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)
But did experience mean nothing anymore? Was she just going to say move aside, old man?
“That’s rich coming from you,” I said, my temper getting the better of me. “You’re basically telling me that I’m a useless old man who needs to move aside for the younger generation and get with the times.”
“That is not what I’m saying, and you’re a fucking idiot if that’s what you’re hearing. I’m telling you that you need a partner and that you’re in a slump. That’s not the same fucking thing at all!”
I didn’t want to fight with her, I genuinely didn’t. But she was just so goddamn stubborn and opinionated. Honestly that was part of why I was so drawn to her. I loved that fire in her and that passion. But now it was working against me. And I could be a pretty damn stubborn and hotheaded person myself, so…
“And you need to accept the fact that just because you know a lot doesn’t mean that your age works against you. You still have a lot to learn and I’m still the boss of this place and so what I say goes, all right?”
Stevie snorted. “Well you’re welcome to replace me if you think that you can find someone better. I know that my menu is fucking good, and my cooking is fucking good, and it’s definitely fucking better than Theo’s bullshit pretentious-ass mess. You want to dick around and jump every time someone says boo? Try to recreate what Theo did ten fucking years ago? Fine. But leave me out of it.”
She practically ripped off her chef’s jacket, tossing it onto the chair, and then stormed out the door.
Shit.
I collapsed into my own chair on the other side of the desk. Her chef’s jacket seemed to mock me. I didn’t want to fight with Stevie, far from it, but God, dammit. I couldn’t have my business in the shitter either and she had to see reason.
What the fuck was I supposed to do?
Chapter Eighteen: Stevie
It was two weeks since my fight with Michael, and it was finally my day off. I took Mondays off since they’re the slowest days in the restaurant industry. Everyone was back at work from the weekend, busy and rushing, and nobody wanted to go out or anything afterwards.
Everybody enjoyed their days off, no matter how much they might love their job, but for me it was extra welcome. I was relieved to get out of the kitchen in a way that I almost never was. I would’ve left the city if I could have, just to get away from it all.
The last two weeks had been nothing short of miserable. Business had been terrible—Michael was right. People weren’t coming in, having heard from the critic what he thought and deciding to give us a pass.
It was absolute bullshit, of course. I knew it. I didn’t know exactly what bug had crawled up that guy’s ass but it had to be something big because there was no way that he was giving my food a fair trial. Was he just so enamored with the insanely complex, tiny bites of eight-course tasting menus that were all the rage nowadays? Or was he one of those annoying hipsters who wanted everything from duck l’orange to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich deconstructed on a ‘rustic’ plate?
Whatever it was, he’d come after my restaurant unfairly. But people trusted him. People still trusted critics, it seemed, or at least trusted them over the recent Yelp reviews we’d gotten. And y’know I understood to a certain extent. Critics were paid to review that kind of shit, this was their career, so theoretically they were better at it than the foodie wannabes who flooded the internet with their usually spoiled and uptight and often unwanted opinions.
People listened to the experts, even in this day and age of crowdfunding, and constant blogging, and everybody with a phone having thoughts to share. And they sure as fuck were listening now, and they were saying that they didn’t like what this critic was saying one bit. They were going to take him at his word and stay the fuck away.
I wanted to write back to him, to the newspaper, and demand to know just who the fuck he thought he was. Like my God, as if anyone who’d already been to our restaurant couldn’t see through that pack of fucking lies. Fuck him! Seriously! He wasn’t giving an honest review, he just wasn’t, he was blinded by his judgement, he had to be.
But of course I couldn’t say that. Nobody would believe me. They’d think that I was just being bitter or something, a vindictive harpy, blah fucking blah, I could read the headlines already.
Shit like this, though, that was why I’d wanted to revamp the restaurant. Once as a kid I’d been just as dazzled by the fancy dishes that Theo and people like him would make. Michael would bring food home from the restaurant for Brooke and me, and I’d adored it. But now I understood that all flair and style with no actual substance behind it was crap.