Chapter 60: Customer and More Customers (2)
Chapter 60: Customer and More Customers (2)
Night-time in Chicago was a little disappointing compared with the afternoon. Fewer people sought out food trucks at night, and many of those who could be considered Grand Chef fans had already visited during the day. Even so, the five hundred rolls of kimbap they had prepared in two batches still sold out after only three hours.
At ten o’clock, Jo Minjoon sat inside the moving truck organising the accounts. He was not used to bookkeeping, but if he treated it like maths homework, it was not especially difficult. “We made 1,422 dollars today. After subtracting the cost of oil and ingredients, our profit was roughly 800 dollars.”
“I don’t know whether that’s a lot or not,” Joanne said with an uncertain expression.
Jo Minjoon closed the account book. “That’s 160 dollars each for one day. Does that make it easier to understand?”
“How much would that be in a year? One hundred and sixty times three hundred, plus sixty times that, then another five……”
“58,400 dollars. Of course, that’s assuming you never take a day off. Once you subtract holidays and rest days, you can think of it as less than 50,000 dollars.”
“……You calculate fast.”
Jo Minjoon glanced around at the other members of the team. They were so exhausted that their heads kept drooping as they drifted in and out of sleep. Fortunately, they had a driver. If they had also been responsible for driving at night, the exhaustion would have been unbearable.
The truck was heading north towards Waukegan, a city normally about an hour from Chicago. Its population did not even reach one hundred thousand, so they had no idea how much they would be able to earn there.
“If it were summer, we could’ve gone around the beach,” Jo Minjoon said.
“What a creep.” Joanne gave him a strange smile.
Jo Minjoon stared at her for a second before understanding what she meant. “……No. Who said I wanted to go to the beach for that?”
“For what?”
“Shut up. Let’s sleep.”
Anderson cut Joanne off before she could continue teasing him, speaking with his head resting against the refrigerator.
Jo Minjoon looked at him wearily. “You really have to squeeze every last joke out of this, don’t you?”
“You’ll get lectured by Kaya if she catches you talking to another girl.”
“……You seem to be enjoying yourself quite a lot.”
Anderson did not answer. With his eyes still closed, he merely raised one corner of his mouth.
Jo Minjoon responded to that smile with a long sigh.
Ivanna seemed to wake at the sound of their voices and rubbed her eyes. Her puffy, sleepy face made her look like a child. “Yawn…… Where are we?”
“No idea. John, how much longer?”
“About twenty minutes,” the driver replied gently.
Ivanna pressed a hand against her stomach and spoke miserably. “My stomach hurts because I’m hungry.”
“Endure it. Otherwise you’ll just gain weight,” Joanne said.
“Tiramisu. Hot dogs. Pepperoni pizza. Risotto. Spaghetti. Kebab……”
(Translator’s Note: Tiramisu —A layered Italian dessert normally made with coffee-soaked ladyfingers, mascarpone, sugar, eggs, and cocoa. Its exact authorship is disputed, but the modern dessert became established in north-eastern Italy, particularly Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, during the 1960s and 1970s)
“Stop! Why are you tormenting me too?”
“They say pain becomes easier when it’s shared.”
“That phrase is supposed to be used when one person is suffering alone……”
Anderson suddenly burst out laughing without even opening his eyes. He laughed until he coughed, then finally spoke.
Joanne stared at him incredulously. “What? Why are you laughing?”
“Ask the viewers after the episode airs. There’s no way this scene doesn’t make the broadcast.”
“Are all of you awake now? We can sleep properly once we reach the motel, so start getting yourselves together.”
At those words, Anderson shook Peter awake. Peter had been sleeping so deeply that he seemed completely unaware of the world around him. Startled, he looked around through half-closed eyes. “Wha—what is it? Are we there?”
“Not yet. But we will be soon, so wake up.”
When they finally got out of the truck, there was snow piled along windowsills, roofs, and parked cars, as though it had snowed recently. Anderson stretched out his hands with a surprised expression and let out a quiet sound of admiration. “This feeling, this temperature…… It’s charming.”
“Why are you acting like you’ve never seen snow before?”
“There’s no snow where I live.”
“……Oh, right. You said you were from the West.” Jo Minjoon nodded in understanding.
They were staying in a motel. They needed to save as much money as possible, so they had neither the money nor the luxury to stay somewhere like a hotel. The rooms were not individual either, but shared between two or three people, naturally separated between the men and women.
Before everyone headed to their rooms, Jo Minjoon spoke sternly. “Don’t forget, the three of you are going to the market tomorrow morning. You’ll probably have to leave at five, so get some proper sleep.”
Contrary to what he had just told them, however, Jo Minjoon could not fall asleep.
It was not because Anderson or Peter had bad sleeping habits. Neither snored nor ground his teeth. The problem was entirely inside Jo Minjoon’s head. Thoughts kept circulating endlessly—how to increase their revenue, where they could reduce expenses, what could go wrong, and how he should respond if it did.
He had already thought through most of these things several times, and he knew thinking about them again would not necessarily change anything, yet he still could not stop.
This was what it felt like to be the leader.
Someone looking from the outside might think the position was impressive or honourable. In reality, it simply gave him more things to worry about.
Did I lock the door?
Jo Minjoon got out of bed and went to check.
The lock was engaged.
Even staring directly at the locked door, however, he could not shake the uneasy feeling that somehow it was still open.
He returned to bed with the same discomfort lodged in his chest, and sleep still refused to come. He had already calculated their expected profits in his head and imagined the problems that might arise the next day. With his mind running like this, falling asleep was almost impossible.
Eventually, Jo Minjoon was thinking thoughts he himself could no longer properly recognise.
Then the alarm rang.
His body felt so heavy it was as though a rock had been placed on top of him. Jo Minjoon slowly opened his eyes, bewildered that time had passed so quickly. He did not feel as though he had slept at all, yet too much time had passed for him to believe he had remained awake.
………I want to sleep more.
He blinked with difficulty and looked beside him.
Anderson was in the next bed, with Peter beyond him. Both seemed to have woken judging by the way they were shifting around, but neither looked fully conscious.
Jo Minjoon sighed.
He had to at least make sure Peter got up.
He switched on the light, walked over, and shook him. “Hey. Wake up.”
“………No, wait. I have something to think about.”
“What are you talking about? You’re just sleepy. Get up. You have to go to the market.”
Jo Minjoon pulled Peter’s blanket off completely.
Peter struggled upright with a dazed expression.
“If I were you, I’d go a little earlier and rest afterwards.”
“………Okay. I’ll go.”
Once Peter disappeared into the shower and the sound of running water filled the room, Jo Minjoon lay back down and closed his eyes. He needed to rest even a little longer. The more energy he recovered now, the better he would survive the day.
What if I can’t sleep properly?
“Minjoon, wake up!”
His worry ended with a bright voice.
Jo Minjoon opened his eyes in a daze.
The first thing he saw was Joanne’s bright blonde hair. Her face was filled with triumph.
“I bought really good salmon for incredibly cheap! I got it for almost the same price as processed salmon. We’ll be able to make norimaki better than yesterday’s.”
“………Didn’t you just leave? You’re already……”
“What are you talking about? It’s already eight. Get up. Anderson’s gone to wash.”
The morning sunlight streaming into the room was just as bright as her voice.
It was already morning.
Jo Minjoon felt almost cheated. Normally, people did not consciously remember the time they spent asleep, but this was different. He genuinely felt as though he had not slept at all. The memory of closing his eyes only a moment ago was still vivid, yet three hours had already disappeared.
There was no time to complain.
Jo Minjoon hurriedly washed and went out to the truck.
Most of the ingredients were almost identical to the previous day’s.
Only the salmon was different.
The frozen salmon belly gleamed with a clear, bright sheen inside its packaging.
Although frozen ingredients were often thought of as inferior, salmon intended for sushi or tataki was frequently safer when previously frozen because freezing killed parasites and their larvae. Jo Minjoon slowly read the system window above the salmon.
[Salmon Belly]
Freshness: 93%
Origin: Michigan
Quality: High
“………Good. How much did you pay?”
“Six dollars a pound.”
“That’s cheaper than I expected.”
“The woman who owned the shop said she was a fan of Grand Chef. She also said she was cheering for you and Kaya……”
“No, stop there. First, let’s separate what we’ll use this afternoon from what we’ll save for tonight. How were the prices of the other ingredients?”
“Mostly the same as yesterday, except for the salmon.” Joanne shrugged.
Jo Minjoon stared thoughtfully at the fish.
The day before, they had simply used packaged smoked salmon with sauce as a filling. Today was different.
Ivanna swallowed as she looked at it. “I want to eat it as tataki.”
“……I was thinking the same thing.”
More precisely, he was not thinking about eating it as tataki himself, but preparing it in that style. The better the quality of the salmon, the more worthwhile it became to serve it as tataki or sushi. The difference might seem small, but in cooking, small differences often decided everything.
Joanne looked puzzled. “You want to put tataki inside norimaki?”
“If we’re going to make tataki, it might be better to sell a little sushi too. From the comments yesterday, some customers were disappointed that we didn’t have any. It wouldn’t hurt to add a small amount. Oh, you didn’t buy sea urchin roe again, did you?”
“Yesterday was a disaster. I’m honestly surprised we sold it all. People kept avoiding it.”
There was no reason to keep forcing a menu item that had performed poorly. It might have been different if they had identified a flaw and had a clear idea of how to improve it, but their sea urchin roe roll had never even had a particularly refined recipe. More importantly, the customers did not seem to like sea urchin roe itself. There was little point trying to improve a dish when the main ingredient was what people disliked.
Preparation began much as it had the previous day, with each person handling their assigned task.
Their selling location was in the city centre.
Waukegan was a small city with fewer than one hundred thousand residents, but they still expected to make a profit.
“Do you think people will come like yesterday?” someone asked.
“Probably more like last night. We shouldn’t be so busy that we can’t breathe, so don’t get too nervous.”
Jo Minjoon opened the rear door and stepped outside.
It was exactly as he had expected.
There were customers already waiting, but the line was nowhere near as long as it had been in Chicago.
He opened the side service window and went to the counter. They had already prepared extra rice in advance.
The first customer smiled at him and asked, “What does the chef recommend?”
The man looked more interested in seeing Jo Minjoon’s reaction than in actually hearing the recommendation.
Jo Minjoon smirked. “If you have fairly ordinary tastes, I recommend the pork barbecue. And trying the Korean-style norimaki wouldn’t be a bad idea either.”
“Okay. Give me both.”
Most of the customers were friendly.
A large proportion were probably Grand Chef fans, so perhaps that was only natural.
Some people had simply come because they wanted norimaki.
And then there were the customers they could not understand at all.
Exactly the sort they had been worried about encountering.
“I want a refund for this.”
The speaker was an Asian woman with a strong Chinese accent.
For a moment, Jo Minjoon could not control his expression and stared at her in disbelief.
Only the very end of the roll remained in her hand.
“What?”
“I want a refund.”
“………Was there something wrong with it?”
“It doesn’t taste good. It’s strange. The tuna flavour is too weak. Where I’m from, if you served food like this, you’d have to close your shop immediately.”
Only then did Jo Minjoon realise something was wrong.
Her clothes looked expensive and luxurious, but there was nothing refined about her behaviour. Even while standing still, she swayed slightly as though she were struggling to keep her balance. Her eyes were sunken, and her speech sounded slurred, almost like someone who was drunk.
More importantly, the roll in her hand was not tuna avocado.
It was tandoori chicken.
Is she drunk, or……?
“What do we do?” Joanne whispered from behind him.
Jo Minjoon hesitated.
He had worked in restaurants before.
He knew very well how staff were usually expected to deal with unreasonable customers. Even when their demands were unfair or absurd, backing down was often the safest option.
That was reality.
If the customer went home and posted something strange online, their sales could suffer instantly. And for the sake of a few dollars, it was often better to resolve the situation quickly than to argue.
But there was another problem.
Precedent.
If they refunded a roll when only one bite remained, and another customer later demanded the same thing, it would become much harder to refuse. If someone asked, Why did you refund her but not me?, there would be very little they could say.
Of course, there probably would not be many customers shameless enough to try it……
Jo Minjoon sighed inwardly. Then he spoke. “I’m sorry, ma’am.”