Avoiding Lost Sales

"Elza, come with me."

"Coming."

I took Elza along to carry things.

I decided to keep Alexia at the scene since her decisiveness would provide reassurance.

Besides, if only children were left, they'd get looked down on when dealing with trouble.

Kazusa still looked worried, but I'd told her I would handle the problem and given her other work to focus on, so she wasn't panicking.

Giving anxious people tasks to occupy their minds was effective.

This bought us some time.

She might start worrying again once she had free time, but with it being opening day and fairly busy, that wouldn't be an issue.

"So what's the plan?"

"I don't have a plan, but I have options. I haven't been doing business in this city for nothing."

"Ooh, impressive. Master."

Brushing off Elza's half-hearted flattery, I first checked what was missing in the kitchen.

She'd said she had contracts with a few traders who specialized in distribution rather than running shops.

There was meat and some vegetables. Eggs were piled high in baskets too.

What hadn't arrived was rice and flour, the staples.

Certainly couldn't serve customers without those. And we'd need more vegetables too.

First, let's solve the staples problem.

I went back to my shop and opened the warehouse.

We kept flour in stock since it stored well.

I wrote the number of bags I was taking on a slip and left it in the receipt box.

I could do the accounting later.

"Heave-ho."

Elza and I loaded bags of flour onto a wheelbarrow.

Each bag was five kilograms, so ten bags should cover today.

Thanks to Elza's deceptive strength, we got them ready quickly.

I pulled the wheelbarrow while she pushed from behind.

"Azu, I'm leaving this here."

"Got it!"

I told Azu, who was boiling water in pots for prep, that I'd brought flour.

Out front, Kazusa and Alexia were checking in guests while Finn showed them to their rooms.

Everything looked smooth. Once the rooms filled up, people would gather in the kitchen.

Next was rice.

We had some at the shop, but not a lot in stock.

Taking the inn's share would leave nothing for regular customers.

Our shop's selling point was never being out of stock, so I wanted to avoid that.

I went to a grain-specialty wholesaler and ordered rice. The minimum order was fifty kilograms.

They'd deliver within the city, which was convenient.

While I was there, I asked about the trader Kazusa had contracted with. Apparently, their reputation wasn't great.

The reason: they'd slashed prices to sign up customers, but with recent price hikes on purchases, they'd gone into the red.

That's the danger of thin margins on high volume. Without a structure that secures proper profit, you can easily end up in trouble.

Most likely they'd hung on as long as they could, but once debt made things impossible, they'd skipped town.

This would be a good lesson for Kazusa.

When making contracts, you should investigate the other party's background.

The one who suffers otherwise is yourself.

Well, at least it was something we could handle.

I bought vegetables at the market.

Elza knew the menu, so we hopped from stall to stall until our arms were full of what we'd been short on.

"Think this is enough?"

"Should be plenty. We bought a lot."

"True. Between the inn's meals and the light food service, we need this much. And running out means lost sales."

"Good point."

If we were going to run a proper restaurant, we'd need even more.

When we got back to Cat's Paw Inn, a delicious smell was wafting from the kitchen.

"Here, we bought everything."

"We're back."

"Oh, thank goodness. Thank you, Owner!"

"Easy now. Rice is on its way too."

Kazusa rushed over teary-eyed and hugged me.

I put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. She wiped her tears and looked relieved.

When I explained what had probably happened, she went pale, but she didn't panic.

She was clearly dejected, though.

"I thought the price was really low. The quality wasn't bad either… I see. I need to think about why something's cheap."

"That's something you can't learn as an adventurer."

"You're right. I'll make sure this doesn't happen again."

"Good. I'm counting on you. Now, back to work."

Elza and I put on aprons and divided up the remaining prep and table setup.

With this many people, the work wasn't bad.

I took a break with a hot drink of apple cider vinegar diluted in water.

"Thank you so much! There's no way my brother and I could've handled this alone."

"That's why I came to help. Anyway, glad we made it this far without incident."

"The rooms are full. My brother's handling reception and odd jobs, so I can focus here."

"Prep's mostly done, so it's just serving now. Might need to hire someone for support."

"Yeah. I thought I could manage alone, but extra hands really help. I'll look at the light meal profits and think about it."

I wouldn't be able to come help forever.

I wanted to leave things in a state where she could manage on her own.

Of course, I didn't mind pitching in when needed as the owner.

And it would make a good job for Azu and the others when they had free time.

Service hours for light meals began.

We used the dining hall, but eating was done at the outdoor terrace seating.

The view wasn't spectacular, but there was space.

If the dining seats inside filled up and inn guests couldn't eat, complaints were guaranteed. Better to just work with this setup.

There was some fumbling at first, but once we got the hang of it, service ran smoothly.

To avoid confusion, the menu was limited to three options: one daily special and two regulars.

"Here you go."

Elza handed over the finished dish with a smile, and the man went all lovey-dovey as he took it.

Once inn guests started ordering meals too, things got hectic.

More customers than expected were showing up.

Starting the light meals beforehand had paid off.

It had been good advertising.

On top of that, I'd put up a notice for my shop at the reception desk, so it doubled as promotion.

Every little bit of extra business helped.

We kept cooking until we ran out of ingredients. By the time service ended, everyone was exhausted.