Chapter 5
FIVE
Hart
W hen Walker started blowing up the family group chat at six this morning, before I even opened my eyes to head to the gym, I knew Dear Foodie had reviewed Horned in Seen , and the feedback—based on the tone of Walker’s texts—had to be stellar. He requested we all be in the office by eight when our normal hours started at nine. And there was no question in my mind what this meeting was going to look like.
Everyone in my family followed Dear Foodie online. In this business, specifically in Southern California, she could make or break you. That was the power this one woman held, that was how well she was trusted, and that was how honest she was in her reviews. If she gave your restaurant full praise, your reservations would double, even triple, overnight, which made me fear that Horned was about to take over our title as not only the best, but the most popular steak house in Laguna Beach.
Since Beck had practice, that left Eden, Colson, and me sitting around the conference room table, twiddling our goddamn thumbs as we waited for Walker to join us. By the sound of everyone’s exhales, the deepness of our sighs, and the size of our to-go coffee cups, we knew this was going to be one hell of a start to an already-shitty day.
“Have you guys checked out Dear Foodie’s Instagram this morning?” Eden asked, looking at Colson and then me.
I nodded.
“Sure have,” Colson replied.
“Have either of you seen her review?” Eden inquired.
Dear Foodie never posted her weekly Seen reviews on her social media. She only teased them there, directing her viewers to the source of her article.
“I haven’t,” I admitted, and Colson signaled that he hadn’t either. “I wanted to hear it from Walker.”
Eden laughed. “Because we all know he’s going to read it to us.”
“We’d be idiots to think otherwise.” Colson sighed again. For the most laid-back man I knew, there was an edge of worry in his expression. “He’s concerned, you guys. And Walker doesn’t get concerned easily. But this one, it’s really getting to him.”
I thought about what my brother had just said. “That’s because he knows something we don’t.”
“What gives you that impression?” Eden asked.
I turned my chair toward her. “A new restaurant opens up every day in this area, and he doesn’t sweat it. Only a handful have come in over the years that have really ruffled Walker’s feathers. For each of those occasions, there’s one common denominator.”
She pushed up her glasses, the thick black frames only worn when she was too tired to put in her contacts. “The opportunity to franchise.”
“Yes.” I ran my hand over my scruff. “You nailed it.”
Colson adjusted his tie, pulling it down a few inches and unbuttoning the top of his shirt. “The last thing any one of us wants, especially Walker, is a Horned opening in every market that Charred is located.”
I smiled. “There’s one way to solve that?—”
“ Sinful on the tongue and heavenly all the way down ,” Walker barked after the door to the conference room flew open and he came in, reading the printed publication that was in his hand. “ And I’m not just speaking about the old-fashioned. That’s the way I would describe Horned. An exquisite meal, flawlessly executed and wickedly satisfying. Make your reservation, Foodies .” Standing at the head, he let the paper drop to the table and took a seat. “You have got to be fucking kidding me!”
“With the buzz surrounding this restaurant, none of us should be surprised,” I said. “But take it from someone who’s been there—there’s a lot left to be desired.”
Walker set his arms on the table. The buttoned sleeves of his chef’s coat didn’t make a sound when they landed; the noise had come from his hands as they slammed down. “Like?”
“They don’t even have valet parking.” I chuckled. “What fucking five-star restaurant with prices like they charge doesn’t offer a parking service?”
Which had certainly come in handy that night. The back row of the lot was the perfect spot to sink my finger into Sadie’s pussy—a pussy I hadn’t stopped thinking about—so I hadn’t complained then about the lack of valet parking, but I was definitely complaining about it now.
“Because they don’t have to,” Eden said softly. “Take it from someone who’s actually been there and sampled the food.” She glanced at me and smiled. “It was quite the experience.”
She pulled out her phone and tapped her screen, which turned on the TV in the conference room. The photos from her phone then appeared on the flat screen. “I took pictures of everything I could.” As each photo flipped to the next, she made sure we knew what we were looking at, saying, “The exterior of the building, the entrance, the hostess stand, the bar, dining room, and finally the ladies’ room.” A few seconds passed. “And now, onto the food.” At least fifteen shots followed of a meal that looked incredible.
At the end of the slideshow, Colson said, “The interior looks nothing like Charred.”
“I think that’s part of the appeal,” Eden replied. “Where we have a classic steak house feel with a modern, elegant twist, Horned feels nothing of the sort. I dare say, it’s almost an overly sexy vibe. We have traditional decor with garnet and mahogany accents, dark wood, and dim lighting. Horned is chrome and mirrors with furnishings done in emerald and sapphire.”
Walker let out a whistle of air in response.
I crossed my hands and set them in my lap. “What they’ve done—and it kills me to fucking say this—is by creating a non–steak house feel, they’re attracting people who are coming in for everything but. Seafood isn’t just an alternative, it could be the reason they’re walking through the door.” I leaned back in my chair and stared at Walker. “An environment with ambiance that welcomes all eaters.”
“You’re not helping the situation,” Walker said.
“I’m being honest. When you come into any Charred, you know the main attraction. You see it in the colors, you smell it in the air. There are no surprises. Our eaters enjoy that.”
“But is the temperature changing?” Eden questioned. “Are we not advancing with the times?”
The room turned silent.
“But we’ve implemented changes,” Colson voiced, holding out his hand to check off each item I knew he was about to mention. “We now offer a vegan option as well as a vegetarian course. Allergens are listed beside every dish—something you hardly find in any restaurant in America and never at steak houses. We offer more health-conscious staples and side dishes, we’ve tweaked recipes to eliminate high-saturated fat fillers and seed oils, and in many of our locations, we’re farm to table.”
“But is that enough?” Walker asked.
His voice boomed across the room, and a quietness followed.
“The opening of Toro is going to give us that answer,” Colson said. “It proved to be true in our first location in Denver, but that’s an unfair assessment because there, it’s a market we dominate. Same with Banff—there’s nothing like it in that part of Alberta. But here, in LA, there are some heavy hitters in the seafood and raw bar space. It’s going to be very telling if the concept is embraced and the feedback is positive.”
“That doesn’t fix what’s happening with Charred,” I countered.
“Nothing is happening with Charred,” Walker shot back.
Eden crossed her arms over her chest. “And who knows what Dear Foodie’s review will be when she eats at Toro?”
“And there’s that,” I replied.
As Walker looked at me, I could see his brain reeling.
“We need her there.”
As the chief marketing officer, one of my many tasks was getting us reviews and ratings, so it was up to me to promise, “She’ll come.”
“How can you be sure of that?” he asked. “She never reviewed Charred.”
I pushed back from the table and crossed my legs. “Because we were established long before she came on the scene. Her focus is on new. And we’re going to be new.” I rubbed my hands over my knee. “Don’t worry, I have some ideas on how to ensure she’s there. ”
“Ideas?” Walker asked.
“You know this is where I thrive.” I nodded toward him. “Just trust me.”
“And what if her review of Toro is a repeat of the post she did of the bar at Charred Manhattan?” Eden asked.
Walker groaned, “That would be my worst fucking nightmare,” and covered his face with his hands.
“I could think of worse situations,” Colson chimed in. “But, yeah, that was bad—I can’t lie.”
As we all gazed at each other, we remembered the one and only time Dear Foodie had given us a shout-out.
She had happened to be in Manhattan and stopped at the bar at Charred. Whether she ate there, we didn’t know; her post on Instagram only included a photo of her espresso martini. That was something she did often when she traveled—she shared pictures of food and drinks and all things restaurant-related. They weren’t reviews; they were just teases of her life in photographs. In the one she did for Charred Manhattan, the glassware looked fantastic in her hands, which were wrapped around the thin stem, the coffee beans shaped like a clover as they floated across the dark liquid. Even her caption— My second coffee of the day —was fantastic.
But when one of her viewers asked in the comments how the drink was, she replied, Average .
A response that sent Walker into a spiral.
So, the next day, I had gone into Charred LA and had an espresso martini—a drink I’d normally never get—and, goddamn it, Dear Foodie was right.
The martini was mid—at best.
I had worked with our lead bartender, and we had come up with a whole new recipe that was enforced across the entire company, at every one of our locations.
We listened, we tweaked, we mastered .
I focused on my brother, who was silently losing his shit at the head of the table. “Walker, tell us why this one is fucking you up so badly.”
A question none of us had asked him, and it was long overdue.
“I’ve been doing a little digging, reaching out to my sources, talking to vendors.” He rubbed his hands together. “Horned isn’t just a restaurant. It’s a concept. They’re testing it, and if successful—and it has been—it will be launched nationwide.”
I mashed my lips together. “Who’s they?”
I knew what he was going to say.
I could see it on his fucking face.
“The Gordon family.”
“Shit,” I moaned.
“I was afraid you were going to say that,” Eden added.
The Gordon family, our biggest competitor. Like us, they had started with steak houses, and where we had branched out into seafood, they had gone with Italian. Wherever we built a restaurant in a new territory, a Gordon restaurant wasn’t far behind and normally within a few miles.
“They’re financially backing the place,” Walker explained. “They somehow met the chef, liked her ideas, and decided to bankroll the build-out. If it goes well and the Gordons want to move forward, the chef has the option to partner with them, or they can buy her out. But the chef owns the recipes and the concept, so the Gordons can’t move forward unless she wants to.”
Colson put his hands behind his head, rocking in his chair. “What you’re saying is, Horned is up for grabs.”
“And it’s ours if we want it.” I licked my lips.
“Why the hell would we want it?” Walker asked. “We’re in the midst of building out Toro Beverly Hills and scaling it the same way we did with Charred. We’re growing Musik at the same time, adding more locations to Cole and Spade Hotels. We have our fucking hands full.”
“This hand isn’t full.” I held it up in the air. “Walker, just hear me out. The Gordons know the restaurant business as well as we do. If they’re bankrolling Horned, they believe in the model. It’s nothing like what either of us has. It’s more boutique in a sense. Where Charred only goes into major metro markets across the world, this could hit small, hip markets that are in need of something eclectic. Think Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Sarasota, Florida; Santa Fe, New Mexico—you get the drift.” I lowered my hand to the table. “Just think, we could give them something good, reliable … and wickedly satisfying.”
“Don’t ever say those words to me again,” Walker warned.
I laughed. “Just think about it.”
He got up from his chair, leaving the publication where it had dropped. “Let’s get Dear Foodie into Toro. Let’s get a glowing fucking review. And if I’m still alive at that point and I haven’t died from a goddamn heart attack, we can discuss the future of Horned.” He walked out.
I turned to Eden and Colson. “What the hell are we going to do with him?”
“Take him out. Get him to relax. Get him laid,” Colson said.
“Speaking of going out,” I began, “I talked to Brady. He’ll be back in town in a couple of weeks, and he wants us all to hang. The night he picked, Beck has a game, so I’m going to reach out to the other Spades and Coles and get them on board. We’ll take over our suite at the arena and have dinner and drinks there, and then we’ll go out.” I looked at Eden. “You’re coming. Don’t even tell me you’re not.”
Her brows rose. “It’s not a guys’ night?”
“Brady’s married now,” I told her. “Where he goes, Lily usually goes, which means it’s an everybody night. ”
She nodded. “I’ll think about it.”
With the door still open and our employees in the hallway outside, I kept my voice down and said, “I want you to give it to me raw—really, how was Horned?” I tapped my foot, the suspense creating a buzz inside me. “I didn’t even know you had gone. You didn’t say anything in the family group chat about going.”
She twirled a long, dark lock around her finger. “You mean because you couldn’t keep your dick in your pants, so your baby sister had to come to your rescue.”
I laughed.
“I ended up eating at the bar,” she continued. “It was the only seat I could get since I couldn’t get a reservation. But it was as good as Dear Foodie described. I was blown away—and you know I’m fussy.” Her hand stilled. “I want to know something.”
With her eyes still locked on mine, I knew the question was directed at me. “Okay.”
“Now that you’ll never talk to her again, like all the others from your past, was it worth missing out on that meal? Or if you were going to do it all over, would you make the same decision?”
“ Oooh .” Colson chuckled. “Little sis is coming in hot.”
I smiled as I stood, leaning the top of my thighs into the edge of the table and pressing my palms against the wood. “I’d do it over and over and over.” My head dropped as the image of Sadie’s naked body came into my mind. “She was the best fuck I’ve ever had.”
“Then that’s a phone number you should have gotten, big brother,” she said. “You really fucked up that one.”