As you know, I take breakfast pastries seriously.
My most favorite breakfast pastry of all time is Marvelous Market’s cherry Danish. The golden flaky pastry is flavored with lots of cinnamon, and the center is delicious and fresh–it doesn’t taste like supersweet canned cherry pie filling. It’s got a lovely shine to it courtesy of some melted apricot jelly. This exquisite breakfast treat usually sells out on the weekends, so you have to get there early, and YES, I have literally raced people to the pastry counter to make sure that I got one. This is not a gas station croissant, folks.
Anyway, I’ve been running late the past few Saturdays, so I just figured that they had sold out of them by the time I got there. But I was confused on this past Saturday when I saw that there wasn’t even a spot for the cherry Danish next to the cheese one. The little “Cherry Danish” marker wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Suddenly, the cheese Danish was right next to the Pain aux Raisin. wtf.
The salesman confirmed my worst fear–the cherry Danish is no longer being carried at the store. As he was delivering this information to me, I could tell he was concerned about my reaction since he’s been ringing up my cherry Danish for over a year. And yes, I might have loudly yelled “NOOOOOOOOOOO.” I don’t remember. I was too upset. I marched home, found their website and decided to send them a little message asking what happened. Today I received my reply:
Hi Sarah,
I was delighted to read your e-mail! We always love learning how we can do a better job.
The bad news first: the cherry danish as you knew it will not be returning to the regular menu. Sadly, that particular store was throwing away, on average, almost 40% of the cherry danishes it received from the bakery. From a business perspective, it simply did not make sense to continue to carry such an inconsistent seller.
I do have two pieces of good news though. First, the cherry danish is available by special order if you call the store by 11 AM the day before pick-up. Second, we are trying to spice things up by adding more seasonal menu items to the mix. With spring and summer fruit season ahead, seasonal fruits are certain to make an appearance in the pastry category.
I do hope that you’ll continue to visit us for your Saturday coffee and treats. We’ve just introduced the best cupcakes in DC, and we’ve got some amazing flourless brownies and coconut macaroons for Passover.
Warm regards,
Lisa
THEY WERE THROWING AWAY CHERRY DANISH. Why don’t you just set money on fire, or shoot people’s dreams?
The bright side is that now I’ve been informed that you can special order cherry Danish!!!! I feel like I can breathe again. And since I owe y’all a graph, I decided to draft some sales projections for The Marv:
April 7, 2009 at 12:25 am
It seems like, if they were selling out on weekends and throwing away extras during the week, they could have just cut down on weekday orders and increased their weekend order. Isn’t that what companies use computers to figure out?
Either way, this was a very satisfying post.
April 7, 2009 at 12:58 am
What if my mexican tienda stopped selling Sabor de Soledad?
April 16, 2009 at 8:21 pm
You’ve totally inspired me to go to the Ballston Marvelous Market next week!
April 24, 2009 at 11:36 am
I read your posts for quite a long time and should tell you that your posts are always valuable to readers.