We’ll be in one of The Cheshire’s luxury train cars that’s been rolled into the expansive main terminal. The Cheshire’s latest rail-travel venture launches this month across England, Wales, and Scotland, so they want to give a peek at what to expect with theirredesigned train cars. Apparently, a famous movie director with a well-known visual style worked with them on the revamping.
“Doesn’t everything about this go against that old saying about never getting into vans with strangers offering candy?” Gloria says as she sets out scoops next to the jars on the bar where we’ve set up shop at one end of the train car. Next to us, the Worldly Scoops founders, Cole and Jonathan, are arranging their tubs of ice cream.
Emma stashes an empty box under the bar. “What about any of this”—she motions around the interior of the car that has splashes of bright colors and a mix of textures and patterns—“reminds you of a van?”
Gloria looks out a window draped with the same high-quality cornflower blue fabric that the dining chairs are upholstered with. Through the glass, I notice that people have already started to line up, waiting for us to open. “The wheels?” she says.
Emma and I share an amused look. “Ooh, I’m nervous,” Emma says, shaking out her shoulders. “You know how many influencers and reporters will be here? Like, dozens. If this hits, it could be a game changer for us.”
“Interior design and travel magazine photographers will be here, too,” Gloria says, waving to the customers in line. “It’s going to be fabulous, darling. We caught a lucky break to get this level of exposure.”
Emma nods. “I can’t believe we pulled it together in time.”
Honestly, me neither. Emma almost passed on it. There wasn’t enough time to order new batches of candy for the pop-up, so we took our supply from the shop. While Emma took care of event logistics and coordinated schedules for her two other employees to cover for us at the shop while we’re here, Gloria managed the marketing and updated the website and social media. I was in chargeof acquiring more jars and bags for customers, though I did have another idea that I went ahead and ran with.
“Emma, got a sec?” I hold up a small box.
Emma shakes a bag of French nougats into one of the jars. “Of course, what’s up?”
I remove the lid and take a postcard-size paper out. I found a print shop near Washington Square Park that was able to get this printing done in under twenty-four hours. “I wanted to show you these passports I had made. Well, passcards,” I say, hearing my voice reflect my internal excitement about them. “Every customer gets one. For each candy and ice cream flavor they try, they get a stamp in one of the boxes. And for the ones they don’t try, they can come back to our shops and keep filling out their passcard.”
“What happens when every box has been stamped?” Gloria asks, peeking over my shoulder.
“I was thinking they’d get ten percent off their next purchase,” I say, only now realizing that in the rush of getting everything together, I forgot to ask Emma for the green light on this detail.
“Hazel…” Emma shakes her head.
“I’m really sorry I didn’t run it by you first,” I rush out. “I wanted to be helpful since you were so busy. I already took care of talking to Cole and Jonathan. They’re onboard with it.”
“Oh my god, no, I’m not mad,” Emma says with wide eyes. “I love it. It’s so creative.”
“It’s also backed by numbers,” I share. “Based on the zip codes of our store customers, eighty-nine percent of Midtown residents are the ones buying candy like the mixed fruit Turkish delight and Aero peppermint bars. We brought some of our top sellers, but I also snuck in some of the candy many people in this area tend to love.” I pull a box from a large tote and grab one of the individuallywrapped bubbly chocolate bars. “I figured, since they’re always coming to us, I wanted to show that we’re paying attention when we come to them.”
Emma lets out an amused sound. “I didn’t realize we were such a destination.”
“Several times a month, actually,” I say. “Which told me that, if people are willing to go all that way for international candy, there’s a strong chance they’d be willing to hop around to Worldly Scoops’ stores, too. Hopefully, this passcard will inspire them to keep coming back to try new candy. And they’ll get rewarded for it.”
“Wow, you went above and beyond what you needed to do,” Emma says. “This passcard, looking through the data… that must’ve taken you a lot of time.”
“Honestly, I find this kind of thing fun.”
Dissecting purchasing patterns of customers and thinking through how to attain optimal inventory levels have already been more interesting to me than the type of data I worked with in health care. And Sweet Escape’s data is something I can personally act on instead of just building reports to hand off to someone else.
“That makes”—Gloria points at Emma, then herself, and then me—“one of us,” she says. “Where have you been all of Emma’s shop life?”
“Oh, I’ve been there, just consuming most of her inventory,” I half joke.
Emma laughs. “That’s true. You’ve been right here with us from the beginning.” She gives me a side hug. “I’m so thankful for you.”
I breathe out a slow exhale of relief. “Please, I’m the thankful one,” I say. For the job, yes, but also for their kindness they’ve consistently shown me.
“No, seriously,” Emma says, “I’ve had enough wading through legalese in my life that trying to decipher reports is just… Well, it’snot why I went into the candy business. This is great. Thank you, Hazel.” She lifts one of the passcards and admires it. “When you’ve got more ideas, I’m all ears.”
I don’t try to contain my happiness. At my last job, my manager acted like encouragement and being open to new ideas were above his pay grade. We did things his way, and he did things the way they had always been done.
“Okay, yes, thank you,” I say, grinning so widely that my cheeks start to ache.
I get to work breaking up the Aero bars into smaller pieces. Once the candy jars are ready to go, I set the passcards in a neat pile on the far end of the bar closest to Worldly Scoops, where customers will start off. The first few people start trickling in, ordering ice cream flavors like ricotta with crushed pistachio, oolong tea with ribbons of mango jam, and baklava with layers of crisp phyllo dough and a trio of nuts. Jonathan had explained during setup that these flavors were inspired by their travels to Sicily, Taiwan, and Greece.
