Luxury Cafe Owner - Chapter 31 Regulars

Though business had dropped off, Alan still found that he had a pretty steady stream of customers. The cafe never came close to being full like it had been over that two day period, but he had customers. He also started to notice some familiar faces.

The lady named Claire, whom he had come to learn was a corporate litigator, came by around noon and got a cup of coffee. As usual she took a place in a leather armchair and pulled out documents that she read through, occasionally putting pen to paper and writing notes or crossing something out.

Meanwhile, Alan noticed a tired looking young man who had started coming more often sitting at one of the dark wood tables along the wall. He had pulled out a laptop and was typing furiously away on it. Periodically, he would sip his coffee as he did so. Alan had come to know that this young man was named Richard. Richard was a university students. Originally Alan had been curious how Richard could afford to come to his cafe. As it turned out, Richard was a published author. His novel had been a bestseller so he found himself with money to afford coffee at a place like this.

Richard, truthfully, was a frugal person. Afterall he couldn’t say if his next novel would be a success, so he had to be careful with spending the money earned from his first novel. However, he found that he was better able to write when he was at Lux Cafe.

Alan felt a sense of satisfaction seeing he had some steady customers. The rush of the past few days had been exciting, but when it settled down, Alan was much like Richard in that he couldn’t rely on a rush of business like that happening every month. He needed to pay the bills, and his debt was ever looming. Thus, seeing that his regular business was expanding he felt some sense of comfort.

“Should I implement some sort of reward system for regular customers?” He pondered to himself before pushing that idea aside. It was still pretty early to consider doing that.

As Alan was pondering this, the door opened and the bell rang as a customer he was familiar with entered.

Gerald approached the counter. Alan nodded a greeting at him. He didn’t know Gerald too well but Gerald had provided him with a huge boom to his business. As a result, he felt grateful to Gerald.

However, Gerald did not appear to be in a good mood. “Did you lie to me about what coffee you use?” He asked demandingly.

Alan was taken aback. “What was all of this about?” He thought as he shook his head and replied to Gerald. “No. The coffee I use is from Prosperidad coffee farm in Colombia. Why? Is there some sort of problem?”

Gerald looked doubtful. “I had my chef make some and it didn’t taste at all like your coffee.”

Alan suddenly understood what had happened. He felt a little smug, though he hid it. “How could your chef possibly compare to the perfected recipe of the system?” He thought to himself.

Out loud, he simply shrugged and said, “The same coffee brewed different ways will have different flavors. Isn’t that obvious?”

Gerald was somewhat speechless. He really couldn’t argue with that. Still, he couldn’t believe that his chef was inferior to Alan in this aspect.

Alan could see Gerald’s doubts. He sighed. “I wouldn’t normally do this, but since you helped me out recently I’ll show you the receipts for the purchase.”

He went back into the kitchen. There was a desk in one corner with a file drawer on it. He opened it and leafed through the files until he found his receipts of purchase for the Colombian coffee. Then he brought them out for Gerald to see.

Gerald was helpless now that he saw the irrefutable proof in front of him.

“I’m sorry,” He apologized to Alan. “It’s just my chef is unable to replicate the flavor of your cappuccino. I’d like to order a cappuccino.”

Alan pointed to the wall. “It’s not yet three o’clock so I’m unable to serve you a cappuccino. However, I can serve you either regular coffee or espresso. All of our coffee drinks are made with Prosperidad coffee beans.”

Gerald considered for a moment and decided to order himself a regular coffee. It was as much to apologize to Alan for his rude behavior as it was anything else.

Alan nodded his head and went to brew the coffee. Meanwhile Gerald surveyed the cafe. He once again noted that the interior was well designed and fit with the luxurious concept of the cafe. He took a seat in one of the leather armchairs. Claire briefly looked up from her work before dismissing him and looking back at the papers she had.

Gerald observed her and thought it might not be a bad idea to try working here in the future. He could get a cappuccino in the evening while reviewing some documents.

Alan soon brought him his cup of coffee.

Gerald sipped at it and was surprised that the flavor was exactly what he had been looking for. When he’d first come here the flavor of the cappuccino hadn’t shocked him or anything, he just thought it tasted like good coffee. However, now, after his own chef had been unable to match this flavor, he now felt it was quite impressive.

It wasn’t easy to create such good coffee. The most noticeable point was that it wasn’t overbearing. It was rich, but not heavy. Bitter, but not to the point it overwhelmed your palate. It was a really delicate balance of flavor.

Gerald sighed in contentment as he sipped at it.

Alan, meanwhile, celebrated at the counter. Another rich guy fell for the bait. At this point he was able to guess that Gerald would become a regular in the future.

He grinned to himself.

Gerald left after finishing his coffee, promising he’d return in the evening for a cappuccino.

As 3 o’clock rolled around, more customers rolled through the cafe. They were the people who hadn’t gotten a cappuccino previously, or who had but wanted to try it again.

Alan was feeling whimsical today, so for the foam art he decided on an image of a nebula. The result even astonished himself. The difficult part had been expressing the different shades of color that appear in a nebula, not to mention the brilliance of the stars. The result obviously couldn’t compare to a photograph of a nebula, but still managed to capture the magnificence of space.

“If this cafe thing doesn’t work out I might have a future as a painter,” Alan mused to himself.

“Impossible, Host. Painting is very different from creating foam art.” The system spoke up.

Alan was speechless momentarily before responding, “System can’t you let me dream?”

“Host, it’s better to be grounded in reality.”

Alan shook his head, helpless at this response.

He began serving the cappuccinos, all of which received a fantastic response from customers. If he checked Twitter he’d probably see a number of tweets with pictures of the cappuccino.

Afternoon slowly turned to evening.