A NOTE FROM BRIAN NOYES
~
Christmas Eve has always been my favorite day at the bakery—full of excitement, lots of kids, frivolity and frenzy, with customers in jolly moods (us, too). This year has been different, and I’m sad that we couldn’t visit with you in the store. It’s been lonely inside. I’m sorry that we had to direct you to a quickly-installed 2-foot side window to get your favorite holiday baked goods in your hands, and I hate that we could only greet you through masks as we dropped your bags off at a folding table in our parking lot. And I’m embarrassed that we had to cut off Christmas shipping orders on the last day of November. We had a record number of orders this year, and the pleas to extend the deadline were relentless and entirely understandable (except to the West Coast customer who ordered us to “get your asses in the kitchen and start baking day and night while you have the opportunity. Do you have any idea how many businesses are going out of business as we speak? Very disappointed.”). So were we. But we knew the limits of what we could handle with a smaller staff working around the clock doing heroic work in greater numbers these days. With UPS not guaranteeing delivery past a certain point, it was ludicrous to try to squeeze out more orders when we prize quality over quantity.
We know that many businesses weren’t as fortunate as we’ve been, and it torments us—many of these owners and chefs and workers are our friends. We thank you and our other customers as you ordered an unprecedented number of cakes and pies shipped safely to your front doors during the pandemic. We’ve tried to pay it back (or is it forward?) with cakes, pies, doughnuts and muffins delivered to police stations, sheriff and fire departments, nurses, doctors and maintenance teams in hospitals nearby and elsewhere in the country. We helped make thousands of meals inside the Washington Nationals baseball stadium with José Andres’ World Central Kitchen to serve those going without food. At the suggestion of a customer in Nebraska, we sent cases of our cakes to assisted living centers to buoy the spirits of quarantined residents. We hope it helped.
Merry Christmas and happy new year. We’re looking forward to a better 2021, and I wish you health and happiness, and long-awaited visits with relatives you haven’t seen in the last year. That includes my 96-year-old Aunt Molly, holed up by herself in her senior living apartment since February, and that just breaks my heart.
BRIAN NOYES
Owner, proprietor, and baker-in-chief
We’ll be taking a little time off, closing today at 3 pm and reopening on Monday. We’ll resume taking orders in January and will start shipping on January 18. Thank you for your orders and support.
