But that didn’t make it easy.
She followed Rex into the back office and sat down in the chair across from the desk. Joy sat behind the desk, Ross adjacent to Angelica. If that wasn’t a comment on the power dynamics here, then Angelia wasn’t sure what was.
She waited patiently while Rex and Sy set up two stationary cameras so they could catch everyone’s reactions in the small space. Everything was cramped in here, and the room would start heating up faster than Angelica would be able to handle. It always did.
“Whenever you’re ready, Ange. Action.” Rex stepped just outside the door, leaving as much room as possible in the tight confines.
Angelica paused, staring at the dark screen on her iPad and freezing. Her entire body told her to move and act and speak, but she couldn’t force herself to do it. She couldn’t make herself do her job. She held her fingers together with the electronic pencil between them as if she was about to scroll through something on the screen, but there was nothing there for her to look at.
“Ange?” Sy asked, his voice shocking her.
“I’m fine,” she said quickly, shaking her head and turning her iPad on. She cleared her throat and shifted in her chair. “We need to talk about branding, because I think that’s the number one issue here.”
“The issue is we don’t have guests,” Joy fired back.
“And why don’t you have guests?” Angelica squared her shoulders, finding the calm she’d always found in the work. Except she’d had to fight hard to get there this time, and the fear of slipping back into melancholy terrified her.
“Because they are choosing to stay elsewhere.”
Angelica held her breath. This was going to take every ounce of patience she had, wasn’t it? “And why are they choosing to stay elsewhere?”
She risked a glance over to Ross, who remained silent, his lips glued shut. He rarely talked, actually, now that Angelica thought about it. Joy was the one who typically answered questions.
“Let’s start this way. Ross, when you go to a restaurant to order food, how much time do you spend looking at the menu?” Angelica uncrossed and recrossed her legs, turning her focus onto him.
“I don’t see the point—” Joy started.
Angelica put her hand up to stop her. “Let him answer the question.”
She then waited in silence as Ross looked between the two women and finally took a gulp of air and spoke.
“I uh… not a whole lot.”
“How many minutes?” Angelica asked.
“Maybe five?”
“One of the tenets of having diners is that you want them in and out. You need tables to be opened up so that other diners can come in and have a meal. It’s a rotation of keeping people moving. Chef Lawrence and I were discussing the menu. Do you know how many pages there are in your menu?”
“A lot,” Ross mumbled.
“I still don’t see how this is relevant,” Joy fired back.
Angelica kept the tension high. “Twenty-three pages.”
“Really?” Ross squeaked.
Angelica raised an eyebrow at him and turned to focus on Joy. “How much time do you suppose it takes for someone to go through a menu packed full of twenty-three pages of options?”
Joy stayed silent. Ross didn’t budge. Angelica looked at one and then the other and sighed.
When she didn’t get a response, Angelica continued, “Too many. And there’s no rhyme or reason to what’s on that menu. Chef Lawrence has done a beautiful job of branding when it comes to her business—high priced items, high quality food—people know when they eat at one of her restaurants they will be served a five-star meal with French and Italian influences but primarily American food. Can she cook other foods? Absolutely.But that doesn’t mean she puts them on her menu. And did you know that her menu at her restaurants is one page—front and back?”
Ross’s jaw dropped. Joy’s, however, only clenched tighter.
“Branding is key to selling this place as somewhere people want to come. It’s easy to see when it comes to the restaurant. But we can bring that into the main part of the hotel and elevate it as well. Then you can have more guests who stay, more who come to dine.”
“We aren’t a five-star hotel,” Ross said.
