A couple of days after Christmas Jeremy sat in Royce’s office while the two kicked around ideas and problems for the new chain of sub stores. “Back on Christmas Day, I went over and snooped around the new locations a bit,” Royce reported. “It seemed like a good idea since Wilson’s was closed for the day, so I was less likely to get noticed. I’m not exactly crazy about the River Street location, but if that’s the best we can do, then it’s the best we can do.”

“I agree. It could be better, but that’s what’s available without spending a lot of money, and then getting involved with a tear-down and a new building,” the younger man replied. “On top of that, from what I can tell it may be the weakest of the Wilson locations, so I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be worth the expense at this time, not even considering that there isn’t time to build a new building anyway. It might even be worth thinking about dropping it entirely.”

“No, let’s not do that. It’s not a great location but it is a good location,” Royce replied, thinking that having competition crop up at all five locations might rattle Milt and Maxine even more, not that Maxine had a great deal to do with the business from what he understood. “I don’t think we’re going to lose money on it in the long run, but we might not make as much as we’d like. If it doesn’t work out in the future, maybe we can reassess that position.”

“You’re probably right on that. We’ll just have to see. Did you come up with any other observations?”

“Yeah, the Peavine Street store, or perhaps I ought to say stores. It’s the same thing. If we were willing to build, then the place right next to the Wilson store would be perfect, but we don’t have that kind of time.”

The Peavine Street location had caused Royce to give it a great deal of thought. That was the one where they had two proposed locations, one of them the building right next to the Wilson Sub shop that had been the old drive-in featuring carhops. It had sat empty for a number of years, although it was still in reasonable shape despite appearing a little run-down.

“I thought about that,” Jeremy agreed. “The building itself is probably big enough for a Sandy’s if we were to cram things in pretty tightly, and it would be a great drive-through. On the other hand, since it sits right next door to the Wilson shop, opening another sub shop right next door would probably be a little hard to conceal. Still, it’s a redevelopment area, so that space ought to be useful for something.”

“I keep thinking the same thing. There’s something tickling the back of my mind that just won’t quite gel, but the building is sitting there and we have an option on it, so it’s not like we have to come up with an answer this morning. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about it the last few days, and while we don’t have to do anything yet, we need to be thinking about staffing.”

“Well,” Jeremy smiled, “I have been thinking about it, and I’ve earmarked one store manager already.”

“What’s this? Your dad?”

“No, he’s busier than he wants to be. He’s thinking retirement in the next few years, not expansion. I talked to him back over the holiday, and he’ll be available for consultation, but that’s about it. No, I happened to be thinking about the question, and happened to remember seeing a résumé for a guy over in the produce department at the Parker’s Corners store who used to work for Wilson, up until last summer, in fact.”

“I hope you sat down and really picked his brain,” Royce laughed. “No wonder you seem well informed about them.”

“I’m not done picking his brain yet. He’s been a very good source of information.”

“Is he any good?”

“Seems to be. The store manager thinks well of him, anyway. He’s a young guy but seems to be a pretty good worker, so I figured that he offered potential. He was an assistant manager at the River Street location and thought he was in line to be the manager of the new location Wilson’s opened last summer. He thought he got it in the back from Wilson, and his pay wasn’t much above minimum anyway, so he was real happy to trot over to the produce department at about a buck fifty an hour more than he had been making. He couldn’t get on full time with Wilson’s either, so no benefits, and that turned his crank a little, too.”

“I was just telling someone the other day that if you take care of your employees, they’ll take care of you. There’s a perfect example. An experienced employee with management potential goes out the door because someone is trying to save a buck on benefits. Well, in this case, their loss is our gain. Have you brought him in on the deal yet?”

“Only partway. He’s aware that I’m personally looking to start a sub shop, but I haven’t told him where or how many. I left you out of it. He’s interested if he gets pay and benefits that at least match what we’re paying him now, and I told him it would most likely be more if he’ll sit tight until I need him.”

“I’d say you played that one pretty well, especially in keeping me out of it. I’d like to talk to the guy, but I don’t want to if it might give away what we’re up to.”

“I’ll have to bring him in on it eventually, but it doesn’t have to be right away. As soon as I can find the time, I want to do a little more looking around among current employees to manage the stores, but it’s not a priority issue right now. The line workers, well, it doesn’t take much training so long as there’s a manager watching over them while they’re learning what they’re doing. I mean, I know that from working in Dad’s shop in high school. Managers are a little different story, and I think we need to find someone who could walk right into a place and take it over.”

“Someone who’s done it before, you’re saying.”

“Pretty much. I’m not overlooking the idea of raiding Wilson employees, but that’s a ways up the road if we want to keep Wilson unaware of what we’re planning.”

“I have no problems with that, except that they’re going to have to be taught the right way to do things, not the Wilson way.”

“That’s pretty clear to me, too. On top of that, I think we’re going to want to keep the records and stocking system simple, and we can do a lot of that at headquarters level. If you don’t want to do that out of this building, there’s probably enough room for a small office at the back of the River Street location. That’s a decision we need to make before we get into the build-out phase there.”

“Sounds good to me,” Royce nodded. “This place could be bigger, and I’d just as soon keep things separate since the functions are going to be a lot different. We may have to draw on staff here, at least at first, but let’s try to keep it to a minimum.”

They talked about that angle of things for a while until Royce finally said, “I think we’ve probably beaten to death about what we can today. Let’s go get some lunch.”

“I could stand to do that, so long as we’re not talking about getting subs.”

“Yeah, I think I’m going to be seeing enough of them to hold me myself,” Royce grinned. “It’s not so cold outside that I need a coat if we’re just going to walk across the street.”

A few minutes later they were seated in the chain restaurant they frequently used, and somehow the topic of the sub shops seemed to be a little off limits to both of them. “So how is your family getting along?” Royce asked while they waited for the waitress to show up; they knew it could be a while since it was a busy time of day, and that was all right with them.

“Actually, pretty well. Mom and Dad are getting older, but then, so is everybody else. They had me late, so they’re getting to the age where they’re thinking about hanging it up.”

“Did the whole family show up?”

“The whole herd, everybody but one sister, including a bunch of kids. Of course I got the usual needling over when I’m going to be adding to the population explosion, but I’m used to that. Let me tell you, that crowd is so large that Mom and Dad had to set up two tables in separate rooms, but they really put on a feed. Did you have a good Christmas?”

“Not as good as that,” Royce replied, trying to mask the sadness of not being able to enjoy an experience like that. “I went over to Upper Avondale and ran a register all day, then went home, popped some turkey franks and a single serve cup of chili in the microwave so I could have chili dogs. It’s just not the same thing.”

“I guess not,” Jeremy shook his head, realizing that he’d touched a sensitive spot that he knew about, and shouldn’t have said it. Looking to quickly change the subject he went on, “Why is it when you make a hot dog at home it’s never as good as it is in a ball park or race track?”

“Beats me,” Royce smiled, trying not to show that he was relieved at the change in topic. “The only thing I can think of is that it’s because you’re at a ball park or race track or something.”

“You might have something there. When I was a kid there used to be a dirt track not far away where they raced old junker stock cars, but boy, they had the best hot dogs you ever tasted. Hell, I could see the brand they used, but when we had them at home they never seemed the same.”

“I don’t understand it either. When you get down to it, a hot dog is about the simplest thing that can be, at least in terms of hot concession food. There are any number of ways you can cook them, any number of kinds of them, any number of toppings. They are about as universally liked as a food can be, but you just never can find them in a restaurant.”

“Well, you can,” Jeremy replied, pointing at the bottom of the menu. “But it’s on the kid’s menu, and in my opinion the price is higher than it ought to be. But you’re right, you don’t find them much of anywhere else besides home and sporting events, mostly because they’re simple to make and people like them. Hell, my dad often tells the story about when he was first married, before my oldest sister came along. He was off work, Mom was pregnant, and there wasn’t much money coming in. He built a hot dog cart and set up on a busy street corner selling hot dogs and little bags of chips and pop. It was enough money to pay the hospital bills and keep them going.”

“Hospital bills were a whole lot less in those days,” Royce pointed out.

“Yeah, but still. Anyway, Dad finally got a good job and stuck the cart in the back of the garage. Years later my oldest sister and brother yanked it out of the garage, cleaned it up, and took it to a park where there were four ball fields right next to each other, all of them busy in the evenings and on weekends. They were like fourteen and fifteen, and they made a killing at it. That was before Dad had the sub shop. They kept that up until they went off to college, and they made a lot more than pocket change at it.”

“I can see how they would. All the kids you’d find at youth baseball games, and all of them hungry. Talk about a captive market. It’s just like going to a ball game or a stock car race.”

“I mean, you remember the ad: ‘baseball, hot dogs, apple pie . . .’ what could be more All-American?”

“You know, I was on the coast for a conference one time, and I happened to notice that there was a franchise chain that was in the business of doing just hot dogs. I can’t imagine why there isn’t something like that here. It wouldn’t take much of a location, the staff wouldn’t be large, and facilities would be minimal . . .” his voice trailed off as the idea hit him.

The idea hit Jeremy at the same time. “Are we thinking the same thing?”

“The old Peavine Street drive-in?”

“It would be a snap to do a drive-through . . .”

“Several kinds of hot dogs. All beef, turkey franks, cheese franks, brats . . .”

“Kosher dogs, don’t forget, kosher dogs . . .”

“A lot more toppings than you could get at a hot dog cart . . .”

“Baseball, football, race cars for decoration . . .”

“It would be a cheap franchise for someone who wanted to get into business . . .”

“Fast service. In and out . . .”

“Low prices, less than you’d pay for a burger anywhere . . .”

“Even simpler than a sub shop . . .”

The ideas came so fast they were talking over each other. In the burst of creativity they hardly noticed the waitress next to them, waiting with her order pad in her hand. “Are you guys gonna order or what?” she asked.

“A couple of chili dogs,” Royce replied without thinking about it. “Onion topping.”

“That sounds good,” Jeremy agreed.

“I’m sorry, but that’s just on the kid’s menu,” she shook her head. “And I don’t think we do chili dogs, but maybe I can get the cook to throw something together special.”

“Thank you, miss,” Royce smiled broadly. “I think you just told us a lot of what we wanted to know.”

“Are you guys crazy or what?”

“Probably,” Jeremy replied. “But we’re both in the mood for chili dogs.”

They kept on talking animatedly all through their lunch hour. Jeremy used up several of the restaurant’s napkins writing ideas and thoughts to the point where they had the rough outline of a business plan and an action plan before they headed back across the street to the office, where they settled in for a more thorough discussion. The idea had grabbed hold of both of them and wouldn’t let go.

“Not wanting to throw water on this fire,” Royce said at one point, “but at the moment we’re just running on gut feelings. I happen to think our guts are feeling pretty good on this one, but it’s not like the sub shop project, where we already have a good idea of what market is there and how to capture it. I hate to say it, but I think we need to do some market research. Maybe not a lot, but some.”

“I think you’re right. Maybe we can find someone with a hot dog cart and have them set up in one or another of the stores. We could give away a free hot dog to people who would take a quick survey.”

“That might work. In fact, I like the idea. But I see putting a hot dog stand in the Peavine Street drive-in as being a way to test our ideas, find out what works and what doesn’t. We’re probably reading something wrong, but at least it would be a cheap way to find out if we are. Since we’re talking a test operation, not a whole chain of shops like Sandy’s Subs, if we find something we want to fix, then we can fix it. In a year or so, we’d have a whole lot better idea of what we’d want to do for a chain. My only real reservation is that we’ve already got a lot on our plates with Sandy’s Subs.”

“Yeah, that’s a problem,” Jeremy agreed. “I mean, I like the idea so well I’m willing to throw some extra time at it, just to get it going while we’re hot on it. If we put it off until next year and that deal you’re talking about to pick up another couple of supermarkets comes through, then we’d have to put it off for another year, and so on, and so on.”

“I don’t want to put it off either,” Royce nodded. “Believe me, I’d rather put time into this than sit at home doing nothing.”

“Me, too. I’m not getting anywhere with the girl I’ve been dating, and this would be the perfect excuse to slow things down. But you know one really nice thing about pushing ahead with this?”

“What?”

“If we’re putting in a hot dog stand next to the Wilson location there on River Street, he’s going to have his eyes on that rather than the fact that we’re putting a Sandy’s up the street. Yeah, he’ll see it as competition for the lunch crowd, but it’s not the same thing.”

“All the more reason to do it,” Royce smiled, imagining another duckling nibbling away at Milt and Maxine. “Look, once again I think you need to be the one to take the lead on this one and not have me visibly involved. Look, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you just concentrate on Sandy’s and the hot dog idea? I’ll take over more of the responsibilities you have with Pafco. That will keep us going for a few months. If these ideas take off the way we’re thinking they might, I can see the time coming when we’re going to have to get someone to replace you, but we might be able to put it off until the next time we do a Pafco expansion.”

“It sounds good to me. One of the advantages we have is that we can do a lot of things in parallel. That’ll save some time, and probably some money. Let me formalize a quick business plan and action plan. What are we going to call this place, anyway?”

“I don’t know. Let’s let that one lie for a couple of days since a lot of good names are taken. I mean, there’s no way we can call it Ball Park Hot Dogs, for example. I’m sure something will pop out pretty soon.”

“You’re probably right, but you know, in a way we’re being childish about this. I mean, we’re talking about businesses that in a month won’t do the amount of business we do in one of the Pafco stores in a day. But it’s something new, and that makes it exciting.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’re right on that, Jeremy, but the potential for growth is there. When you get right down to it, the supermarket business is saturated. There’s only so much business out there, and we’re grabbing any increase we get from someone else’s business. The same thing is true of Sandy’s. It’s a limited market, and the potential for growth is limited. But the hot dog business, there’s nobody else in that niche around here, at least the way we’re talking about. Given time, there’s a chance it could be bigger than Pafco Supermarkets. What’s more, it’s not going to cost us very much money to find out if it will work or not.”

The new idea kept both Royce and Jeremy busy right up through the end of the year, to the point where they worked past midnight on New Year’s Eve before calling it a night.

New Year’s Day did not have the emotional baggage for Royce that Christmas had. It was a day for parades and football, neither of which he cared for very much. He would have been just as happy to have stayed home and read a textbook he had ordered on franchising concepts, but he had already scheduled himself into the Upper Avondale store again for the same reason that he had been there on Christmas.

Besides, it was something of a break for him, to get away from the office and do something else; it was more relaxing and rewarding than just sitting around home would have been.

On top of that, he was a little curious about what had happened with Maria. It would be interesting to find out, at least if she was scheduled there again. She might not be; the store managers usually made it a policy to not schedule the same employees on repeated holidays, although there were times it couldn’t be avoided, and some liked to work on holidays since there was overtime pay involved. In any case, he was curious about her, after the long discussion they’d had on Christmas.

He was scheduled a little earlier this day, so had to give a pass to his daily workout at Josie’s fitness center, not that they would be open on this holiday. Besides, Nancy had told him the day before that she planned on getting seriously drunk on New Year’s Eve, and with any kind of luck she wouldn’t have gone to bed yet at the hour she normally unlocked the place.

Once again he was assigned to a register, and he was pleasantly surprised to find Maria at the next register; her black eye was hardly noticeable under a layer of makeup. They only had a moment to talk, but she seemed brighter and more chipper than she had been the week before. “You look happy today,” he commented.

“Oh, I am, thanks to you,” she replied. “I took your advice. Hector is no more.”

“You’re telling me you dumped him?”

“Yes, I did. I thought about what you said, then called my uncle and my brother to back me up when I told him to leave me the hell alone, and that it would be better for him if he moved out of the building, like right away. They helped him, even though he didn’t want to leave.”

“You’re saying they tossed his stuff out on the lawn?”

“Well, yes, except that we don’t have a lawn at my apartment.”

“Good for you, Maria. I guess we’d better get back to work.”

The store was busier this morning than it had been a week before, and not surprisingly a lot of business was beer, thanks to the heavily advertised loss-leader special. There were obviously people who planned on enjoying their football this afternoon. Royce was kept busy enough that he didn’t get much more time to talk with Maria, but he was happy that he had helped her deal with what looked to be a serious problem. However, he did keep enough of an eye on her to notice that she was really a good worker, and bright and cheerful with the customers; that made him renew his mental note to talk with the store manager about making her an assistant. She would make a good one.

What with everything the day went quickly, although it seemed slower when Maria went home in the middle of the afternoon. Running a register every day wasn’t something he really wanted to do, but he knew he could do it if he had to, and he had done it in the past. Still, he was just as happy to have the shift draw to a close so he could go home and dig into that textbook. He’d already learned several useful things, and he wanted to pass the book along to Jeremy as soon as he was done with it.

However, going back home carried a disappointment with it. He was just a little disappointed that Petra hadn’t come by the house, or even the office, at least to say hello, but he hadn’t really expected that she would after the incident at Thanksgiving. Even though she was still his daughter, it seemed like he had lost her and it might be years before he saw her again, assuming he didn’t go to the wedding. Right at the moment he wasn’t sure that he wanted to; it seemed pretty clear to him that he would be unwelcome there.

That seemed to put his past further into the past. Maybe it was time to lose some of the baggage, he thought, as he microwaved a couple of hot dogs and warmed some chili; for obvious reasons he was starting to get a hot dog obsession. As soon as I settle things with Maxine and Milt, he thought, I need to do something about finding someone.

This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.