Hi folks, as the title would indicate we had a rough week here at the Doughjo headquarters, and we also had a Great week here! I tell ya, its not easy running a small business. Especially one with so many moving parts, like our two pizza rigs. There’s always something just waiting to go wrong, all the time, and you have to be ready to handle it as best you can. This week was no exception.
It was this past Thursday morning, I was headed out to Semifreddi’s to get our morning bread order (we’re still too small to get daily delivery…buy our meatball subs!), when all of a sudden the mini van comes to a grinding halt. I thought I had been rear ended, but I was all alone on Maitland Dr. and the mini van would not go forwards or backwards. Ok. This is not cool. I had just booked a Last minute private catering for Friday, and we had our first ever Camp out wedding experience booked for Saturday 9/6, along with the Oakland First Friday, and another wedding on Saturday in Walnut Creek. Double booked all weekend so shorty is unavailable for my events. Lets just say not the best day for your second towing vehicle to take a shit.
The typical series of phone calls and texts proceeds from that moment on, first to Moe at the Kitchen saying I won’t be back for a little while and can we open at 1pm instead of noon? To my afternoon shift leaders, can you come a little earlier, like now? To AAA to please come and get me, and then a heads up for the guys over at J&O that my shit’s broken and I’m bringin it to you. BTW I need this fixed by 9 am friday…(Not happening). As I know they can’t replace my rear end in seconds I secured a F150 with a two package from our local U-Haul in East o. Set. 9am Friday pickup time and 750 miles covered. Cool. Tow truck on its way, Cool. Broke down in front of a deli, even better, order lunch while waiting for tow truck. Good sandwich BTW, Maitland Deli, below the Chick Corica Golf Course, out near the Health Dept. Weird area for sure, but hey, a good sammy was had.
Next, call first client about Friday, with me saying “So I’m pretty sure we’ll still be on time for Friday night, we had a little car trouble but everything’s Ok, we have rental and all is well!” She says “great no problem, see you when you get here!” Second client however has been out of cell range since Wednesday planning her wedding and camping out, so I figure no need to bother her with this, I’m test driving the U-haul Friday and we’ll be fine. Test drive was great, but the friday gig ran a little later than expected. Time to get home now and back line your Saturday. I finally got out of the kitchen at 1am Friday night/Saturday morning. The gig I took solo was in Tomales Bay, so a bit of driving was necessary. the hours do tick away when working and having fun. And when you stay up that late you can miss a few details.
Saturday morning came too quick, and at 7 am I was loading up the camping stuff from home, set out by my partner Nadia the night before. Check. Head to kitchen, 8 am, start grabbing all the stuff we set out like 6 hours ago. check. Load rental truck, check. Everything here? yes! (not really, but it wasn’t a major thing)… Lets go, on the road by 9:30 am, we had time to hit In and out in Vacaville for early lunch, and arrived at Packsaddle campground 4.5 hours later, at 1:56, right on time. The ceremony and pre dinner party was at Sardine lake. We has three hours to build our camp, get set up and then, at around 5pm, they said Go, make pizzas! We did, and they ate, drank and raved about the whole scene! Definitely one of the nicest weddings we’ve done. With pit toilets and no running water.
Can your average Pizza catering company do that? I don’t think so…