Had Brad been thinking about it? Didhethink this was real?
Did Pepper need a new chef?
No, that was crazy. She and Brad were in a strange, unsteady place, first of all, and restaurants were terrible investments. Pepper proved that just as many restaurants closed in New York City every year as opened, and even then, a lot of them operated on thin margins.
So, fine, she and Brad would not be running a restaurant together. He could have played along with the fantasy a little longer, though.
“If it were me,” said Evan, “I’d totally redesign the space. Warm, welcoming colors. Nothing too bright and scary, but get rid of the gray, for sure. Better chairs, because the ones at Pepper were both hideous and uncomfortable.”
“Maybe they were trying to encourage turnover,” said Paige. “No one was going to linger in chairs that uncomfortable.”
Evan grimaced. “Such bad design. Well, no, it wasn’t terrible. The gray they picked for the walls is super trendy right now. And it was cohesive at least, even if the pepper-shaker prints were obvious. But for a restaurant, it felt kind of sterile.”
“The designer always has opinions on design.”
Evan shrugged. “I mean, they obviously hired someone and said, ‘The theme is pepper,’ and the designer ran with it. Maybe the real issue was with a theme.”
“Maybe they’ll open a new restaurant called Salt,” said Paige. “Do you have opinions on food?”
“What Lindsay said sounds good. If it tastes good, I’ll eat it.”
Lauren and Caleb walked through the room then, each carrying a huge bag of cat food. They must have just gotten a delivery. When they came back out, Caleb kissed Lauren’s cheek and said something about having to get back to work.
“You guys live on this block,” said Lindsay. Lauren and Caleb had an apartment in the same building as the cat café and the vet clinic next door. “What kind of restaurant do you think Pepper should become?”
Lauren tilted her head and considered it for a minute. “It’d be nice to have a place I could bring Hannah without people judgmentally staring at us. Caleb and I ate at a place a few blocks from here, and the couple at the next table actually complained to the waitstaff that we’d brought a baby. She wasn’t even crying! She was just babbling in the way babies do.”
“Really? They complained?”
“Yeah. Then they left in disgust. Our waiter gave us a free dessert for our trouble, because they also thought this couple was terrible. But still, if theexpectationwas that families were welcome, maybe people would not be such dicks. If they want fine dining, they can go to Elizabeth’s down the block. If we’re just at the diner on Hoyt, absolute silence is unreasonable.”
Lindsay glanced at Brad. It was interesting to know that they’d landed on a good idea that they couldn’t do anything with.
But then Lindsay thought about that empty restaurant across the street and got an idea. Maybe she didn’t have the resources to run a dream restaurant with Brad, but she knew who she could talk to about bringing a great restaurant to the neighborhood.
Chapter 20
A tiny part of Lindsay couldn’t believe she was here again.
Talking to Brad about what they could potentially do with Pepper prompted her to try calling Joey Maguire. Well, one of the PR people at theForumhad set it up, but Joey had let it leak to the media that he was interested in opening another restaurant, so on the pretense of wanting to interview him about what was next for her column, Lindsay went to Pepper.
Joey met her at the front door and let her in.
He was mesmerizing in a way. Lindsay had met a couple of celebrities in her time, but Joey Maguire was on a different level. He was a year or two younger than Lindsay, although much taller; the “little” moniker was mostly because he was the baby of the group, not the smallest guy. He had a beautiful face: big blue eyes, a narrow nose, surprisingly plump lips for a man. He had some Hollywood affectations, too; his tan looked sprayed on and his blond hair likely came from a bottle. The Bayside Boys had been a California-based boy band whose heyday occurred around the time Lindsay had been in undergrad. The band had since split up to do other things, and Joey had released a solo album a couple of years before that had gotten a lot of critical acclaim and gone platinum, but apparently restaurants were what he was doing now.
“Thanks so much for meeting with me,” she said.
“You’re welcome. Come on in.” Joey’s voice was a reminder that he was originally from the South, despite being in a band from California. He’d never shaken his twang.
Lindsay followed him into the restaurant. Most of Pepper’s decor was still up exactly as it had been when Lindsay and her friends had eaten here. Joey Maguire led Lindsay over to a table in the center of the restaurant. He offered her a seat.
Once they were seated, Lindsay asked, “You mind if I record?”
“That’s fine. Welcome to my restaurant.”
“You’re more gracious than I would be. I was not kind in my review of this restaurant.”
“I think you did me a favor.” Joey smiled. “I will admit, I didn’t know a lot about food when I first got into this. But I liked the idea of running a restaurant. One of my investors suggested I do something that lined up with my public persona, so I picked southern cuisine, but the chef I hired… He wasn’t very good.”
