In 2020, we are graced with 366 days instead of 365.....we are in a leap year, my friends. Every four years, a leap day is inserted into the calendar. If each year was the same number of days, a natural drift would occur over time between the calendar year and the astronomical year, and we would lose track of things. So this practice of adding an extra day became the corrective measure that puts us back in sync with the universe.
I can't help but feel the symbolic coincidence of this lately. We took the past month to recover from the holidays, to reflect on what we've done well over the last six months since we opened, and to regain focus over what we can be doing better moving forward. I believe we can make small but impactful changes in how we do our work and in how we serve our customers.
One of these changes that we are implementing as of today is our hours of operation. We are going to be closing the shop a tad bit earlier than before during the weekdays...here is the new schedule:
TUE / WED / THU: 7am - 5:30pm
FRIDAYS: 7am - 8pm
SATURDAYS: 9am - 3pm
SUN / MON: CLOSED
Please note this change is only affecting C&C and not our neighbors at the Rockford City Market, Ronit's Kitchen and Quixotic. They will be open till 7pm on weekdays so make sure to stop by and support them! We will be open later hours on select days to partake in market activities so we'll make sure to post about that when the time comes.
Also this year, we will be striving for more consistency in our daily lunch and Friday night dinner offerings.
Since we are open later into the night on Fridays, it allows us to do some really fun stuff and flex some creative muscles. For example, every First Friday of the month, we will be hosting "Pizza & Beer" night at the bakeshop. We make Roman-style pizza, serve up some brews, and enjoy the live music that's usually going on at the market. The next one is Friday, February 7th, so make sure to stop by and try one - we'll be cranking up the ovens and slinging pies from about 5:30-8pm.
On Friday, February 21st, we are planning on "Panini Night". We are working on the menu for this right now so I will send out more details next time. However we can tell you from recent experience of eating a mountain of paninis at a staff party that you will not be disappointed! I may be a little biased, but the bread really makes such a difference.
Speaking of paninis, we will be adding sandwiches and salads to our lunch menu in February as well. Right now we have hot soups available on the menu every weekday so I'm really excited to be adding other offerings to the lineup that show off our love of good bread and celebrate grain-forward goodness. On Satudays, we will continue to serve made-to-order hot breakfast...we do this every weekend from 9am - 12pm!
Well now that I've bombarded you with a ton of information, I certainly can't finish out this newsletter without mentioning that on the ACTUAL leap day, February 29th, we will be hosting a Dumpling Pop Up! in celebration of Lunar New Year. Last year we sold out all our 100 seats for this event and I really enjoyed getting to share a part of my culture with all our guests....I hope we can do that again :) We will be starting tickets sales for this in the next week or so.
Talk to you soon,
Jojo