it's groundhog day

lessons learned (again, and again, and again)

There is an old rule in marketing that says it takes repeating something 7 or more times to consume the message. In August Pie & Mighty moved for the 7th time in its history of existence. You would think after that many moves we’d learned a thing or two about a thing or two. Our last note to you said we’d be popping up with our friends at Tandem Vintage today. Sadly, we’ve been foiled by our move, again, for the 7th time.

Mother’s Day 2017, our first big move fail. We’d been invited to sell our pies at a local BBQ joint that a friend was opening. We’d been baking in our church kitchen, eager, learning stuff, and growing slowly but surely. Back then we thought the greatest thing would be to put our pie in front of all new audiences—by the slice even—and get “real.” Or at least a little bigger. In order to sell pie at the BBQ spot, we’d need to be in a licenced kitchen. We looked at shared kitchens but we didn’t have any idea how much time we needed. Shared kitchens charge by the hour, and we just couldn’t make the math work. So we found this little pizza joint not so far away. The place was closed during the day (when we wanted to bake) and seemed fairly slow even when they were open. It looked like it could use a renter.

Three massive pizza ovens, one of which the temperature just would not be controlled, and a whole bunch of counter space was what this place offered. That seemed like enough. Forget that we didn’t have a freezer, decent refrigerator space, or that fact that we’d never baked in a deck oven before. Also, up to that point we were pyrex glass pie plate snobs. Aluminum pans? Why? It’s so wasteful, and unnecessary. Glass was best. Then we started the baking.

A whole week leading up to Mother’s Day we’d been testing with exactly zero success. I was scouring the internet and calling cheffy friends begging for advice on what to do. Every time the pie would be perfectly baked on top but lift the pie up and you’d see raw soggy bottoms.

The day before Mother’s Day we had scheduled 35 people to come for pie pick-up. We tried to get ahold of everyone, we really did. “Sorry, we just can’t sell you this pie” the texts and emails said. But we couldn’t get ahold of everyone, so we’d need to show up and disappoint people in person.

A good friend we did get ahold of said “whatever, I’ll still eat it. I’ll just flip it upside down into a bowl, add some ice cream, and eat the best parts.” Between her message and whoknowswhat, I got an idea. We’d turn this disaster into a party. We’d get balloons, streamers, hats, and horns. We’d set ourselves up on the patio, play music and let everyone know we failed—but come anyway. We have partially good pie, you should come and have some with us. Come help us fail spectacularly and be less alone.

Lemons into lemonade. It wasn’t easy peasy but it was perfect in all it’s imperfection. Today we’re remembering that feeling, those people, and calling on that energy to remind ourselves, it’s only pie (afterall).

During this past month we’ve moved into a new kitchen. Feeling all big in our britches we announced this pop-up and set out to baking without doing much testing. We made all the dough we needed, went to roll it out and UGH. It is 100% shit. We tried to hurry and make more, but like the “no crying in baseball” rule, there is no hurrying when it comes to good pie.

Good pie takes time and we just plumb ran out without a backup plan. This is hard BUT the story above reminds us we’ve been here before. Time to break out of old thinking (and doing) to try some new stuff.

“You can’t solve problems with the same mind that created them.”
- Wayne Dyer (and my dad)

---

Hey Ainsley. You are awesome and hilarious and I hope you keep creating amazing art.