Upper Crust

4:03AM.

Cookie Crumble blinked a few times as the digital bedside clock gently glowed its red hue. She had no baking to do today, in fact it was probably one of the very few days in her life she didn’t have any baking to do. Routine however was often a blessing and a curse. In this case it was the latter. She yawned and turned over, trying to get back to sleep but her eyes met Rolling Pin who was also awake. He reciprocated the yawn.

“Morning Crumbly.” he said, voice mellow as it always was, putting his arms and hooves around her to give her an early morning hug which she nuzzled into. The two laid there together for a moment in silence before Cookie decided she may as well give up on any further beauty sleep.

“Morning Pinny.” she said back, yawning once more and rolling back over to her side of the bed and deciding to start getting up. It was early, her mind was still a bit of a mish-mash of tiredness and operating on autopilot. The nicknames of Crumbly and Pinny were swirling around in her head. A regular customer of theirs a number of years ago had coined it and it had stuck between the two of them. That almost seemed like a lifetime ago now, despite the fact they had only shut up and sold the food cart a few months ago.

It had seemed so much simpler, just a little cart situated in the local park selling their goods every day. Savoury or sweet depending on the palette of the customer of course. The two made what Cookie thought was the perfect pair of bakers. Quite by chance they had met at a bakers convention in the city, Cookie had gone to look for new ideas having hit a baking blind spot with her own goods. The two got to talking looking at one of the stands next to each other and the rest was history.

Rolling Pin, or Pinny was what she deemed a very traditional baker. His skill was with breads and he specialised in it. There was hardly anything he couldn’t bake. Rye, sourdough, cornbread and more. Generally if a customer wanted it, it was available or he could make it at request. The only little gripe Cookie sometimes had was Pinny was a little slow, he took his time which was all well and good but on occasion it had led to an unhappy customer who’d given up waiting and stormed off in a huff. “It takes time to make it properly, if you want it done fast go to Gallopways.” he’d say. “I’m sure they’ll have it but it’ll be twice the price and not nearly as good.” Besides cooking from a small food cart was limiting anyhow. That’s why they’d moved into a store, now they could do it properly. They’d given all of their regulars cards to the new location. Opening day was in a week.

Cookie Crumble herself was a pastry chef. That’s why she often thought of themselves as the perfect pair. Whilst Pinny handled the breads she was a dab hoof at making pastries and desserts. Not that she couldn’t make bread at a push but she’d rather focus on the sweet things. Most of all she loved creating anything that involved chocolate. Cookie had hours of fun coming up with new treats that sometimes flopped, but often were a hit with the customers. At least that was until they got bored and she came up with something new. It was always a challenge creating new things but she relished it every time. Somehow unlike Pinny she always managed to keep up with the fast pace of the city and she prided herself on having almost little to no complaints about keeping her customers satisfied. Despite the two sounding like chalk and cheese to each other the pair worked together incredibly well. Their differing styles and types of goods they offered meant that they always had variety, something the ponies of the city loved very much. It had made their business a great success and now they were ready for the next step.

“Do we have to get up so early?” Pinny moaned, hauling himself up from the bed and pushing the covers off his body. “There’s no baking today, the hired help won’t be there until nine. What’s the rush?”

“Well...I can’t sleep. Can you?” Cookie asked.

“No…” came the defeated response.

“So we might as well do something productive. There’s lots we can do down at the store ourselves.” she said, a rather jubilant tone in her voice. “We still need a name for the store you know.”

“Can’t we just use the name we had at the cart? Cookie Crumble and Rolling Pin’s Sweet Treats?” Pinny asked.

“No, we need something snappier. That’s far too much of a mouthful. Besides, we’re out the park and in a real store now...well nearly.” Cookie replied, putting a hoof to her chin and pondering it. There was still a lot of work to do...the ovens hadn’t even been installed yet and she didn’t even dare think about the displays, counter, till. She started to breath heavily and panic, until she felt the warmth of Pinny sooth her.

“Okay, something snappier. Why don’t we head down there and think on it?” he said, moving away from Cookie and heading towards the bathroom to wash up and prepare for the day. Now where were her glasses...oh, and her tail bow and shawl. Couldn’t leave without any of those.

“I’ll get breakfast going.” Cookie replied. Heading for the kitchen herself. It wasn’t long before the two headed out in the darkness of early morning, the store itself was a short trot away from their Manehattan apartment. Useful should they ever need to get there quickly.

There was a click as Cookie unlocked the door and the two stepped inside. The bakery was a total mess. Before they had purchased the property it had been a pizzeria, it meant the building itself was suited for cooking. Just the wrong type. Pizza ovens could probably be used to bake bread if absolutely necessary but it wasn’t ideal. It was one of the first things they had gutted from the place. Right now it was little more than windows with the old venues name still on and mess as the hired worker ponies did their jobs to install everything they had purchased and give the place a fresh lick of paint. The most important things, the ovens, were meant to be arriving tomorrow. Cookie prayed they turned up on time, even if the store was a total disaster on opening day with those at least it meant they could bake.

The two sat down at a couple of rickety chairs the work ponies without magic were using to get to higher spots to paint, leaning on the rather rough and unfinished counter top where future customers would be served.

“So...a name.” Pinny started to say. “Something not a mouthful, rolls off the tongue, catchy. I suppose that eliminates using our names.”

“Well, unless we use our nicknames.” Cookie said. “But apart from you saying it I’ve never really liked Crumbly as a nickname. I’d go with Cookie.”

“Cookie and Pinny’s?” was the first suggestion.

“Doesn’t say what we do really. Unless they think we just bake cookies.”

“Hmm… I suppose using our names is a bad idea then.” Pinny mused. “You have any suggestions?”

“Bakers Dozen?”

“I think that already exists, it’s so obvious.” Pinny replied.

There was another hour of exchanges with one pony rejecting the suggestion for various reasons. Too obvious, too vague, too long, too short, boring, over the top. It went on and on. Pinny was losing his temper.

“Urgh, who’d have thought coming up with a name would be so difficult!” he said in frustration, slamming a hoof on the unfinished counter. “I mean, I know the high class ponies of this town can be hard to cater for, don’t get me started on that one customer who ordered a triple-stacked bread loaf with sesame seeds and melted butter! What do they think they are!? The upper crust!?” he moaned, flopping his head down onto the counter in defeat.

“Wait, what did you say?” Cookie asked.

“What about the triple-stacked bread loaf?” Pinny replied.

“No, no the last thing - that’s our name.”

“Melted Butter?” Pinny replied, perplexion on his face.

“No you great big fool, Upper Crust!” the mare said with excitement, she got up from her chair and gave Pinny a great big squeeze for having happened upon the name in such a way. “It’s perfect! Short, snappy and it tells everypony exactly what we do while sounding a little upmarket at the same time!” she squeaked in delight.

“Upper Crust.” Pinny said, thinking on the name. “I can’t think of anywhere else that has it already. As soon as city hall is open I’ll head down and register the name. Although I’d never have thought we’d come up with the name like this.” he laughed, giving Cookie a hug back. “Then we can ask the workers to do lettering on the windows.”

Cookie pulled away from the hug, sitting back in her chair and adjusting her shawl which had become a little crumpled from the hug. That was one thing they didn’t have to worry about at least. “Sounds ideal. Oh! Well, at least we have the name. But we still need to figure out the display stands, where to put the till, do we want seating? No, no that will just take up valuable storage space. Oh my…” the mare fumbled through her words getting rather distracted as she did so. It was the warmth and yet another hug from Pinny that always calmed her down.

“Shhhh, don’t overthink it. I doubt the store will be ready in time for the opening day, but we can be as ready as we can be.” he reassured her. “We’ll be a hit like we were at the park. I know it, you wait and see. Ponies will be buying so much of our food they’ll be struggling to get through the door!” Pinny said with a small chuckle.

“You really think so...heh, that would be amusing. I don’t know if we’ll be that good, but we’ll see.”

The two continued to discuss further store plans until the work ponies arrived. Thankfully when Pinny headed down to register the name it wasn’t taken. He breathed a sigh of relief. It was official. In one week, Upper Crust would open to the ponies of Manehattan serving up baked goods like the city had never seen.