A Year Later

I took this picture almost a year ago, and one day before everything kind of changed for us all.

It was early March, and I was snapping a picture of the store to share with customers that morning, but if I recall, Ali had come in and mentioned a few reports, and I actually had a customer go on about another instance as well about a certain issue/sickness/what have you.

I never got around to posting this, I later was at home with my wife asking ourselves what are we going to do? How is the shop going to continue on, and what is the best for us all?

Crazy. I take detailed notes everyday on the bakery/going-ons to refer to for reference and what to make the next year or even on a certain day each month to find the sales trends. Boy-howdy though, looking over last years notes in March, it reads like a horror story.

'X amount of cases' - 'lockdown starts' - 'X amount deceased' - 'No line of customers, people nervous' ...And so forth.

This isn't about politics/beliefs, more about looking back on a year of business and reminding myself (ourselves) about the constant which is change. We were reading the news as a family every night waiting to see if we could go into work, even if we should go in. If we are, what products to not make, how long to stay open. Texting our Health Inspector, waiting for advice on a weekly basis. 

Eventually though, things started to make more sense and we just kept chugging along doing what we could do.

It's been a stressful one, right? But here we are. Somehow decisions were made, bread was baked and people were fed and cared for. What a job! 

Now, Ali and I are looking forward and figuring out how the business and life has changed. Our sales trends are thrown off (again) and what made sense doesn't much anymore or perhaps what people are interested in or how they shop with us has adjusted. My father was in the shop the other morning around 4 a.m. and had a heart to heart with me. The one thing he shared in all of his years of work is that, 'Business Models have to change'. 

With that being said, we are taking a small bakery hiatus shortly after Easter and closing the shop for retail Tuesday the 6th and Wednesday the 7th of April so that we can be a husband and a wife for a moment, and look at the next steps for us all. We never really get to do that much, so we figured we really should. Cause when you are in the woods...

Anywho, enough rambling, thanks for the support, for taking us as we are, and for recognizing that we are just a small family, running a small bakery.

-Arlo