So many changes! Yippie!

What in the name of pie have we been up to? We had such an incredibly busy summer and have so much to share with y’all, so let’s get down to it!

For starters, we are so excited to announce that we are partnering with DRY soda! Not only is DRY delicious and naturally low in calories (ahem… unlike pie), it’s a Seattle-based business with an amazing staff and a growing fan base. We’re looking forward to carrying DRY ginger, apple, vanilla

bean, and blood orange flavors in their super-cool cans. We think these less-sweet sodas are the perfect pairing for any of our delicious offerings. Where will these tasty drinks be available? So glad you asked – thanks for the natural segue to our next announcement!

One of the biggest projects we have been working on is searching for a space to open our first official brick-and-mortar location. We think we’ve found the perfect spot, but until we know for sure it’s top secret! Rest assured, once it’s all set in stone y’all will be the first to know where to line up for homemade sweet and savory hand pies, slices, whole pies and pot pies.

Also very exciting is the news that Linda is now a full-time Seattle resident. Hopefully she won’t let the rain, aggressive signature-gatherers, and personal-space-ignorant long-boarders at Green Lake chase her back to Austin anytime soon! We’re super excited to have her as a neighbor and it means the world that she ditched her high-falutin tech job to move her entire life to the Pac NW for pie! We’re also super excited that her sweet Corgi, Izee, is loving the ample opportunities to roll in our fabulously green grass. (“Because in Texas it’s just dirt,” Linda says.)

This fall has been an amazing transition time for us as we switch gears from seasonal farmers markets and begin to prepare for the holidays. We are so grateful for all of our wonderful customers and supporters who have helped this lil’ dream of ours become a successful reality in just one year of business. We still can’t believe the things we’ve accomplished, starting with orders for friends from a tiny home kitchen with the world’s worst oven to being the exclusive dessert vendor in Tom Douglas’ section of the Bite of Seattle. Little ol’ us! Whoda thunk?!

We’ve switched up our menu a smidge for fall and can’t wait to hear from y’all. Those of you on our email list will be receiving a special Thanksgiving offer soon! Thanks as always for your support.

Courtney & Linda

Introducing Maslow's Level 1

Maslow's Level 1 was suggested and emerged as the front runner almost immediately after we decided to rename our signature pie. It's true that we know a lot of teachers (Courtney was one once). It is also true that Maslow's Level 1 doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Still, we think Maslow's Level 1 is a perfect fit. (Because really, what doesn't fit with pie?!)

The original Maslow's Hierarchy

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a psychological theory authored by Abraham Maslow in his book Motivation and Personality. His studies of what motivated people led him to the belief that there are five basic levels of things that humans need, but you won't be able to reach the highest level (self-actualization) until your needs in all of the lower levels have been met. His theory is presented visually as a pyramid (how convenient that a slice of pie is also triangular... hmmm) with the lowest level,  Level 1, focusing on the basic physiological needs of humans. This includes air to breathe, water to drink, and food (pie!) to eat. (Basically, you're not going to have very much confidence -- Level 4 -- if you don't have any grub in your belly -- Level 1.)

So, I ask you: Have you eaten today? More importantly: Have you eaten pie today?

By adding pie into this first level, you get the added benefit of breathing in the delicious scent of fresh baked pie, the pure joy of savoring every last bite and washing it down with the perfectly paired beverage of your choosing. See our recommendations at the end of this post.

In fact, behind the scenes, we now think of our signature pie as Maslow's Level 1 through 5, fulfilling all levels of your Pie-archy needs!

The new and improved Maslow's Pie-archy

Level 1: Physiological - eat (pie)!
Level 2: Safety - eat (pie) at home!
Level 3: Love/Belonging - share (pie) with friends!
Level 4: Esteem - I finished it (pie)!
Level 5: Self-Actualization - Get more (pie) because it makes me feel so good!

To introduce Maslow's Level 1, we are announcing a special that will run for the entire month of March!

$5 off every Maslow's Level 1 9" whole pie.

If you are still not sure that our Maslow's Level 1 will fulfill your basic physiological need for pie, try any pie from our menu in March and get one dozen sample-sized (we call them Yippies) Maslow's Level 1 pies to try.

We guarantee you'll be hooked after just one bite! This is good for you, because the Yippies are about the size of one bite, which leaves you with 11 more delicious bites to savor.

See our home page for more information.

Oh yeah. I promised recommendations for pie pairings. I'll keep it simple. Espresso, cappuccino, or any coffee the way you like it is the perfect complement to our Maslow's Level 1. As mentioned previously, we love a pitcher of Manny's with any of our other delicious pies.

And the winner is.... Maslow's Level 1!

The contest to name our signature pie is over. The winning entry is Maslow's Level 1. If you are not familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, then you must not be a teacher (or a student) of psychology. Some would say that makes you pretty lucky!

Congratulations to Robin Tatsuda, who voted for this name and won a 9-inch version of our signature pie in the drawing! 

We love the name and as we fully believe that Pie has a place at every level of the Pie-rarchy (especially at Level 1 - have you eaten pie today?), think it is the perfect moniker.  

So fulfill your needs and order your very own Maslow's Level 1 today!

Stay tuned for our next contest and thank you to everyone who took the time to vote!

The election is over but your vote still counts, Seattle!

We want to give our signature pie a new name with 
Seattle flair and we need your help!  

How can you help? Visit our Facebook Page and post with your favorite!

What if my favorite wins? We'll collect the names of each person who votes for the winner and enter them into a raffle. The winner will receive a 9" buttermilk pie from Yippie-Pie-Yay!

What the deuce is buttermilk pie?
Our Buttermilk Pie may be an old Texas favorite but this rich, creamy pie is the perfect compliment to coffee (hello, Seattle!), tea, or frankly, any other beverage. Its inherent sweetness is a nice contrast to your favorite drink!

This is a slice of buttermilk pie. It is amazing. You need to eat it. Like, yesterday.

We even like it with a frosty pint of our favorite beer! (Wink, wink!)

This may or may not be our favorite Seattle brew. Just kidding. Anyone who knows us knows it's definitely our favorite.

Go to our Facebook page to cast your vote for your favorite name!

A Look Back at 2012 - Part 3, or The Rainiest Day of the Year in Seattle

Linda: The decision to deliver our scrumptious pies was a big part of our concept from the start. Great idea, right? You, the customer, stay nice and dry, hair perfectly coiffed, munching on a tasty treat at your home or office! But, dry customers means wet Linda and Courtney.

Opting for a day of free sample giveaways, we dove in and loaded up the “pie wagon” on literally the rainiest day of the year. Really, Google it. Incidentally, if you Google “rainiest day of the year Austin” you get a lot of articles about drought.

Despite the nonstop downpour, we had A LOT of fun. The lucky people at the companies that made our short list received sample boxes packed with buttermilk, apple, and peach-bourbon pies and were both surprised (because of the rain) and thrilled (because of the pies) to see us.

November 19^th will always be a special day for Yippie-Pie-Yay and might have to become an annual tradition.

Courtney: Literally every person we met that day made note of both how excited they were to receive free pie samples and the fact that we were braving a northwest typhoon in order to bring them such joy. Linda could not understand this, because she thinks it rains like that all the time in Seattle. It was also really cold and windy. I wanted nothing more than to hide under a blanket on the couch with a warm piece of peach-bourbon pie to keep me company, but Linda insisted on actually working.

It ended up being awesome, because like always, we laughed constantly, made new friends, and even booked a few events for our efforts! I also might have hit a few curbs what with visibility being somewhat compromised due to the torrential downpour that accompanied us for 5 hours. Hey, that's just the price you pay to BRING PIE LOVE TO SEATTLE!

A Look Back at 2012 - Part 2

Licensing

Linda: Now that we had the name and business plan all sorted... it was time to get legit! After a quick review of the Cottage Act legislation that would support Yippie-Pie-Yay, it was time to take care of all that pesky paperwork. The Small Business Administration provided great information about starting a business. Courtney had prior experience with all of this so she quickly handled all of the filings required. It was all her on this but it seemed to me that the process was fairly quick and mostly painless.

Courtney: Ha! That's funny! Anything seems quick and painless if you're not the one doing it, right?! All kidding aside, thank goodness Linda works in a state office and isn’t afraid to read legislation. I never would have made it past the second sentence of that stuff. 

We got so tired of pie we forced our friends to participate

.

Applying for a Cottage Food license requires you to submit all of your recipes to the Washington State Department of Agriculture with a big fat check. In our case, this meant testing recipes ad nauseum for a solid month before submitting the whole packet. I trust my recipes, but if one thing was wrong with what I sent to the State, I would have to write that big fat check again and restart the entire process. Can I get a woot-woot for government oversight? Hell yeah! After a solid four weeks of testing recipes, to my surprise and dismay, I actually got tired of pie! That would be one down side to the process. (The other down side was that none of my pants fit after day 11.) To relieve our pie-tasting overload (and tight waistbands), we made some friends our official taste testers. Who would have thought they'd be happy to help? Anyway, once our paperwork was received the D of A took about 5 weeks to comb through everything before scheduling our on-sight inspection. It's quite straightforward and I think they pretty much just want to make sure you're not changing diapers on your cutting board, but I still found it stressful because I did not want to fail the inspection and have to wait another 5 weeks before trying again. Also, pretty much everything stresses me out. Also, it is kind of alarming to let complete strangers into your home to look through your pantry and make sure your tap water gets hot enough to do a proper handwashing. (You can read the blow-by-blow of the inspection elsewhere on this blog if you are so inclined.) The awesome thing is that the inspection only takes about 10 minutes (my kitchen is incredibly small) and they email your license the same day! So, props to the D of A on that!  Other bonuses to the Cottage Food application process: The people at the D of A are incredibly friendly and helpful, and there are no surprise inspections of Cottage Food operations like there are of commercial kitchens. This is great because I occasionally do find myself changing diapers on my cutting board.  JUST KIDDING! That's gross!  Stay tuned for the tales of woe from our day of spreading pie love all over Seattle... on the rainiest day of 2012! Stellar planning, as usual! Yippie!

A Look Back at 2012 - Part 1

The year 2012 has come to an end despite the predictions of those Mayan mathletes. Why would we start a business when the world was going to end you ask?



First of all, we are not superstitious… yet! And second of all, what better time? Why not go out reaching for something you are passionate about? So the world didn’t implode or whatever it was supposed to do (there are other theories and interpretations of the prediction but I won’t go into that now) and here we still are. Almost 6 months ago to the day, we (Courtney and Linda) baked the first Yippie-Pie-Yay! Here’s how we remember it.

Where did the name Yippie-Pie-Yay come from?

Linda: Naming pets for me has always required a bit of trial and error. I once changed a cat’s name from chat noire to pounce and finally to Ambush a year after I got him. I am guilty of the same when naming cars. Yes… I name my cars too, currently a VW GTI named Blanche.  

Yippie-Pie-Yay though was just there. The name seemed to sum up so much for us. The original idea was to begin with a food truck/wagon but we quickly saw the advantage of getting started using the recently passed Cottage Act. 

What’s in a name indeed? The name inspired us and on a sunny day in July, we scribbled out the concept, business plan, and logo ideas on napkins at 9 Million in Unmarked Bills. YPY was born.

Courtney: This was truly all Linda. I was just there to order (and drink my share of) many additional rounds of Manny's. We got ridiculously drunk at noon on a Saturday. 

Stay tuned for Part 2 - Licensing