A Personal Note From Sandy: Two Weeks After the Hurricane

Aloha Pie ʻOhana,

It has been two weeks since the hurricane came through Kauaʻi, and I wanted to sit down and write you a personal note.

Not a promotion. Not an advertisement. And not just another business update.

I simply wanted to tell you where we are, how The Right Slice is doing, and what these past two weeks have looked like from my side of the bakery.

First and foremost, we were incredibly fortunate.

The bakery never lost power. Our staff members were safe, their families were safe, and their homes and properties came through the storm safely. I know how lucky that makes us, especially when so many of our neighbors experienced something very different.

I made the decision to close the bakery the day after the storm because I wanted our staff to have time to be with their families, evaluate their own homes and situations, clean up whatever needed attention, and simply process what had happened.

I also felt strongly that unless we needed to be on the roads, we shouldn’t be. KIUC, the water department, the County, emergency personnel, utility crews, and so many others were working incredibly hard to begin putting Kauaʻi back together. The best thing many of us could do that first day was stay out of their way and let them work.

Since then, we have maintained our normal schedule and kept our doors open.

From a customer’s perspective, I hope walking into The Right Slice has felt reassuringly normal.

Behind the scenes, however, things have been anything but normal.

In those first few days after the storm, one of the things that touched me most was the response from our mainland customers. People who weren’t even here on Kauaʻi began purchasing savory pies for us to give to people on the island who needed a meal.

Because of that generosity, we were able to distribute many meals throughout our community. We were even able to help feed an entire community that, a week after the storm, was still dealing with the reality of being without power and water.

To every person who purchased a pie for someone you may never meet, thank you.

You helped me and my team take care of our Kauaʻi ʻohana when they needed it.

At the bakery, we also opened our doors, electrical outlets, and Wi-Fi to our Kalaheo community while people waited for their utilities to be restored. Sometimes helping wasn’t complicated. It was simply giving someone a place to sit for a little while, charge a phone, connect to the internet, have something to eat, and feel a little bit of normalcy during a very abnormal time.

Now, with electricity restored to the overwhelming majority of the island, we are moving into a different stage of recovery.

And in some ways, I think this is where the harder work begins.

The message from Kauaʻi’s leadership is becoming clearer: much of Kauaʻi is open, our island is ready to welcome visitors, and visitors are an important part of our recovery.

I hope that clearer message gives our regular visitors, and those who may have postponed or questioned an upcoming trip, the confidence to return to the island they love. There are absolutely still people and areas with recovery ahead of them, and we need to remain sensitive to that. But there is also a large part of Kauaʻi that is open, working, welcoming visitors, and depending upon those visitors to return.

The Right Slice is actually one of the lucky businesses that doesn’t depend primarily on tourism. We have an incredible local customer base that has supported us year after year.

But there really isn’t such a thing as a Kauaʻi business that is completely untouched by tourism.

When visitor numbers fall, people who work in hotels, restaurants, activities, transportation, retail, services, landscaping, maintenance, and countless other businesses connected directly or indirectly to tourism may suddenly have fewer hours and less income.

When those families have less income, understandably, they spend less in their own community.

Eventually, that reaches businesses like mine.

It is a trickle-down effect, and right now we are feeling it.

Our sales have continued to decline since the storm, and I am reaching the point where I may have to make some very difficult decisions about reducing employee hours or possibly laying off some members of our team.

That is probably the hardest part of this letter for me to write.

The Right Slice is our staff.

The Right Slice wouldn’t be what it is without the people who walk through those doors every day and make dough, prepare fillings, bake pies, wash dishes, serve customers, answer phones, package orders, clean the bakery, solve problems, make each other laugh, occasionally drive each other crazy, and do the thousand little things most customers will never see.

As the owner, one of the hardest responsibilities I have is balancing what is best for each of those people with what I have to do to make sure The Right Slice remains financially healthy enough to still be here for them in the future.

There isn’t one answer that is right for every employee.

Everyone has a different family situation and different financial needs. Some depend heavily on their hourly wages. Some also depend on tips. In certain circumstances, drastically reducing someone’s hours may actually leave them in a worse position than allowing them to stay home with their family and pursue the unemployment benefits available to them.

Those are very human decisions, and I don’t take them lightly.

At the same time, I have to look at the business as a whole and make decisions that give The Right Slice the best opportunity to remain strong for the long term.

You have probably seen other small businesses across Kauaʻi wrestling with these exact same questions: changing their hours, reducing staffing, temporarily closing certain days, or simply trying to find that elusive sweet spot between taking care of their employees and keeping their businesses afloat.

I understand those decisions in a very different way today than I did a few weeks ago.

There is also another side of this that isn’t as obvious when you walk into the bakery.

When fewer customers are coming through the door, I simply can’t justify keeping the same number and variety of pies in the cases that we normally would.

And making fewer pies affects far more than what you see in the display case.

It means fewer hours for my bakers. Fewer hours for my dough maker. Fewer hours for my prep cooks. Fewer hours for my dishwashers. Fewer production hours throughout the bakery.

Everything is connected.

So even though it may look like business as usual when you come through our doors, which, quite frankly, is exactly what I want it to look and feel like, behind the scenes my managers and I have been talking almost daily.

We are looking at sales. We are looking at payroll. We are looking at production and inventory. We are looking at schedules. We are looking at what we’re making and how much we’re making.

And we’re asking ourselves over and over again: What is the smartest thing to do today that will make sure The Right Slice is still strong tomorrow?

Complicating all of those decisions is something sitting on the calendar that every longtime Right Slice customer knows very well:

Thanksgiving.

It really isn’t very far away.

Thanksgiving is our busiest time of the year, and preparing for it doesn’t begin Thanksgiving week. It begins now.

I have newer members of our team who need training and experience before we reach those wonderfully crazy overnight baking sessions when the bakery becomes a whirlwind of dough, fillings, ovens, pie boxes, coffee, laughter, exhaustion, and more pies than seems humanly possible.

So while I am looking at whether I need to reduce hours today, I also have to look a few weeks down the road and ask whether I will have the trained team I need when Thanksgiving arrives.

Do I reduce someone’s hours now when I know I may desperately need that trained employee soon? How do I keep newer employees trained and progressing when there isn’t enough production to give them the normal number of hours? How do I protect the financial health of the business today without leaving us unprepared for our busiest season?

There isn’t a handbook for this.

There are numbers and reports and budgets, of course. But behind every number on a payroll report is a person. Behind every production decision is someone’s workday. And behind every decision I make is the responsibility I feel toward this business, my employees, and the customers who have kept The Right Slice going all these years.

So right now, I am taking it one day at a time and trying to make the best decisions I can with the information I have.

And I know we will get through this.

Kauaʻi has been through hard things before. This island knows how to take care of its own. We saw that immediately after the hurricane, with neighbors helping neighbors, businesses helping communities, utility crews working around the clock, people sharing what they had, and complete strangers stepping up when somebody needed them.

Kauaʻi strong isn’t just something we say. We watched it happen.

And now comes the longer, quieter part of recovery.

It is reopening the doors every morning.

It is going back to work.

It is supporting the businesses you want to still be here next year.

It is welcoming our visitors back while continuing to care for the parts of our island that still need help.

It is giving ourselves and each other a little grace while we figure out what our new normal looks like.

As for The Right Slice, we are here.

Our doors are open.

We’re still making pies.

We’re still laughing in the kitchen.

We’re still planning for Thanksgiving.

And I’m still doing everything I can to make sure the people who have helped build this little pie shop are standing beside me when we come out on the other side of this.

There may be some changes in the coming weeks. Our hours could change. Our available flavors may sometimes be a little more limited. Staffing may look different on certain days. If things do change, I will do my best to communicate them here on our blog and through our social media so you know what to expect.

In return, I just ask for a little patience and understanding while we navigate something none of us expected to be navigating at the beginning of our busy fall season.

And if you’re wondering how you can help, the answer is actually very simple.

Support Kauaʻi.

If you live here and you’re able, support the small businesses you love. It doesn’t have to be The Right Slice. Pick up lunch from your favorite little restaurant. Buy something from a local farmer. Stop at a locally owned shop. Visit a farmers market. Recommend a Kauaʻi business to a friend.

And if you’re one of our mainland Pie ʻOhana and you’ve been wondering whether Kauaʻi wants you back, please listen to the current guidance from our island’s leaders as you make your plans. Much of Kauaʻi is open, and many of the people who make this island such a special place depend upon a healthy visitor economy.

Most importantly, thank you.

Thank you to everyone who checked on us.

Thank you to everyone who donated pies.

Thank you to everyone who came through our doors.

Thank you to our customers who continue to support us.

Thank you to the crews and community members who have worked tirelessly to get this island back on its feet.

And thank you to my staff.

They are The Right Slice.

Two weeks ago, we didn’t know exactly what the days ahead were going to look like. Truthfully, I still don’t know exactly what the next few weeks will bring.

But I know Kauaʻi.

I know my team.

And I know this community.

We’ll get through this together, one day, and maybe one pie, at a time.

With much aloha and gratitude,

Sandy
Owner, The Right Slice