Wilford Warfstache (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cottoncandypink) wrote2018-05-06 02:18 pm
cottoncandypink) wrote2018-05-06 02:18 pm
“Home,” Jess said, as if the answer should have been obvious. “Some asshole kept me up all night.”
Wilford had wanted to let the restaurant chug along while he figured out what needed to be fixed with it. The place had been keeping its head above water so far, so how difficult could it be to turn it around one piece at a time?
More difficult than he’d imagined. The place hadn’t been keeping its head above water. It should have had the plug pulled ages ago. No amount of reshuffling and rescheduling was going to fix it any time soon. He had to close it down, fix everything at once, and start all the way over. The first part of that was figuring out what to do with the staff. It was also the easiest part. They could walk with a reference, or take a paid vacation at whatever their current salary was. Most chose to walk, which was fine by him. Fewer people to pay out of pocket that way.
The chef wasn’t bad. He knew what he was doing, even if he did have a tendency to half-ass some things. It was hard to blame him with the disaster of a menu he was working with. That was going to be the first thing Wilford looked at fixing. Not bad was also not great.
It took him the better part of the weekend to figure out what he wanted to do about it. He had some ideas, but he needed to do some research on the matter. And research needed a partner. He had some ADR scheduled for Monday morning, which he immediately decided to put off until later in the week. When he walked into the studio, he walked straight past his dressing room and started hunting through the entire building instead. Finally, he found who he was looking for, tucked away in a sound booth dipping a doughnut into her coffee.
“Come on. I need a date,” Wilford said, holding the door open.
Jess looked up at him, and then at her coffee and doughnut, and then back at him. “What’s in it for me?” she asked. She took a bite of her doughnut and chewed slowly while she waited for a response.
“An all you can eat buffet.” It was technically true, if not in the strictest sense of the word. It was enough for Jess, though. She nodded slowly and got up, bringing her coffee and doughnut with her.
“You’re paying, right?” she asked.
“I’m writing it off,” Wilford said.
The two of them walked out to his car, neither saying another word. Jess finished her breakfast on her way out to the beach, and eventually got bored and started fiddling with the stations on the radio.
“So what are we doing, really?” she asked finally as they got off the main road, and onto the winding avenues of Del Perro.
“I already told you,” Wilford said.
“There aren’t any buffets in this part of town,” Jess pointed out. “Not unless we’re going to a hotel.”
“We’re not going to a hotel.” He parked on the northern end of the boardwalk, taking a few moments to check his wallet and phone before getting out of the car. Tourist season was already in full swing, crowding the area with gawkers stopping to take selfies with seagulls. Wilford quickly walked past all of them, ducking into the very first restaurant in the long row of tourist traps along the beach. Like everything else along the boardwalk, it was full of hipster vibe and pretentious, overpriced menu items. Half the people in the place had their phones out, taking pictures of themselves, their food, or themselves eating their food. Somewhere was the irritating natter of a vlogger trying to hype the place up as THE place to eat in LS. Wilford and Jess were quickly seated and left alone almost immediately.
Wilford looked at the menu and sighed. It had exactly two choice, dressed up to look like twenty: some vegan goat food salad, or something that was 90% cheese. He wasn’t even a little bit surprised. While he was being ignored by the waiter, he pulled out his steno pad and started making notes on every aspect of the menu before ordering an appetiser that didn’t seem like it was going to kill him.
About half the boardwalk was made up of restaurants, and Wilford intended to stop into every single one of them. Deconstructed sandwiches, pseudo-Italian, ethical seafood, vegan. Somehow, it was all the same. Wilford couldn’t eat half of it, and Jess had something to say about all of it. He wrote that down too, slowly building a messy but detailed chart of everything that was available on the beach. They even stopped at some of the food cards off the boardwalk, where everything that didn’t fit in with the “super unique and totally different” mould had wound up. Thai, curry, hot dogs, the sort of thing that couldn’t decide what kind of Asian it was supposed to be. Quick meals that delivered what you expected. Wilford preferred those to anything up on the boardwalk.
As the sun began to set, they doubled back and stopped in at one that was dark and obviously closed. He’d already had the sign ripped off, because like hell was he going to run anything that was called Thandie’s. He just hadn’t figured out what he was going to call it yet.
“Is this yours?” Jess asked, following him up to the door.
“Yep.” He unlocked it and let her inside to snoop around while he headed back to the kitchen. The previous management had been a disaster, but at least the staff understood what their job was. Everything was clean, and well organised, with nice, clear dates written on everything. Wilford spent some time looking around the walk-in, trying to decide what he wanted to do with it. If this was going to be his restaurant, he wanted to actually be able to eat there without getting poisoned. He started pulling out anything he didn’t want on the menu, piling it all into boxes and crates. There wasn’t much he wound up getting rid of, but it was enough to clear up a good amount of space to make more room. Wilford went out to the front house to find Jess napping in a booth, and tossed his keys at her, rudely waking her up.
“What?” she asked, slowly looking for whatever it was that hit her in the stomach.
“Go get the car,” he said, already reaching for his wallet. “Take the crates in the kitchen and deliver it to some soup kitchen or something. I don’t care. Just get them out of here. Then I want you to go down to the port and pick up some stuff.” He handed her a few hundred dollars and a hand-written list, walking away before she had time to ask questions or object. Eventually, she got up and left the building. She was back about ten minutes later for the crates, and a demand for a tip, which Wilford paid along with an eyeroll. At that point, he was already back to digging through the walk-in to see what he could find. Once Jess was gone again, he pulled out his phone and called Paul with instructions to be prepared for a long night.
It took a few hours for Jess to come back from her errands, and by then the kitchen was full of noise and commotion. Wilford still hadn’t really decided what the menu should be, but he and Paul were working together to try to figure that out. He didn’t want to serve sandwiches and pseudo-Italian, and Paul seemed just as eager to step away from that.
“All right, men,” Jess declared disdainfully as she brought a crate into the kitchen. “Go get the rest of your disgusting fish.”
Wilford looked over to see what Paul was elbow-deep in, and decided to quickly finish off his own little experiment instead, and followed Jess out to the car. She’d put it all in the trunk, at least, so the car wouldn’t smell like seafood for the next month, and had managed to haggle more out of the people down at the port than Wilford was prepared for. This was going to be the fun part. Once they had everything in the walk-in, Wilford started digging through everything to see what he had to work with.
By about four in the morning, they had almost fifty dishes between them to work with. Enlisting Jess’ help again, they started on the task of figuring out what to keep, what to get rid of, and what to combine. Wilford didn’t know much about western cuisine, which was pretty much all Paul knew, but he’d already had some ideas that Wilford liked. After trying everything and comparing notes with one another, they managed to cut the list in half, which felt like a good number. By then, the sun was coming up, and even Wilford was feeling exhausted.
“Six o’clock tonight,” Wilford said to Paul as they started to tear everything down and clean up their mess. “We’re building the menu and teaching your team how to make it. Let your guys know.”
Paul nodded, but said nothing. They’d lost Jess again, but that was fine. She didn’t work there anyway, and was going to start getting angry if Wilford kept putting her to work. It took them almost an hour to get everything back to working order, before Wilford could go find Jess once again sleeping in a booth. He kicked her foot to wake her up again, trying not to laugh at the death glare coming from her.
“You going home, or back to the studio?” he asked.
“Home,” Jess said, as if the answer should have been obvious. “Some asshole kept me up all night.”
Wilford pointed to the door, waiting for both Jess and Paul to get out of there before he shut everything down and locked up.
More difficult than he’d imagined. The place hadn’t been keeping its head above water. It should have had the plug pulled ages ago. No amount of reshuffling and rescheduling was going to fix it any time soon. He had to close it down, fix everything at once, and start all the way over. The first part of that was figuring out what to do with the staff. It was also the easiest part. They could walk with a reference, or take a paid vacation at whatever their current salary was. Most chose to walk, which was fine by him. Fewer people to pay out of pocket that way.
The chef wasn’t bad. He knew what he was doing, even if he did have a tendency to half-ass some things. It was hard to blame him with the disaster of a menu he was working with. That was going to be the first thing Wilford looked at fixing. Not bad was also not great.
It took him the better part of the weekend to figure out what he wanted to do about it. He had some ideas, but he needed to do some research on the matter. And research needed a partner. He had some ADR scheduled for Monday morning, which he immediately decided to put off until later in the week. When he walked into the studio, he walked straight past his dressing room and started hunting through the entire building instead. Finally, he found who he was looking for, tucked away in a sound booth dipping a doughnut into her coffee.
“Come on. I need a date,” Wilford said, holding the door open.
Jess looked up at him, and then at her coffee and doughnut, and then back at him. “What’s in it for me?” she asked. She took a bite of her doughnut and chewed slowly while she waited for a response.
“An all you can eat buffet.” It was technically true, if not in the strictest sense of the word. It was enough for Jess, though. She nodded slowly and got up, bringing her coffee and doughnut with her.
“You’re paying, right?” she asked.
“I’m writing it off,” Wilford said.
The two of them walked out to his car, neither saying another word. Jess finished her breakfast on her way out to the beach, and eventually got bored and started fiddling with the stations on the radio.
“So what are we doing, really?” she asked finally as they got off the main road, and onto the winding avenues of Del Perro.
“I already told you,” Wilford said.
“There aren’t any buffets in this part of town,” Jess pointed out. “Not unless we’re going to a hotel.”
“We’re not going to a hotel.” He parked on the northern end of the boardwalk, taking a few moments to check his wallet and phone before getting out of the car. Tourist season was already in full swing, crowding the area with gawkers stopping to take selfies with seagulls. Wilford quickly walked past all of them, ducking into the very first restaurant in the long row of tourist traps along the beach. Like everything else along the boardwalk, it was full of hipster vibe and pretentious, overpriced menu items. Half the people in the place had their phones out, taking pictures of themselves, their food, or themselves eating their food. Somewhere was the irritating natter of a vlogger trying to hype the place up as THE place to eat in LS. Wilford and Jess were quickly seated and left alone almost immediately.
Wilford looked at the menu and sighed. It had exactly two choice, dressed up to look like twenty: some vegan goat food salad, or something that was 90% cheese. He wasn’t even a little bit surprised. While he was being ignored by the waiter, he pulled out his steno pad and started making notes on every aspect of the menu before ordering an appetiser that didn’t seem like it was going to kill him.
About half the boardwalk was made up of restaurants, and Wilford intended to stop into every single one of them. Deconstructed sandwiches, pseudo-Italian, ethical seafood, vegan. Somehow, it was all the same. Wilford couldn’t eat half of it, and Jess had something to say about all of it. He wrote that down too, slowly building a messy but detailed chart of everything that was available on the beach. They even stopped at some of the food cards off the boardwalk, where everything that didn’t fit in with the “super unique and totally different” mould had wound up. Thai, curry, hot dogs, the sort of thing that couldn’t decide what kind of Asian it was supposed to be. Quick meals that delivered what you expected. Wilford preferred those to anything up on the boardwalk.
As the sun began to set, they doubled back and stopped in at one that was dark and obviously closed. He’d already had the sign ripped off, because like hell was he going to run anything that was called Thandie’s. He just hadn’t figured out what he was going to call it yet.
“Is this yours?” Jess asked, following him up to the door.
“Yep.” He unlocked it and let her inside to snoop around while he headed back to the kitchen. The previous management had been a disaster, but at least the staff understood what their job was. Everything was clean, and well organised, with nice, clear dates written on everything. Wilford spent some time looking around the walk-in, trying to decide what he wanted to do with it. If this was going to be his restaurant, he wanted to actually be able to eat there without getting poisoned. He started pulling out anything he didn’t want on the menu, piling it all into boxes and crates. There wasn’t much he wound up getting rid of, but it was enough to clear up a good amount of space to make more room. Wilford went out to the front house to find Jess napping in a booth, and tossed his keys at her, rudely waking her up.
“What?” she asked, slowly looking for whatever it was that hit her in the stomach.
“Go get the car,” he said, already reaching for his wallet. “Take the crates in the kitchen and deliver it to some soup kitchen or something. I don’t care. Just get them out of here. Then I want you to go down to the port and pick up some stuff.” He handed her a few hundred dollars and a hand-written list, walking away before she had time to ask questions or object. Eventually, she got up and left the building. She was back about ten minutes later for the crates, and a demand for a tip, which Wilford paid along with an eyeroll. At that point, he was already back to digging through the walk-in to see what he could find. Once Jess was gone again, he pulled out his phone and called Paul with instructions to be prepared for a long night.
It took a few hours for Jess to come back from her errands, and by then the kitchen was full of noise and commotion. Wilford still hadn’t really decided what the menu should be, but he and Paul were working together to try to figure that out. He didn’t want to serve sandwiches and pseudo-Italian, and Paul seemed just as eager to step away from that.
“All right, men,” Jess declared disdainfully as she brought a crate into the kitchen. “Go get the rest of your disgusting fish.”
Wilford looked over to see what Paul was elbow-deep in, and decided to quickly finish off his own little experiment instead, and followed Jess out to the car. She’d put it all in the trunk, at least, so the car wouldn’t smell like seafood for the next month, and had managed to haggle more out of the people down at the port than Wilford was prepared for. This was going to be the fun part. Once they had everything in the walk-in, Wilford started digging through everything to see what he had to work with.
By about four in the morning, they had almost fifty dishes between them to work with. Enlisting Jess’ help again, they started on the task of figuring out what to keep, what to get rid of, and what to combine. Wilford didn’t know much about western cuisine, which was pretty much all Paul knew, but he’d already had some ideas that Wilford liked. After trying everything and comparing notes with one another, they managed to cut the list in half, which felt like a good number. By then, the sun was coming up, and even Wilford was feeling exhausted.
“Six o’clock tonight,” Wilford said to Paul as they started to tear everything down and clean up their mess. “We’re building the menu and teaching your team how to make it. Let your guys know.”
Paul nodded, but said nothing. They’d lost Jess again, but that was fine. She didn’t work there anyway, and was going to start getting angry if Wilford kept putting her to work. It took them almost an hour to get everything back to working order, before Wilford could go find Jess once again sleeping in a booth. He kicked her foot to wake her up again, trying not to laugh at the death glare coming from her.
“You going home, or back to the studio?” he asked.
“Home,” Jess said, as if the answer should have been obvious. “Some asshole kept me up all night.”
Wilford pointed to the door, waiting for both Jess and Paul to get out of there before he shut everything down and locked up.