Sunday, February 9, 2014

Opening times & the SBP Team

My baby Short Black Panther is just over a month old! It has been very exciting and for the most part, a hell of a lot more enjoyable for myself than I expected.  The demograph of customers that we attracted has been the best part.  All of my regulars are amazing and I love them very much!  Which brings me to my short story, and important announcement about opening times...

We have experimented with being open every day 6am-3.30pm, and we have experimented with being closed on Mondays and having half days on Sundays.  On Sunday, at close time, we had a lot of people try to come in for some lunch.  I've also asked around, and lots of people would enjoy the chance to come in for a coffee and bite to eat on Sunday afternoon.  Because of this, we will now remain open on Sunday until 3.30pm.  We apologise for any inconvenience caused to those people who tried to dine in on Sunday afternoons this month.  You will be very welcome to join us here in future!

Now about Mondays.  I, Danielle, am the soul owner of Short Black Panther.  Single handedly I designed every aspect of this shop.  With this in mind, obviously the shop is my baby.  My pride and joy.  I find the concept of leaving the shop in the hands of anyone else, for even an hour, really challenging.  For that reason, I close on Mondays to give myself a break.  However, today is Monday and I sit in my shop anyway while the hot water system gets replaced.  There never truly is a day off in the life of a business owner.  While I sit in the front window right now with the doors closed, person after person walks by and looks in the window.  I smile apologetically that I am closed, and they read my opening times on the blackboard out the front.  Then they walk away to get their caffeine fix elsewhere.  This is killing me.  I need to be open right now.

Starting tomorrow, Feb11th, Short Black Panther will be open all day, every day for the rest of your life. Deal with it.  I will still have my day off, but the rest of the team will look after the shop in my absence one day a week.  My team have shown me that they care for the shop too.  That they want the place to succeed and that they value the patronage of each of my wonderful customers as much as I do.  I really couldn't come up with a better lot of people to leave the shop in the hands of a few hours a week.  It's not that big a deal...I guess!

So see you in store from tomorrow.

Much love,
Dani.

& Lewis & Ali & Jon & Deb & Emma & Nicolas & Gemma & Liz

1 comment:

  1. Great news, Dani! Good for you for taking some time out for yourself, but leaving SBP in great hands.
    Looking forward to stopping by more often.

    ReplyDelete