learned so many new recipes and skills that I will be able to use at home. Everything tasted amazing and Mary was a great teacher--very helpful and patient. I want to come back for more classes soon."
Awwwww, I love you guys. Group hug.
posted by The Cooking Doctor at
9:57 PM
2 Comments:
Congratulations on the impressive victory. Your readers want to know what happened with the wholesale pastry interview, especially those who have been out of the country and therefore out of touch.
Hmm, I wonder who wrote the anonymous comment. I would also like to add that in addition to the sidewalk and wastewater police coming, the tree police visited! Who even knew there was such a position as the Arboreal Inspector for the City and County of Denver? I have to admit, I thought the guy was kidding about his job when he first mentioned it. Whoops.
For anyone wondering, we passed inspection after I explained the atrocity of junipers (and lack of trees) which we selflessly removed for the city right-of-way inspector. He left with the recommendation of planting shade trees. We're are deeply considering his recommendation.
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