The Restaurant(18)
“I remember coming here for lunch with Grams and the dining room would be absolutely packed. The energy was so exciting, with all the well-dressed customers and the hustle and bustle of food coming out of the kitchen and tables being cleared. It was always a treat, coming here.”
Gary frowned and then smiled so quickly that Emma almost doubted what she’d seen.
“Is it still busy like that at lunch?” By the look of the reservation page, it seemed like they had a busy day ahead.
“Sometimes. Not often enough though,” he admitted. “There’s more competition now, more restaurants. Some of the newer ones are more appealing to the younger ‘foodie’ crowd. We’ve fallen off the radar some.”
Emma took an objective look around the restaurant. The colors were warm and inviting, the table linens crisp, but the carpet was uninspired, a bit faded and worn in spots. You really didn’t notice the carpet at first, but Emma wondered if it was just a symptom, a contributor to the overall ill health of the restaurant. She made a mental note to pay close attention to everything throughout lunch, at how many customers came in, what they ordered, and how happy or unhappy they seemed to be. She knew that Mandy had taken a copy of the restaurant’s financials home to look over with Cory. They were both great at understanding the ins and outs of financial statements and P & Ls.
Jason, the lunch chef, came out of the kitchen a half hour later and handed a slip of paper to Gary with the day’s luncheon specials.
“What did you think of the rollatini?” he asked Emma.
“Incredible. So delicious. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” He turned to Gary. “What time do the Garden ladies want their soup?”
“Not until one-thirty. They want a full half hour with their cocktails before we interrupt them with food.”
“Of course they do.” He shook his head and strolled back into the kitchen.
“Has he been here long, too?” Emma asked. She guessed that Jason was closing in on sixty.
“Not too long. Five years maybe? He worked all over the North End before moving here. I think he is a native Boston-Italian. You can tell by his specials.”
“Rollatini, braciole and escarole and white bean soup with Italian sweet sausage. Oh, braciole, isn’t that the meat that’s stuffed and rolled up and then cooked for hours in a sauce?”
“That’s it. Evidently the theme for today is rolls. You’ll have to try a little of the braciole later this afternoon when we slow down. It sounds like a cliché, but it really does melt in your mouth.”
The lunch service flew by. Gary had Emma take all the calls that came in. After each reservation, he checked the book and showed her how to plan and how to stagger them so that the guests wouldn’t have to wait when they arrived and wouldn’t feel rushed as they ate. It was definitely a balancing act and Emma was glad that Gary was being so patient with her and double-checking everything because twice she needed to call a customer back and change the time slightly.
Emma was straightening out the pile of guest checks when one caught her eye. At the top of each check, the waiter always indicated the table number and size of the party. “Wow, this guy must have been really hungry,” she commented. The amount of food he ordered would have fed two to three people comfortably.
“Let me see.” A somewhat worried look came across Gary’s face as he read off the items the guest had ordered.
“Braciole and the rollatini plus the eggplant parm off the regular menu, escarole bean soup, Caesar salad, stuffed mushrooms, a side of ziti with marina sauce plus tiramisu and cheesecake?” He raised his eyebrows at Emma. “My dear, I suspect we had a food critic in today, and regretfully, I should have picked up on this while he was here. He must be new. I usually recognize them when they come in.”
“Do you think we have anything to worry about? I’m sure everything he had was delicious.”
“It’s not just the food. Normally when someone orders like this, out of the ordinary for one person, we take note and assume that he or she may be a food critic or travel writer of some sort. So, we’ll just take extra care to make sure there are no glitches and that service goes smoothly.”
“I think he was in during the busiest part of the lunch rush. I remember seating a single dark-haired man at the small table by the window. He seemed pleasant enough.”
“We’ll see.” Gary smiled at Emma, but she could still see a hint of worry on his face.
Chapter 8
Jill 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 Gram’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 cellphone 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 her laptop in and hopefully not bother anyone. Interestingly, she noticed there were others also working on laptops and talking on cellphones. This could work.