It's my favorite time of year to be at work. I'm happy to see the business battling sales records all Summer long, and there is a certain excitement that comes with the furious tide of December mail order days, but I prefer taking life a bit slower.
The post-holidays Winter to early Spring segment of the year is the time when we try new things, be they grab & go items, like cookies, pasta salads, and condiments, or new smoked meat and fish products for our deli cases. Right now, our fish, meat, and grab & go cases are fully-stocked with goodies.
It's also the time for larger projects, and planning for the aforementioned projects: A break from the routine, and, of course, time for a few more breaths between each movement.
Here's a few things that happened this week.
Megan cleaned and organized the deep freeze.
No one asked, "Hey, Megan—would you like to clean the deep freeze?" In fact, it was Megan who asked, "Hey, is it cool if I clean the deep freeze?"
Four hours later, it went from a chaotic state—which, for my anxiety's sake, I don't have a photo of—to this nice, organized area in which I will still always irrationally fear becoming trapped.
This is much better.
Thank you, Megan!
Work began on our new office.
The plan is to knock down a few walls in our current third floor office, so we can fit another large walk-in cooler in our collective space, leaving only enough room for the mail order office and workstations.
Meanwhile, Rosewater Music has moved their operation to a new location, and we're taking over that space—conveniently also on the third floor of the DeWitt-Seitz building—to accommodate our creative team, managers, and anyone else who would be displaced.
More details and photos will be coming in the next handful of weeks.
We finally have jerky.
This business may be in its third decade of life, but we haven't run out of ideas yet.
Jerky is an often-requested item at our deli, and with the success of other take & eat items like our host of snack sticks, and Patricia's various baked goods, Eric decided it was time to give the people what they wanted.
We're currently offering three varieties of Smoked Jerky—Umami Tsunami Bison Jerky, Maple Bourbon Bison Jerky, and Sockeye Salmon Jerky—with plans of new varieties to come.
Learn more about our Smoked Jerky here.
Soba Noodle Salad.
Patricia came up with this delicious new use for our Teriyaki Smoked Tofu, which is now available out of our deli meat case for $8.50/lb.
I could say some more about it, or you could just read the list of ingredients:
The savvy cook will know what to do with this list better than I, but if you'd like to skip all the steps of smoking tofu, preparing the noodles, chopping and grating the ingredients, and more, just stop in and try it.
Patricia is working on a few other pasta salads at the moment, and always up to something new in the bakery. We'll do our best to inform you as each of these new offerings occurs.
Sandwich Lab Specials return!
This is the preview to the preview: Next week we'll be announcing the FOUR NEW SANDWICHES coming to our menu from the November 2019 Sandwich Lab.
And two sandwiches from last year's cycle of monthlong Sandwich Lab Specials join the permanent menu: The Wagner and The Sebu-Chan. Each selected based on their successful sales numbers, as well as their popularity amongst our staff, who voted these the top two.
On top of all that, come March, we'll be offering two new sandwiches: an as-of-yet unnamed smoked fish sandwich in development, and The Pack Lunch, our sandwich collaboration with our friendly neighbors at Duluth Pack.
2020 is going to be a big year for new options at the Smokehaus.
After all that I've said about this being a slow time of year, the news broke to me this morning that there will be two hockey tournaments in town this weekend, so gear up for a busy handful of days in Canal Park.
See you next week, with a bunch of new Product Features, and at least five more Things™.