Short Story Essay: The Crepe Shop
Reggie Princeton loved crepes. More than any burly, forty-something year-old man with a balding head and a beard that put the guys of Duck Dynasty to shame probably should. He loved crepes so much he’d created and cooked for a restaurant solely based around crepes for upwards of forty-something years. And now that his kids were old enough, they worked there in the summers too.
And it’s not that Reggie didn’t love his kids, he did. He even liked the teenager who’d just showed up at the counter one day and started working there, Leonard Kim. But they were all terrible at their jobs.
During the school year it was manageable, because his girls were busy with school and two elderly ladies named Gladys and Agatha stepped into help. Leonard worked …show more content…
at The Crepe Shop year-round, but his work ethic somehow improved when the younger kids weren’t there to distract him.
And the summers were fun, they really were. But with Agatha and Gladys on their annual vacation to the Catskills, they were also a freaking hot mess.
So, Reggie did his best to make critics come any other time of the year, coming up with lame excuses that always managed to work for some reason. The New Hampshire restaurant life thrived and dived on critics. The four of them already lived in the/. two bedroom, one bathroom apartment above the restaurant, he didn’t want his kid’s horrible customer service skills to ruin that.
Today, August 14th, was different. Reggie’s favorite critic, Alvin Guerrero, would be bringing his stupid goatee in with him into the shop today. He once gave a local restaurant a scathing review because he thought the music was just an octave too high.
Currently, his oldest, Shelby was screeching about fire safety and insurance policies.
Some fourteen year old. The context? Her twin, Maxine (distinguishable by her reddish pixie cut and the fact that she was a good half a foot shorter than her sister) was trying to light Leonard’s hair on fire with a candlestick while he cleaned the countertop. Meanwhile, their younger sister Nataly was begging for s'mores while kicking the wooden bar counter with her light up shoes.
Everyday was a lesson in fire safety down at The Crepe Shop.
Reggie frowned the disappointed frown that had pretty much become his regular facial expression, clapped his big, meaty hands together and said, “Alright!” To give him some credit, Maxine did put the candle out.
Nataly, on the other hand, continued her whining and Leonard joined in when he found out there was a missed opportunity for food. Shelby got them to stop by slamming the giant black binder she carried with her everywhere in the summer---containing all the reservations, expenses, ingredient stock, and “Crepe of the Day” plans going up until 2019---on the faux granite countertop a few …show more content…
times.
Shelby was extremely organized and passionate. Almost too passionate. Actually, yeah she was excessively into hostessing. Reggie had come to find that her obsessive need for everything to be perfect combined with her easily lost temper were detrimental in a world of soccer moms and old white couples.
The kids plus Leonard were starting to get a little restless once again, so Reggie spoke up again. “Alright, so this is a very important day. Uh...Nat-no-uh Maxine! Can you give us a rundown of what’s going to happen today?”
“Yup,” said Maxine, jumping off the wooden barstool. “ So, Alvin---”
“Call him Mister Guerrero,” said Reggie.
“Right. So, Alvin the big critic dude is coming to the shop today. It’s going to be terrible and we’re all going to die.” Leonard and Reggie bobbed their heads in agreement. “But we need to do a good job or else Dad’s gonna be on our asses for the next month.” Nataly covered her ears, effectively knocking her pink glasses off her face.
“No cursing,” Reggie warned.
Shelby picked up Nataly’s glasses off the floor and handed them back to her little sister. Nataly kicked her in lieu of a thanks.
“So, does everyone know what they’re doing?” asked Reggie. The kids responded to the questions with blank stares (except for Shelby who was focused on writing the crepe of the day on the chalkboard). Reggie started sweating. Well, he was always sweating but he started sweating even more.
“Do you seriously not know what you’re doing? Three of you have worked here your whole life.”
Leonard shrugged, Nataly was busy coloring in a Shrek-themed coloring book, and Maxine just refused to participate.
“They know what they’re doing,” said Shelby, done with the chalkboard. “Right.” Leonard and Nataly bobbed their heads while Maxine remained, yet again, uninterested.
Reggie sighed yet again. “Then get to work!”
The restaurant opened its doors shortly after, and for the first three hours things ran like they normally did in the summer---non-efficiently. But at 1:20 pm Alvin Guerrero strolled in. With a surprise.
Behind him stood the 5’4” pile of grease and v-necks, other wise known as America’s premier traveling car salesman, Lorentz Schnitzel. Or, better known to the Princetons as Reggie’s ex-wife’s (and the kids’ mother) fiancee.
While Tabitha Quinn (formerly Tabitha Princeton) hadn’t visited since the twins’ tenth birthday (four and a half years ago), Lorentz made sure to show up every month or so and annoy the hell out of both the customers and the employees.
Reggie had known that Alvin and Lorentz were chummy, having seen them hang around bars from time to time, but they’d never come into the restaurant together. During the school year this might be manageable, but…
Through the wall cutout in the kitchen, Reggie could see Maxine using the ceiling grates as monkey bars (long story short, she was training to join the circus when she turned eighteen) while Nataly tried to talk to guests with four straws stuck up each nostril.
Leonard was trying to do his job and handle take-out, but Shelby was hounding him so hard he started fumbling the orders.
“KIDS!” he barked.
None of them turned to focus on him. Alvin wrote something down in his itty bitty notepad. “Nevermind,” he half-said half-sighed. He’d let them handle it himself. It’s not like he was expecting a miracle, just a little regard for his feelings.
Despite the fact that none of them had listened to him, they started to work better for a little while (and by that I mean a couple of minutes). Shelby showed the two men to their booth in the back with minimum yelling, and Nataly returned to her ice cream machine in the kitchen, relieving the customers of her ten-year-old nonsense. Out of Shelby’s reach for a while, Leonard stopped messing up. Maxine was trying to balance on a yoga ball instead of waitressing, but there wasn’t much you could do to get her to do her actual job.
About five minutes after Alvin and Lorentz had entered, Shelby ran into the pantry.
He ran back to the stove so fast Reggie almost flipped a crepe into her face. “Dad! We ran out of gooseberry preserves!” she practically shouted. Reggie tried to calm his daughter down though, after fourteen and a half years he still hadn’t found a foolproof way to do so. He tried going the assuring route, “It’s fine.” Shelby started to breathe heavily. “It’s fine. We only need the gooseberry preserves for ‘The Crepetastrophe.’” “But---” “It’s ok, no one in this town has the gut to order it.” And that was true. ‘The Crepetastrophe’ was a stack of thirty crepes, ten plops of varying flavors of ice cream, and every topping the restaurant could get it’s hands on---in particular the gooseberry preserves. But in the restaurant that day happened to be one out of towner both intent on getting a hearty meal. And though, every other part of him was utterly un-astounding, Lorentz Schnitzel boasted a great stomach It probably wasn’t coincidental. Being engaged to the owner of a chain of fro-yo shops in Texas, Lorentz had to know that chaos ensued when an ingredient wasn’t readily available.
The
And it’s not that Reggie didn’t love his kids, he did. He even liked the teenager who’d just showed up at the counter one day and started working there, Leonard Kim. But they were all terrible at their jobs.
During the school year it was manageable, because his girls were busy with school and two elderly ladies named Gladys and Agatha stepped into help. Leonard worked …show more content…
at The Crepe Shop year-round, but his work ethic somehow improved when the younger kids weren’t there to distract him.
And the summers were fun, they really were. But with Agatha and Gladys on their annual vacation to the Catskills, they were also a freaking hot mess.
So, Reggie did his best to make critics come any other time of the year, coming up with lame excuses that always managed to work for some reason. The New Hampshire restaurant life thrived and dived on critics. The four of them already lived in the/. two bedroom, one bathroom apartment above the restaurant, he didn’t want his kid’s horrible customer service skills to ruin that.
Today, August 14th, was different. Reggie’s favorite critic, Alvin Guerrero, would be bringing his stupid goatee in with him into the shop today. He once gave a local restaurant a scathing review because he thought the music was just an octave too high.
Currently, his oldest, Shelby was screeching about fire safety and insurance policies.
Some fourteen year old. The context? Her twin, Maxine (distinguishable by her reddish pixie cut and the fact that she was a good half a foot shorter than her sister) was trying to light Leonard’s hair on fire with a candlestick while he cleaned the countertop. Meanwhile, their younger sister Nataly was begging for s'mores while kicking the wooden bar counter with her light up shoes.
Everyday was a lesson in fire safety down at The Crepe Shop.
Reggie frowned the disappointed frown that had pretty much become his regular facial expression, clapped his big, meaty hands together and said, “Alright!” To give him some credit, Maxine did put the candle out.
Nataly, on the other hand, continued her whining and Leonard joined in when he found out there was a missed opportunity for food. Shelby got them to stop by slamming the giant black binder she carried with her everywhere in the summer---containing all the reservations, expenses, ingredient stock, and “Crepe of the Day” plans going up until 2019---on the faux granite countertop a few …show more content…
times.
Shelby was extremely organized and passionate. Almost too passionate. Actually, yeah she was excessively into hostessing. Reggie had come to find that her obsessive need for everything to be perfect combined with her easily lost temper were detrimental in a world of soccer moms and old white couples.
The kids plus Leonard were starting to get a little restless once again, so Reggie spoke up again. “Alright, so this is a very important day. Uh...Nat-no-uh Maxine! Can you give us a rundown of what’s going to happen today?”
“Yup,” said Maxine, jumping off the wooden barstool. “ So, Alvin---”
“Call him Mister Guerrero,” said Reggie.
“Right. So, Alvin the big critic dude is coming to the shop today. It’s going to be terrible and we’re all going to die.” Leonard and Reggie bobbed their heads in agreement. “But we need to do a good job or else Dad’s gonna be on our asses for the next month.” Nataly covered her ears, effectively knocking her pink glasses off her face.
“No cursing,” Reggie warned.
Shelby picked up Nataly’s glasses off the floor and handed them back to her little sister. Nataly kicked her in lieu of a thanks.
“So, does everyone know what they’re doing?” asked Reggie. The kids responded to the questions with blank stares (except for Shelby who was focused on writing the crepe of the day on the chalkboard). Reggie started sweating. Well, he was always sweating but he started sweating even more.
“Do you seriously not know what you’re doing? Three of you have worked here your whole life.”
Leonard shrugged, Nataly was busy coloring in a Shrek-themed coloring book, and Maxine just refused to participate.
“They know what they’re doing,” said Shelby, done with the chalkboard. “Right.” Leonard and Nataly bobbed their heads while Maxine remained, yet again, uninterested.
Reggie sighed yet again. “Then get to work!”
The restaurant opened its doors shortly after, and for the first three hours things ran like they normally did in the summer---non-efficiently. But at 1:20 pm Alvin Guerrero strolled in. With a surprise.
Behind him stood the 5’4” pile of grease and v-necks, other wise known as America’s premier traveling car salesman, Lorentz Schnitzel. Or, better known to the Princetons as Reggie’s ex-wife’s (and the kids’ mother) fiancee.
While Tabitha Quinn (formerly Tabitha Princeton) hadn’t visited since the twins’ tenth birthday (four and a half years ago), Lorentz made sure to show up every month or so and annoy the hell out of both the customers and the employees.
Reggie had known that Alvin and Lorentz were chummy, having seen them hang around bars from time to time, but they’d never come into the restaurant together. During the school year this might be manageable, but…
Through the wall cutout in the kitchen, Reggie could see Maxine using the ceiling grates as monkey bars (long story short, she was training to join the circus when she turned eighteen) while Nataly tried to talk to guests with four straws stuck up each nostril.
Leonard was trying to do his job and handle take-out, but Shelby was hounding him so hard he started fumbling the orders.
“KIDS!” he barked.
None of them turned to focus on him. Alvin wrote something down in his itty bitty notepad. “Nevermind,” he half-said half-sighed. He’d let them handle it himself. It’s not like he was expecting a miracle, just a little regard for his feelings.
Despite the fact that none of them had listened to him, they started to work better for a little while (and by that I mean a couple of minutes). Shelby showed the two men to their booth in the back with minimum yelling, and Nataly returned to her ice cream machine in the kitchen, relieving the customers of her ten-year-old nonsense. Out of Shelby’s reach for a while, Leonard stopped messing up. Maxine was trying to balance on a yoga ball instead of waitressing, but there wasn’t much you could do to get her to do her actual job.
About five minutes after Alvin and Lorentz had entered, Shelby ran into the pantry.
He ran back to the stove so fast Reggie almost flipped a crepe into her face. “Dad! We ran out of gooseberry preserves!” she practically shouted. Reggie tried to calm his daughter down though, after fourteen and a half years he still hadn’t found a foolproof way to do so. He tried going the assuring route, “It’s fine.” Shelby started to breathe heavily. “It’s fine. We only need the gooseberry preserves for ‘The Crepetastrophe.’” “But---” “It’s ok, no one in this town has the gut to order it.” And that was true. ‘The Crepetastrophe’ was a stack of thirty crepes, ten plops of varying flavors of ice cream, and every topping the restaurant could get it’s hands on---in particular the gooseberry preserves. But in the restaurant that day happened to be one out of towner both intent on getting a hearty meal. And though, every other part of him was utterly un-astounding, Lorentz Schnitzel boasted a great stomach It probably wasn’t coincidental. Being engaged to the owner of a chain of fro-yo shops in Texas, Lorentz had to know that chaos ensued when an ingredient wasn’t readily available.
The