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After my first day, things in the bakery had been fantastic. I’d gained a lot of new patrons, and for the first few weeks, the store was constantly busy. I hired a young woman named Anne, and she was a godsend. She had baking experience and was thrilled that there was a bakery on the island now. She always beat me to the bakery and started on the morning baking before she was even scheduled to be there. If it weren’t for Anne being with me for the first half of every day, I would have drowned and been begging my sister to help me every day. The morning rush was always insane, but I loved every second.
Our donuts were popular with the local offices, who had been putting in consistent orders about once a week, and Anne had become my donut gal. She focused on filling the orders while I worked on beards and pastries.
I still wasn’t making any personal money from this venture, but I had enough saved to not worry about it. For now, I just wanted to focus on investing in my business and paying off the business loans that had allowed me to open it.
But today, I was scared. We’d been open for six weeks, and though our clientele had slowed down over the weeks after the new business craze wore off, I was worried that it would slow down even more. I hoped that my wide range of goody offerings would keep people walking through the doors.
Midnight Cookieswas going to open today. The name matched the dark color of the building and the aesthetic that I could see from the window this morning when I walked by. It was the first time I had allowed myself to even look.
It was beautiful inside with moody, dark colors and jewel tones. Spot on for what was trending right now.
The store would open at ten, but my bakery opened at six, so I had four hours to serve guests before knowing howhisopening was going. I’d done my best not to think about him since he came to my store on my opening day, but I was a failure in that department.
Around eight in the morning, I noticed a group of people standing in front of my building. They weren’t coming inside, and seemed to be clustered, but I wasn’t clear on why they were just standing in front of my store.
“Anne?” I call, and a few seconds later, she emerges from the back, wiping her hands on her pink apron. She was finishing up macarons for tomorrow while I took care of customers this morning. “Can you take care of the customers while I check on what’s going on out there?”
There was a short line of three people waiting to get their baked goods, and Anne quickly stepped in. I walked to the door, seeing more people going the group standing in front of my store. When I pushed open the front door, and the bell rang, I realized that they were actually blocking my bakery. I couldn’t even push the door open all the way until the group moved back.
I looked to my left to see that the group of people reached all the way to the front door ofMidnight Cookies. This was the queue for his opening. It was longer than any line I’d ever had.
Anger boiled in my veins, along with insecurity. I didn’t have a line two hours before I opened. And there were at least forty people here. Blocking my bakery!
I hated confrontation in most forms, and the idea of talking to strangers in a potentially confrontational way made me sick, so I retreated back into the safety of my bakery for a few seconds, considering the outcomes.
No, I would just have to do it. They would understand.
I pushed the door open again and stuck my head out. “Hey guys!” I started off cheerfully to hopefully get them to like me. “If you could direct the line to the other side ofMidnight, that would be great. You’re kind of blocking my store.”
The five people that actually looked at me while I was talking all just stared at me blankly. Then they turned back to their conversation, completely ignoring everything that I said. I couldn’t say anything again, because that would definitely send me to anxiety-town.
I trudged to the back of the bakery, picking up the icing pipe and picking up Anne’s work where she had left off. I needed some time away from the counter, and I’m sure Anne would understand.
After an hour of filling over a hundred macarons and only hearing five door dings, the sound of the swinging doors pulled my attention. Anne looked at me with a sympathetic smile, coming to take the icing from me. Wordlessly, she picked up where I had left off. The clock above the swinging door told me it was only nine-thirty.
I walked back out to the front, seeing that now my storefront was completely blocked by a swarm of people. This was so inconsiderate and rude, and I couldn’t believe all of these people were in front of my store without coming in! They wouldn’t have to wait for cookies if they just walked inside! Or they could at least not block my door so that others could see that I’m open!
When I reached the front windows, I saw that the line went far past my store, further than I could even tell from my vantage point.
I groaned in frustration as I walked to the back and joined Anne. The bakery was now completely empty aside from the two of us, and I was convinced that Liam was the reason.
“Why don’t you go get an early lunch?” Anne asked, her tone motherly, though she was four years younger than me. “I’ll take care of this and call you if I need anything.” She set down the piping back and ushered me to the back door that let out into an alley that would obviously not be as crowded as my front entrance. “Go.”
She didn’t give me a choice, and I laughed slightly at how it felt like she was my boss now. I did as she said, and walked down the alley until I was a few blocks down. There wasn’t much open this early serving lunch, but really I just needed the fresh air away from the masses, ready to buy all of Liam’s cookies.
It would be okay. This was just the opening day and people were excited. Even though I’d been selling cookies for over a month now. They were just excited for the fad-style bakery.
I walked for a while, my apron still on over my clothes. I didn’t care, though. I’d found my way to the only coffee shop on this side of town and sat down inside with a blond latte, allowing the liquid gold to calm my nerves.
I would just have to find better ways to compete if this continued. For the past few weeks, I’d avoided paying attention to anything that Liam was doing for his business. I stayed off of all the leading social media outlets, terrified he would show up in my algorithm to taunt me.
After my breakup with Liam, social media had such a negative impact on my well-being that I didn't have much interest in using it. I would use it to check on him way too often and finally had to cut it out of my life so that I could move on. I actually only opened Facebook once a month to see if my youngest sister posted anything cool from her life in New York City.
Despite being in a small town where word-of-mouth is powerful and tourists can easily spot my bakery from a distance, I recognized that I needed to increase my social media presence. Although I had created accounts on all the major social media platforms, I hadn't done much else to promote my business online.
But maybe I needed to reconsider my strategy.
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