D-Day Eve

Last night we had a dry run for our big weekend of openings. Our first foray into this new, unchartered territory of opening where no one is familiar with our product was perhaps not what we hoped.

the signage wasn't optimal, the knowledge base of our staff was minimal… yet those who did venture out of the box were pleased with their first Petro. (Forgive the quality of the pictures. The hubs grabbed our good-for-nothing compact digital camera. It's crap with a quality SD card. i would have blurred out their faces, but it looks like the camera already did that.)

We learned a few things and have about 30 some-odd hours to make some adjustments before D-Day happens tomorrow.. Our team will be dividing and conquering the territory. I will be at UT with one of our founders as well as a few support staff so we can make it to all five stands and ensure that we're ready for 100+ thousand hungry fans.
Expectations are high from our partners in Atlanta. I'm not sure we're going to return the kickoff for a touchdown (so to speak)… it may be more like a 100 yard drive… inch by inch. Hopefully no turnovers or messy fumbles. But that shouldn't happen. We've got an awesome team heading out to Nashville for the Vandy game, Fayetville for the Arkansas (a bit partial to that team… led by the hubs), Atlanta for the Georgia Tech game and Auburn for their game. This is certainly a turning point for us. We've all huddled and have studied our play book. the pregame warm up is about over… kickoff won't be far away. We have a great following here in Knoxville, and it may take some time to gain the momentum we're looking for, but considering the huge hit it was during the World's Fair with literally zero advertising… we really think it's just a matter of time before we SCORE!
In the mean time… there's a ton of little details to take care of between now and game times.
One of them being i need to grab a shower.