There is a sweet ending to a saga that pitted a San Jose small business owner against a Silicon Valley giant.
Business has been booming at The Giving Pies after the community learned that the owner was left holding the bag after an order for 4,000 mini pies for Tesla was abruptly canceled.
This past weekend, community members showed up by the hundreds to support the small Black- and woman-owned business.
"Oh my gosh, it's incredible," The Giving Pies owner Voahangy Rasetarinera said. "I am blown away. I'm like, 'I didn’t do it for that.' I'm so grateful. It's amazing. People are amazing."
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More than 300 customers showed up to support the business on Friday and Saturday, and Rasetarinera said she received donations from across the country and from a few people as far away as the Netherlands and Sweden.
Elon Musk personally posted that Tesla would make things right with the bakery, and Tesla has. Rasetarinera said a Tesla manager offered to pay and reimburse her for the $2,000 worth of supplies that she rushed to get ready for the previous order and offered her a new catering job for 3,600 mini pies for a women’s day celebration in March.
That's a job she had to turn down.
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"Unfortunately, I can not do their catering event because with all the business that we got we depleted our stock of crust, and then we also have Pi Day to prepare for, so there’s no way," she said with a laugh.
Rasetarinera said she is willing to work with Tesla in the future but wants to make good on the orders she already has.
