Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
J ill was having the day from hell. Just about everything that could possibly go wrong did.
She tried to dial in to the office for the Monday morning job-order meeting, but her phone kept disconnecting due to construction on the next street over.
By the time it was working again, the meeting was long over.
Her computer was driving her crazy too, due to Grams’s painfully slow connection.
She had called the cable company first thing that morning to upgrade to the high-speed network, but the earliest appointment they could give her was a week away.
By lunchtime, she just couldn’t take it any longer.
She packed up her laptop and cell phone and headed down the street to her favorite local coffee shop, which offered great sandwiches and soups and, best of all, free Wi-Fi.
She called her office, had Jenna forward all her calls to her cell, then settled into an empty corner where she could plug in her laptop and hopefully not bother anyone.
Interestingly, she noticed there were others also working on laptops and talking on cell phones. This could work.
She was in the middle of an interview with a star candidate when another call beeped through, and Billy’s number flashed.
She ignored it, figuring she could call him back when she was done.
She thought it was rude to answer another call in the middle of an interview.
But when he called again five minutes later, she apologized to her candidate and clicked over.
“What’s up? Is something wrong?”
“No, I just wanted to see what you were doing. You didn’t answer the first time I called.” Billy was all charm, and she wanted to kill him.
“That’s because I’m working. I’m on the line with a great candidate and only answered now because I figured if you called twice like that, it had to be important, an emergency even.”
“What, talking to me isn’t important?” he teased.
“I have to go. I’ll call you later.” She clicked back to her candidate, apologized again, and finished the interview. A minute later, her phone rang again, the main number from her office.
“Jill, it’s Jenna. Just wanted to give you a heads-up that Roger Anderson just called in looking for you. I told him you were in a meeting and would call him right back. He said your candidate no-showed for his interview.”
“Thanks. I’ll find out what happened and call him right back.”
After a half hour of tracking down the missing candidate, who somehow got the interview day mixed up, and rescheduling with the client, Jill finally had a chance to call Billy back.
“I thought you were ignoring me.”
“No, just putting out fires, as usual. What’s going on?”
“It’s weird without you here. The energy level is down.”
Jill chuckled. “Are you trying to say you miss me?”
“We all miss you.”
“That’s sweet, but I’m right here. I’m still working. This morning was just a glitch, and it was my first time dialing in. Once I’m regularly part of the meetings, even from a distance, it will be better.”
“I suppose. It has to be, right?”
“It will be. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Go bill up a storm, would you please?”
“You got it.”
Jill hung up the phone and then, feeling suddenly restless, took a walk up to the pastry counter and gave in to temptation.
She settled back at her table and took a bite of the cherry strudel pastry.
She wouldn’t make a habit of it, but just for today, she felt she deserved a little treat.
She didn’t admit it to Billy, but she was already missing being in the office too.
She missed the fast pace and the constant hum of people on the phone.
After only a few days, she was missing everything—Billy most of all.
“So how was your day?” Mandy asked brightly. She’d just arrived at Grams’s house and had a bottle of red wine and a casserole dish with something that smelled amazing.
“Fabulous,” Jill lied. “What is that?” Mandy had called earlier and said she was bringing them dinner and was anxious to hear how things had gone for both Emma and Jill.
“Veggie lasagna. It’s a new recipe. Low-cal but still tons of flavor. We’ll see, I guess, right?”
“Well, it smells delicious,” Emma said and started getting plates and silverware from the kitchen. They filled their plates and poured the wine, then settled comfortably at Grams’s dining room table.
“So,” Mandy began, “Emma, tell us everything. How was your day? What was it like? Should I be nervous about tomorrow?”
“No, don’t be nervous. Gary is a doll. He’ll walk you through everything,” Emma assured her and told them all about her day, ending with the realization that they may have been visited by a food critic.
“Do you remember his name?” Mandy asked.
“Why? Are you up on who the local food critics are?” Jill asked, and Emma chuckled. She’d been wondering the same thing.
“I may recognize the name.” Mandy seemed serious, so Emma tried to recall the name. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.
“I don’t remember his first name. Last name may have been Connor.”
“I don’t think he’s a food critic.” Mandy chewed her bottom lip for a moment, then continued. “He may be a consultant that Cory hired. I just didn’t think he’d start so soon.”
“Start what? Why would Cory hire a consultant to eat a bunch of food at our restaurant?” Jill sounded annoyed at Cory’s interference but also curious to know what he was up to.
Mandy helped herself to another slice of lasagna before settling back into her seat and filling them in on news that she knew they wouldn’t be happy about.
“Well, you know how we brought the financials home to look through? I took the initial look and was concerned enough to ask Cory to review everything and advise us on what we should do.”
“What’s wrong?” Emma asked.
“Well, I was planning to tell you all this over dinner anyway, so here’s the scoop. Mimi’s Place is barely breaking even. For the past seven years, profits and overall revenues have been steadily decreasing from year to year, and expenses have gone up. Not a good combination.”
“But nothing seems to have changed,” Jill said. “Every time I’ve been there, it’s been busy.”
“Well, think about when we usually go,” Mandy pointed out. “Almost always for a special occasion, which means a busy Saturday night, their best night.”
“You’re right.” Emma looked thoughtful. “It’s funny you mention that about nothing changing.
It’s like time has stood still there. The menu hasn’t changed much over the years.
I also noticed earlier today that while the room still has that cozy atmosphere, the carpet is looking a bit worn, and overall, it feels a little faded. ”
“So what did Cory suggest?” Jill asked, reaching for more salad.
“The Gordon Ramsay approach. You know that old show of his? Not the chef competition, the other one where he evaluates and fixes restaurants that aren’t working?”
Emma smiled. “ Kitchen Nightmares . It’s a great show. Peter and I used to love watching it.”
“That’s it. So Cory did something similar.
He knows a great restaurant consultant, someone his old company used when they were thinking of investing in a restaurant chain.
He hired him to make a series of visits, try the food, see how the place operates, and then put together a recovery plan with ideas we can implement to turn things around. ”
“That sounds expensive.” Emma’s voice held a note of worry. “Where will the money come from?”
“Well, as Cory says, you have to spend money to make money. This will be investing in the business.” Mandy could see the others were less enthused.
“Yes, but Emma has a good point. Where does the money come from for this investment?” Jill asked.
“Cory is paying for the consultant. But he also discovered that Mimi’s Place has a line of credit that has barely been touched, and that’s what we can tap into for any money we need to put into the restaurant changes.”
“Oh good.” Emma seemed relieved.
“Do we have any idea what we’ve gotten ourselves into?” Jill asked.
“Well, let’s look at it like an adventure.” Mandy smiled, reaching for her wine.
“You always did look on the bright side,” Emma commented as she topped off her wineglass and, without asking, refilled Mandy’s and Jill’s glasses as well. “I admit, I did enjoy today at the restaurant. I loved the energy and the overall atmosphere and of course, the food.”
“To an adventure.” Jill lifted her glass, and the other two joined her, tapping glasses lightly.
Mandy enjoyed working her lunch shift. Gary walked her through everything the way he had with Emma the day before, and she was happy to see that it was fairly busy and stayed steady throughout the afternoon. Or at least that was how it seemed to her. Gary apparently felt differently.
“Well, we were a little off again today. Lunches just haven’t been as busy as they used to be.”
“Really? Why is that, do you think?”
“Hard to say. The restaurant business is fickle. There’s no real rhyme or reason to it.
You can plan for a busy night and then be dead and vice versa.
There’s more competition than there used to be, for one thing.
Plus, I think a lot of the business crowd comes less frequently than they used to.
They go for more casual lunches. Faster service so they can get in and out quickly and back to work.
The days of the three-martini lunches are long gone. ”
“That makes sense,” Mandy agreed. She pulled a menu from the stack at the front desk and browsed it for a moment. The selection was mouthwatering, as Mandy loved all things Italian, but looking over the dishes, she saw a familiar sameness there. Nothing new or surprising.
“When was the last time the menu was updated?” she asked.
Gary thought for a moment, then chuckled. “It’s been years. Paul and Jason do their daily specials, but this has been the menu pretty much the entire time I’ve worked here. The only thing that has changed every few years is the prices.”
“That’s interesting.” She thought of some of the restaurants that she and Cory frequented, where the menus seemed to change with the seasons.
“Why mess with success, I suppose?” Gary said with a smile as he reached to answer the phone. “Mimi’s Place, how may I help you?”
“You may need to fire people,” Cory said while buttering a piece of bread.
He and Mandy had just sat down to dinner.
They were eating outside on the deck so they could enjoy the ocean view and keep an eye on the kids.
They had eaten earlier and were now in the backyard playing cornhole.
They loved the simple game where they took turns tossing small beanbags at wooden angled boards that had a hole in the middle.
It wasn’t as easy as it looked, but it was a fun game, and Mandy smiled at the sound of their occasional laughter.
She had just finished telling Cory about her first day and how the menu was virtually untouched over the years.
“That’s a bit unusual, don’t you think? Plus, we haven’t even heard from the consultant yet. He still has a few more visits before he’ll make any recommendations, right?” she asked.
“Yes, but more than likely, that will be one of his suggestions. It usually is. There are always ways to cut back, and losing a few people makes a big impact quickly.”
“I don’t like it. We don’t want to come in and ruffle feathers right off the bat. We need these people. Grams would not approve of layoffs.” Mandy knew she’d hate it.
“I’m just planting the seed so you’re not shocked when it’s suggested as part of the recovery plan.”
“Well, we’ll see what else he suggests. We don’t have to do everything he says, or not all at once anyway.”
“Of course not,” he agreed.
“Plus, we don’t want to be shorthanded for the wedding.” One of the highlights of her day had been when a young woman and her mother stopped in for lunch, and on the way out, they said they’d decided to book their wedding reception at Mimi’s Place.
They were planning on around two hundred people, which would fill the entire restaurant when they opened the adjacent function room.
It had an accordion-style folding door that could be opened to make for one giant room.
Mimi’s Place did a good number of weddings, and Mandy listened intently as Gary walked the two women through all the different options.
This kind of event was right up her alley, and she felt confident that she could help make it a special day by making sure everything went smoothly.
“I’m going to run back to the office for a bit,” Cory said as Mandy finished clearing the table and stacking the dishes in the dishwasher.
“Now? Why not just work here?” It was almost eight, and she felt about ready to drop. She was looking forward to putting on her softest pajamas, getting the kids tucked into bed, and curling up with a book for a bit before climbing into bed herself.
“I left the papers I need at the office, and I’ll be able to focus there and get things done more quickly.”
“Okay. Don’t stay too late though.” She kissed him on the cheek and watched as he walked out the front door.
He was obsessed with work and had been as long as Mandy had known him.
She foolishly thought that when he opened his own business, he’d have more flexibility and more time to relax, but it was exactly the opposite.
He worked more hours now than he ever had before.