Nova (8 page)

“What kind of work do you bring with you?” I asked.

He paused for a few seconds and then
seemed to exhale
a breath of air
. “Well this is just something for fun.”

“Fun?”

He paused again and I watched him carefully. I guess he was debating whether or not he was going to go into detail with me because he finally said, “I’m not sure if now is the right time to discuss it, but this is a
market
analysis. For this restaurant.”

I stared at him for a moment and asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, sometimes I take on a business and give it kind of a makeover. Financially. I look at what it has to offer and if certain changes will be beneficial to making the business do better. It’s kind of…
an
intervention.”

I stared at him again before I exclaimed, “
What
? You’re- you’re gonna take over this business and- and—”

“No, I’m not taking it over. I restructure the business
plan
;
draw up some pros and cons,
and
pretty much brainstorm what will make it thrive
better
.
Finances are a big part of it.
Sometimes I do it for businesses that are going under, just to see if there’s any chance that we can do something to save it from
bankrup
—”

“This place is not going under,” I retorted. “We’re doing just fine.”

He took a moment to look me over carefully. I was fully prepared to battle whatever it was he threw at me, but instead he said, “I’m sorry if you take offense to the world of business. You asked what work I had with me, and I guess I could have made up something else, but maybe I thought you’d be a little more open to the idea. You seem to love you
r
aunt, and being that you’re here so much, I kind of thought you’d be interested in improving the family business. Surely you’d like to give her the chance to make this place everything she hoped it would be. There’s a lot of potential here, but sometimes you need the right person to make it happen.”

“And
that’s you,” I stated somewhat d
ourly.

“Well, it is what I do.”

“Oh, t
hat’s
one
of your jobs
? Restructuring businesses?”

“One of my jobs, huh?”

“Yea
h, the other week
your friend
said, ‘
W
hich
job are you gonna share?’ like it was some big joke or something.”

He smiled and replied, “Yeah, I do have a few jobs I guess. The track, the ranch, and the little side business of
restructuring.”

“You’re a busy guy.”

“Sometimes. Usually
just
when I choose to be.”

Robin set the check on the table, and after she left, Austin pulled out his wallet and placed a
twenty
with it.

“So what do you think about coming up to the ranch next weekend?” he asked. “Can I plan for that? Maybe you should come for two days. I’ll pick you up when you’re done with work on Friday, and then I can take you bac
k home on Sunday when I go home
too.”

I was still spinning from the first offer (and then the whole business restructuring thing, and now another offer for
two
days), so I didn’t respond at first. He waited for a few seconds for me to reply, and then he seemed to think I wasn’t going to.

“Well, it was nice having lunch with you, Nova. At the very least I’ll see you next week
,
and if you decide you want to go, I’d be happy for you to join me
in Bakersfield
. Have a good weekend,” he smiled.

He was about to get up but I told him to wait, so he settled back into his seat.

“What kind of plans do you have for the
diner
?” I asked.

He raised an eyebrow,
possibly
surprised that I was hooked on that instead of the whole ranch visit idea.
I didn’t
know what he was thinking; he was hard to read.

“Well I’d rather not have you bite my head off for something you might not want to hear. Business-wise I could
n’t
care less. If you were just another business deal, it wouldn’t faze me one bit. But since we’re
friends
…”

He gave me a goofy smile and I had to chuckle.

“Since we’re friends, I’d rather not have you upset with me,” he finished.

“I won’t be.”

He raised another eyebrow, seeming to question me on that.

“I
won’t
,” I said adamantly. “I just want to hear some of your ideas.”

“Okay, but keep an open mind…” He shuffled through his pile of papers in the folder and pulled one out, handing it to me. “Cons. Start with the negative, and then I’ll flatter you with the positives.”

I sort of smiled as I glanced over the first line. “ ‘Clover’s is not even a café; it’s a
diner
’?
” I read.

He shrugged.
“
The sign
says ‘Café,’
but
to me
it’s
more of
a diner.”

“Meryl just kept the sign when she remodeled the first time,” I said defensively.

He only smiled and gave me a look that said, “You promised you wouldn’t get mad at me.”

“Okay, okay, so it’s not really a café anymore,” I relented. “I see your point.”

“
No, technically you can call it a café. In this country a café is meant to mean more than just a coffeehouse. If you guys make certain changes, people will be able to tell it’s a restaurant. But right now, the way this place is set up, it appears to be a little café.
Sometimes owners don’t see how the little things can
have
such an effect.

“
Take that day you stopped us on the sidewalk. Very clever move
,
by the way, because we were just headed for pizza. But I’ll be honest with you and admit that I saw the sign for Clover’s, but a ‘café’ wasn’t what we had in mind. We
exited for
Burger King
but it
was crowded, so pizza was the next
choice
. Honestly, if that
sign
had said ‘diner,’
we would have gone in without being bribed. That’s why I asked what you guys had to eat.”

“But what about places like Mimi’s Café? I mean…that’s like an actual restaurant, but they call it a café. Why isn’t that okay for here? Just because we’re small?”

“Honestly you can call it whatever
you want. But yeah, Mimi’s is a chain restaurant and their establishments are larger in size. In California alone there are
around
sixty Mimi’s locations. But like I said, it was just the size and the appearance of this building that made us think that it was just a little coffee shop. The name won’t even matter once you make—
if
you make—a few changes.”

I slightly nodded my head
and then read the other cons on th
e list. “
Windows don’t allow for passersby to get a good look inside… Menus could be posted on the door… Aesthetic appearance is up to date but
not
overly exceptional…”

I continued to read for another minute. Most of the cons had to do with the buildi
ng itself—the visual appearance
or the storefront—and a few had to do with other small things. I actually agreed with most of it. Meryl had made some changes over the past couple of years, but without the money to do anything big, there wasn’t
much
she could do about the building.

“These are all great observations,” I said. “But Meryl doesn’t have the money to make any changes, Austin. It’s not that we don’t want to be a better business; it’s just that we’re not able to right now. I mean we can’t even afford to hire the two more waitresses we need.”

“Yeah, I realize that, but that’s where I
come in. This is just the start,
the ideas. I can help make the funds available to Meryl, she can make the changes, and when the business is pulling in the money that it deserves, she gradually pays back the loan.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You get a cut too, right? I mean how else would you make money on this.”

“Yeah
, usually
I get a return. But it’s negotiable
, and right now I’m not interested in that
.”

“And what about the loan? Which arm do they want of Meryl’s because she kind of needs them both.
”

He chuckled. “I’ve taken care of that, and the loan will be pretty
fair
.”

“You’ve already done the financial numbers?”

“Yes.”

He looked through his
papers and handed me another sheet. I read it over, nothing really surprising me much, but then something caught my eye.

“An addition? You mean to the building?”

He nodded and pointed to the other end of the diner. “Fifteen feet that way lined with windows. The property includes another thirty feet, so a little bit of construction out that way will give you six more parking spaces
, some basic landscaping,
and room for a sign.”

“Yeah I see the price for the sign. That’s outrageous.”

“It will at least be seen
. And you’ll be able to compete with other businesses better when people come off the freeway looking for a place to eat
, or head over here from the amusement park
.”

I took a moment to think it over and said, “But an addition? We barely fill what little space we have.”

“You’ll fill the space. With the marketing and advertising changes, you’ll fill the space. Trust me, it’s all in equal balance. You make the changes to fit what the diner can offer. You have to measure out the potential and then figure out which changes to make.”

I sighed. “This is all…very comprehensive. I don’t think Meryl will want to talk to you, though. She’s had other people on her case about selling the business and stuff. It makes her mad.”

“Yeah, she was a little perturbed,” he smiled.

I raised my eyebrows. “You already presented this to her?”

“Earlier
.”

“And?”

“And she didn’t say much. I could tell she wanted to do it, but I understand how hard it is to make those kind of decisions.”

“And you didn’t try to talk her into it? Sell your plan?”

“No,” he chuckled. “I’m not a salesman, Nova. I form the
plans
. Normally businesses come to
us
for help.”

“So you just decided to do the work without even being asked to? Why?”

He shrugged. “It was interesting to me. I automatically look at things like that when I enter a business and it just kind of…started developing in my head. So I
decided to
throw
it
in
the computer to see what there was.”

“And did Meryl say she was going to get back to you or anything?”

“Yeah. I left her a copy—it’s a lot nice
r
than this; more formal,” he smiled, “—And I told her I’d be back next week, or she could call me.”

I took a deep breath for some reason and began thinking over the situation. Here was this guy that I was totally hooked on, and it turns out he just wanted to div
e into another business venture?
I wasn’t sure what to think, but I did look at my watch and say that I needed to get back to work.

“Don’t you want to look over the pros?” he asked with a tiny smile.

I paused but eventually took the paper from his hand. My hackles kind of went up when I saw that it was
a very short list, probably a fourth
of the cons list.

But I read the first line,
Staff is incredible
, and I had to smile. The other few things on
the list
were pretty simple—great food and
drinks
, very clean and well managed,
fair prices,
and exceptional service. I guess those were the biggest parts of a restaurant, and I couldn’t complain.

“The heart of this business is
already
what it should be,” Austin told me. “The foo
d, the people, and the service.
The other little things—the aesthetics and the things that will
entice
people
to come
in here—will just be simple changes to the surface. But those
changes
are what will bring Clover’s the business it deserves.”