282: The grand opening!

The grand opening!

Episode 275-The grand opening!

Eugene turned to everyone and clapped, "Well then. Let's begin with ingredients prepping." As she prepared to walk out and leave everything to everyone, Ppa stopped her.

"Wait wait! How do we know how many people will come?" His voice was filled with anxiety as he stepped in front of her. 

'Good question." Eugene paused in her tracks and thought for a minute before replying. "Just prepare enough for 10 people first. We will wait one hour and see if the response is positive." 

"If the response is positive, I will tell you how much exactly you need to prepare." She continued and disappeared, leaving everyone else to do their work. 

Everyone stared at the closed door in a daze before turning to each other. Their faces were ridden with worries, not confident that 10 people will even dine at their newly opened restaurant. 

"What do we do?" Ppa turned to Watt.

Watt shrugged in response, "Let's just do as she says first."

While Camille, Aernest, Watt, and Ppa busily prepared the ingredients for their respective recipe, Eugene waited at the entrance to their restaurant as she was both the receptionist and the waiter of their restaurant. She sat on a tall chair behind a small podium she received for free from the principal as she waited for the customers. The reason she was waiting early was because she had put up a notice on the school's board that in order to dine at her restaurant, they must first come in to make a reservation 1 hour before the restaurant's opening time. This was thought of by her in order to manage the restaurant more efficiently as well as to lessen the burden on the chefs on the number of ingredients they need to prepare. 

'This will help understand how many ingredients to source per day…' She thought quietly as she stared at the empty but bright hall. Seeing the empty and lonely hall made her slightly nervous about the restaurant failing on their first day. 

'I should conduct a survey on customer service as well as if the food is up to the students standard when they finish their meal… If we even have one customer that is.' Eugene sighed hard.

Eugene waited alone in the hall when suddenly before the pre queue even began, a huddle of students suddenly rushed her way. The surprising number of students made her dizzy. All she could think of at the moment was,

'Rest in peace, my beautiful cooks. May you last today…' She gave a fake smile to the first customer whose sweat can be seen trailing down his forehead. 

'Well… it is definitely more than 10 students.' 

"Hello… student Eugeneia." The first customer waved Hi with his shy and quiet voice. His voice did not correlate with his emergency run a second ago. 

Using her former professional acting career, Eugene's smile reached all the way to her eyes and responded 100 pitches higher than normal,  "Hello, how may I help you?" 

Her voice was incredibly gentle and soft. Everything about Eugene made the guy in front of her blush completely red, from her looks, to her aura and to her angel-like attitude. It took him a full 10 minutes to recover before he finally responded with Eugene's nod to quickly state his business. 

"I… I would like to reserve a spot for me and my friends." His face was tomato red and he spoke. 

"How many people would that be?" 

"... 4 people please." He said as his fingers fumbled with each other. 

"Alright." Eugene nodded, before kindly asking for his name as well as handing him his queue card. 

Before the first customer left Eugene warned him not to be late and if he was late, the table will be given away to the next customer. This was not in her plans originally however because of the ever-increasing number of customers she had to make the rule on the spot. 

The shy guy nodded that he understood and happily walked away. 

Eugene smiled, "Hi, how may I help you."

After 30 minutes, Eugene was wrecked. She was already wrecked and can't imagine what it'll be when her chefs find out. This was her first time smiling, and talking nicely to many people at once and she was dead tired. 

Eugene exhaled loudly as she stretched her body. Although it has been a mere 30 minutes, she has most definitely met more than 100 people who wanted to dine at her restaurant. She glanced at the paper and she sighed. 

'This might be too much to handle.' The list consisted of how many would come and it numbered to 100. 

"Where did you go sister?" Asked Aernest as he stood up watching Eugene walk in quietly. 

Everyone saw how wretched and dishevelled Eugene was and became confused. It looked as if she had been running a marathon for a week. 

Eugene zombie walked to a bottle of water sitting on the table and gulped everything in one go. She didn't care whose water it was but only thought that sharing is caring and for that she shall drink this water deliciously. 

"I was taking in reservations for the restaurant. A pre-queue." She finished the whole bottle before replying. 

"Pre queue?" Asked Camille confused. 

Eugene nodded, "To know how many people want to eat at our restaurant." She put down the bottle and responded. 

"And how many is that?" Asked Watt who stared at Eugene nervously. 

"100." Said Eugene plainly, sounding as if she hadn't said something shocking. 

"Oh… only one?" Ppa pouted as he glanced over at the ingredients enough for just 10 people. He sighed sadly as he shook his head in disappointment.

Not a single person spoke after Ppa and it turned incredibly quiet. Confused Ppa glanced around and saw how shocked everybody was by the news that they only had one customer. 

Though saddened he tried to cheer everyone up, "Hey! What's wrong friends? Don't be saddened everyone. Even though there is only one customer, he or she is still our precious customer!" He smiled widely, not knowing that he had misheard Eugene.

Ppa went on and on to cheer everyone up until Watt couldn't bear to listen to Ppa's misunderstanding anymore and slapped Ppa's on his slow head, "Not one but one hundred customers you smelly guy! Now go prepare the ingredients!!!"

Ppa was dumb-struck as he rubbed his head. Just as he was about to slap Watt back he froze still in his tracks. 'What… 100?' His head turned slowly to Eugene as he stared at her dizzily. 

"Go." Eugene motioned for him to go do his job with her hands, confirming Watt's words. Not one second after her one-word response, everyone ran as fast as light to their station and began to prepare ingredients enough for 50. Because not everyone would be ordering everything that was on the menu, everyone tactically decided to just prepare enough for 50 for now. 

"Ppa can start with the soup already. Make one in the big pot enough for 50. When you think there won't be enough soups, make the soup again in another pot. After cooking the soup, you should prepare for your banana dessert." Eugene suggested as she tried to take on the mental burden and calculate for everyone. 

"Everyone who finished their preparations should help Ppa with the banana dessert," Eugene added as she stood on the sidelines, unable to help anyone with anything any further. Meddling right now would just make things slower and stress everyone even further. 

'Maybe 100 was truly too much' She slightly regretted seeing the chaotic scene in front of her.

Eugene tied her hair into a ponytail. It was now fighting mode!

Two hours passed by very fast and with little time to spare, everyone was ready for the grand opening of their business! 

"Welcome, customer!" Eugene greeted in a very organized manner. She relocated the customers to their respective spots and began to take orders. 

The customers who arrived were awed by the effort Eugene and her friends put into decorating the restaurant. They did not expect such a modern design and already they gave the restaurant a 5-star review in their heart.

Eugene stepped into the kitchen and announced, "This is the first order. Order 1, Vegetable soup, and rice dish." She raised the small paper she held and warned, "Remember to keep the order number with you at all times." 

Eugene was very fast in communicating with the customers and those in the kitchen. In between all the communications she managed to single-handedly handle the eating hall alone. 

Eugene's workflow was very effective and there were no complaints of any long waits between taking orders from customers. To the customers, it felt as if there were 10 Eugene's taking catering to everyone in the restaurant. Of course, Eugene shouldn't be the only one praised as the kitchen members were very efficient in their cooking time as well. No one had to wait a long time for their order to be served. 

After the customers happily finished their meals, Eugene did not forget to make sure to ask the customers to fill out a review of the restaurant. This was done in front of the restaurant where she left multiple questionnaires for the customers to tick in. 

As many customers came and left, Eugene began to implement a system where she sectioned the eating hall into blocks. Block one was customers who recently arrived, block two was customers who were waiting for their orders, and block 3 was customers who were eating. And as time passed by the blocks would rotate because of new customers coming in, and customers leaving. 

The arrangement was made for Eugene to not accidentally miss a customer. 

Everything was on repeat for everyone until the last group of customers left, which was four hours later. Eugene bid goodbye to the group with her professional smile, took the forms from the entrance, headed towards the mini space where they hang out and chill and directly collapsed in front of the group whose faces had already been planted on the floor. 

"I'm… so tired." Eugene signed and muttered out loud from the bottom of her heart. To be honest, she had not expected such popularity, and to be honest, she did not want to go through that again! 100 customers? That was insane! What had she done!

"I should hire someone…" Muttered Eugene as she sat up and glanced around the zombies kissing the floor. 

"Please." Said Ppa who was beside Eugene muttered.

"Where do we need help?" Eugene asked. They were incredibly lucky that Eugene had the restaurant open every other day, which meant that tomorrow was a free day which gave Eugene enough time to hire someone. 

"We need someone to wash the dishes." To be honest, everything was going well in the kitchen area because they had prepared the ingredients in advance. However, one thing that went wrong halfway was the piling dishes. No one had time to wash the dishes at all. Of course, they managed to go through with it in the end however, that was the biggest crisis they never thought they had to face. But that was because no one expected 100 customers! 

"Alright, I shall look for someone. As for me, I need someone to serve the customers. I can't do it anymore." Eugene shook her head. She really can't bear to do it anymore. It was a deadly day.  0

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