Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81113 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
“This is the 21st century, Michael! People have Yelp! They have so many others ways to speak up, critics are just one voice among many. One bad review against a bunch of good ones isn’t going to stop people from coming.”
“But we haven’t had a ton of good reviews, Stevie!” I laid my hands down on the desk, leaning in. “Listen. If we’d been getting a bunch of good reviews for a bit, that would be one thing. But look us up! The last few months have just been panning us, ever since Theo left it’s been bad. So for us to briefly pick up, but then get a bad review from a critic? Yeah, that’s going to take out a chunk of our business right when we can least afford it.”
Stevie grabbed the newspaper, balling it up and tossing it at the small garbage can I kept by the side of my desk. “I won’t ever believe that what he’s saying is true. I know the truth, I know that my food is good, and I know that the customers like it.”
“Not all of them, clearly. This guy wasn’t satisfied.”
“And you’re running scared.” Stevie folded her arms. “I honestly can’t believe it. I always looked up to you and your being a person of principle, and here you are, ready to, what, go back to Theo’s menu? Is that what you want?”
I took a deep breath. I knew that she wasn’t going to like this, and I tried not to think about how well she knew me if she already had a damn good guess about what I was planning.
“If we would just add in a few old items from the menu, the most popular items…”
“What?” she shook her head. “No, no way.”
“We could make them with the local fresh ingredients…”
“Michael, are you even listening to yourself? If we backtrack now not only will we lose customers since those dishes weren’t good and didn’t fucking work, but we’ll look like we have no conviction! We’ll look like we’re ready to change the menu on a whim, the second that someone says that we’re wrong, and that’s no fucking way to run a business. Businesses that stay with the same shit forever will die, sure, you have to fucking adapt. But businesses that are constantly rebranding and changing to try and capture their audience, they fucking fail too!”
I hated to let her get to me, to get my temper up, but she did. Stevie was a brilliant cook, and a smart person, but she was also young and just starting out. Who’d been running a business for a decade, her or me?
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I snapped, a growl rumbling at the base of my throat. “You’re just out of culinary school. I’m the owner of the restaurant, not you, and I’m going to make final decisions on things. I know how this all actually works, not you.”
“Oh, this that it?” Stevie put her hands on her hips. “That’s how the fucking land lies? Fine! If you think that you can do such a good job with this, then why haven’t you managed to get your restaurant out of the ground in the three years since Theo left, huh? Face it, you couldn’t handle this without a good chef. You need a partner in this, and you just sank into despair after Theo and Virginia screwed you over and I am trying, I am really fucking trying to do everything I can to help you because I believe in you, and in this restaurant, and I want to work here, but really, Michael? You were failing on your own, you were drowning, you need me! So don’t go pulling that high and mighty bullshit with me, it ain’t gonna fly!”
“And don’t you go pulling your own high and mighty bullshit, young lady.”
Stevie’s eyes went wide in shock, then narrowed. “Do not ever,” she growled, “ever use my age against me like that. You are not my father, and you have never, ever treated me like I was too young or like I was a child. That was the number one thing I respected about you. I’m an adult, I am old enough to be treated like an adult, I will not have you pulling age rank on me. Especially not after you’ve fucked me!”
She had a good point there, actually. I couldn’t exactly pull age rank on someone that I was sleeping with, because sleeping with her implied that I found her mature and old enough to be my equal. And I did—I didn’t think of her as a child anymore. In fact, I was shocked at how much she’d grown in just three years, going from a child to an adult and blowing me out of the water in the process.