Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
Hart
“ I want you to review each of these markets and let me know your thoughts,” Jenner Dalton said as he sat at the head of his conference room table, where my family and I were listening to him present.
Jenner was one of the partners of the firm Beck and I had hired to discuss the future locations of our restaurants.
“My team pulled reports on buying patterns, including food, and this is how we came up with each of these cities. We then cross-referenced the cities with your current locations, along with your competitors—specifically the Gordons—to make sure there weren’t restaurants there. We also took into consideration the accessibility of seafood versus meat and the popularity of each in these cities, and we made a recommendation of whether we think Toro or Horned should be built there.”
I flipped through the thick packet his assistant had handed to us at the start of the meeting, the cities highlighted on every page. The most popular restaurants in those areas were broken down, showing how much revenue they brought in and his suggestion of what we should open there.
This data was fucking genius.
“As you get deeper into the information we put together,” Jenner continued, “you’ll see three to five real estate options for every city we picked. If you don’t like any of the ones we offered—or the cities we chose for that matter—my team will go back to the drawing board.”
“This is excellent, Jenner.” I glanced at Beck, and he was nodding at me in agreement. “We thought we’d have to give you suggestions on where we were interested in opening. I don’t think any of us thought you were going to do that work for us.”
Jenner laughed. “You’ve worked with The Dalton Group before. You know we don’t fuck around when it comes to business. If I’m going to find you land, I’m going to tell you why I think you should buy it. Same goes for the cities—I use numbers, and I use my gut, and neither ever steers me wrong.”
“And that’s why we’re in this office and why we didn’t want to work with anyone but you,” Beck said. “I think we need some time to review this, but I see endless opportunities on these pages.”
“I work on your timeline,” Jenner admitted. “Just keep in mind, these are buildings that are available as of this morning. That doesn’t mean they’ll be for sale tomorrow. You know how the commercial market is—space could sit for months or hours. I have no control over that. My control comes in when you want to make an offer.”
“I think we’ll end up narrowing it down to five or six cities,” Eden chimed in, rocking in her chair as she held the packet in front of her. “I’ll then jump on our plane and go view each of the properties you chose. From there, we can make some decisions.”
“You don’t have to go alone,” Walker told her, gripping Eden’s shoulder. “Any of us will go with you.”
Eden acknowledged him with a nod.
“Let me know how I can be of further assistance.” Jenner pulled his tablet off the table and held it in his arms. “Don’t hesitate to ask for anything. I’m here to make sure your family finds exactly what you’re looking for, and my team won’t stop until you’re pleased.”
“We’re already pleased with your work,” Colson offered.
Since the Daltons were such good friends with the Spade family—our buddies who owned the international hotel chain, where we’d built many locations of Charred in their lobbies—I knew that when Jenner said that, he meant it. The Dalton Group wasn’t just a law firm that offered advice and reviewed contracts as they sat behind their desks. They were full service, and today was a perfect example of that.
“Thank you, Jenner.” I shook his hand.
He glanced around at each of us. “I’ll wait to hear back from you.” He stood from his chair. “Unless you have questions or anything else you’d like to discuss with me, I’m going to send in Troy to chat about the contract for Horned.”
I waited for one of my siblings to speak up, and when they didn’t, I said, “I don’t think we have any questions. You can go ahead and send in Troy.”
While Jenner worked his way around, shaking everyone’s hand, I took out my phone and checked the notifications.
Sadie
It’s much more fun waking up at your house than waking up at mine. Alone. And without you.
Me
Sounds like you missed me this morning …
Sadie
I did. Sob.
Me
Spend the night at my place tonight. I need you.
Sadie
You just read my mind. See you tonight.
Me
I can’t fucking wait to pull you into my arms.
I flipped through the rest of my notifications, and a message from my assistant, CC, really caught my attention.
CC
I assume you haven’t read Seen’s article? If not, when you get out of your meeting at The Dalton Group, look at it. Immediately.
As Jenner was stepping out of the conference room, closing the door behind him, I quickly pulled up Seen ’s website. There was a picture of our signature porcini-rubbed rib eye at the top of the page with the headline, Charred, A Night That Ended with a Standing Ovation.
Jesus fucking Christ. What is this? And why didn’t I know about it?
I drew in as much air as I could hold and tapped the headline. A new page loaded, which showed multiple photos of Charred’s food, along with a review.
All written and posted by Dear Foodie.
I quickly skimmed the first of two paragraphs, a smile dragging across my goddamn lips as I said, “I need all of you to pull up Seen ’s website. Right now.” As I watched my siblings take out their phones, I added, “Did any of you know that Seen was reviewing Charred this week?”
“ Seen reviewed Charred?” Walker barked.
“Apparently—and I had no idea,” I told him, knowing that was probably going to earn me an earful.
Walker didn’t like surprises. He relied on me to find out these kinds of things before they happened, especially if the result was going to end up in print.
With everyone listening, I read from my screen, “ From an appetizer list that would satisfy lovers of seafood or meat and even vegetarians, I chose the tuna tartare and the fresh burrata and tomato salad. My hope was that the cheese would balance the salt and tanginess of the fish, and the fish would even out the richness of the cheese plate. What I hadn’t expected was that the two were self-sufficient. They needed no help whatsoever; they didn’t even need grated pepper—although that was offered.
“Chef Walker Weston has taken traditional offerings and woven extremely unique spins on both. These dishes were so packed with flavor they could stand as main courses, and you would be more than satisfied. That’s quite a powerful introduction, I would say.
“Now, let’s discuss the main course …”
As my voice trailed off, Walker instantly took over, reading the rest of the article out loud while I focused on the pictures. The first shot was a perfect angle of the tuna, showing the vibrant red of the fish, on top of a pop of ginger and avocado, with a nest of wontons on the side. But as I stared at the appetizer, switching between this one and the burrata, I couldn’t help but notice a third plate off to the side.
I waited until Walker finished reading, and the excitement between him, Colson, and Eden began to die down before I said, “Walker, will you take a look at the photos? ”
“I already did,” he replied, his brows rising higher, the longer he gazed at me. “What’s the problem with them?”
“There’s no problem. I’m just curious about the plate that’s next to the tuna and burrata.” I turned my phone, attempting to see if a different view would help identify what I was looking at. “What the hell is on it?”
The room turned silent.
“A bread plate?” Eden offered. “Maybe?”
“I don’t think so,” I told her. “It’s too large, and that doesn’t look like a slice of bread.”
Colson thumped his hand on the table. “Could it be an extra appetizer plate? A chunk of the bread sitting on it? A bite of a shrimp?”
I exhaled. “She didn’t say she got shrimp.”
“She’s not required to list everything she ordered,” Colson said.
“No, she’s not, but she normally does,” I told him. “There are times she orders ten things. So, why would she leave out shrimp if it’s something she got?”
I analyzed the other photos, and the mystery plate wasn’t present during the main course. The center of the table was filled with our one-pound baked potato, our lobster macaroni and cheese, and our sautéed wild mushroom medley. Which meant the server had cleared the appetizer plates, just the way they were supposed to between courses.
But that didn’t explain the photo with the unidentifiable fucking plate.
“God, the way she blurred it out is making it so hard to tell,” Eden said. She was turning her phone the same way I was.
“Why would she blur something out?” I pushed my chair back and set my phone on the edge of the table. “Normally, she crops the picture, she doesn’t blur. ”
Beck pointed at his phone. “She couldn’t crop it. It would have cut off the side of the tuna.”
“Maybe she dropped something on the plate, and it wasn’t photo-friendly?” Eden set her phone down. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t aesthetically pleasing, so she made it too fuzzy to see. That’s my guess.”
I shook my head. “What would she drop? The blob looks white-ish. What do we have that’s white?”
“Butter,” Beck suggested.
“A giant wad of gum,” Colson offered.
“Gum?” I asked.
Colson laughed. “My kid is notorious for doing that.”
I ran my hand over the top of my head. “It’s not fucking gum—I can tell you that right now.”
“Then, what is it?” Walker pressed.
“Holy shit,” Eden voiced. “Will you all stop talking about the white blob and pull up our reservation app and look at the numbers that are coming in? Every time I refresh, they go up by at least a hundred more reservations.”
“A hundred!” Walker yelled. “You’re telling me we’re getting a hundred more reservations by the second?”
“Across all of our locations, and, yes, that’s what I’m telling you,” Eden said.
Walker pounded his fist on the table. “Dear Foodie, I fucking love you.”
He did now .
But we still had to get through Toro’s review, and I was doing everything in my power to make sure that review was going to happen.
I took a screenshot of the photo and saved it on my phone and replied, “I’m going to show this to our sous chef and see what she says. Whatever I have to do, I’m going to get to the bottom of the white blob. ”
“Who cares what it is?” Colson said. “The result is everything we could have hoped for. The plate doesn’t matter.”
I slowly shook my head, unable to take my eyes off it. “It matters to me.”