Roberto rushed the store at 10:00am. He had things to do before opening at 11:00. While unlocking the door to his ice cream shop he couldn't help but smile. He had a dream of owning his own business and now a month in, he was starting to feel confident.
Every day, his shop, The Crazy Cow seemed to get more traffic and buzz. He had scouted the location and planned his business years ago. Instead of leaning heavily on trends like froyo in the oughts or the most recent hip practice of rolled ice cream, Robert had gone for a clearer vision. He would deliver on nostalgia. His shop was decorated with a clean fifties motif that hinted at the soda jerks from years past. He focused on quality ingredients and interesting flavors separating his business from the flashy modern look that other similar shops in town had gone for. Instead, this place, his place was going to have the retro look and classic feel that was going to make his shop stand out. Even the simple black and white image of a cow in profile with a spiral for an eye gave the impression of old fashioned flavor with a twist of fun.
Robert kept an ever-changing roster of flavors in his freezers seeking to pair the retro feel of his place with an ever changing selection. Everyday he updated the insta and Facebook pages and tweeted out the list of options to capitalize on curiosity. People had responded with even a few of the sketchier "influencers" seeking to capitalize on his social media forward business model. At this point, he wasn't desperate for likes. In fact, his flavors had spoken for themselves, garnering the kind of word of mouth around town and the natural following that he had only dreamt of starting out.
Of course, he wasn't stupid. The people in his city had been starved for new options to the point that he had joked that they would have gone to the opening of a door but he had managed the opening jitters and the influx and managed to capitalize on the novelty of the place.
Making his way to the back of the place and flipping on lights. He went to the restroom and washed his hands. Glancing up in the mirror, he liked what he saw. His caramel skin shone and his smile was perfect. He was fit and some customers had complained that he didn't have the body for an ice cream shop owner but he had promised them that lugging around the big vats and scooping the more difficult flavors -dark chocolate was a killer- had kept him in shape. In truth, he had always prided himself on his appearance and had worked to look as good as he felt his ideas were. At 37 he was in the best place he had ever been. Of course, owning his own business was stressful but he knew he could succeed.
His phone went off and he fumbled in his pocket. He hoped it was from the girl he had gone on a date with last Monday. She seemed fun and he had talked to her for hours about his business. Things sort of soured when he picked up the check and she made a sly comment about it having been either the worst date or best investment pitch she had ever been on.
After fiddling with the phone with wet hands, he unlocked it and saw that it wasn't from the date he had hoped would turn into a second. Instead, it was from his eldest brother Tomas. Opening the text he saw that it was a reminder.
"Remember im dropping off Andy this afternoon. Thanks for keeping track of him."
Andy was Roberto's only nephew but Roberto couldn't say he was his favorite or that he even really liked the teen. As a kid he had been quiet and reserved preferring to make friends on the internet than in person. In the last two years, he had made friends with other outcasts and weirdos. At first his parents were happy that he was branching out but he had gotten more surly and out of touch with his family dynamic as he had gotten to his late teens acting out and trying to get away with doing what he wanted. He had recently started rebelling against his mother and father. Last week after he blew up about the car he had been gifted for his eighteenth birthday, he had been grounded. They'd taken his keys and forbidden him from hanging out with his friends. Andy had retreated back online, barely coming out of his room. Tomas had explained it over a few texts last week. After a long back and forth, Tomas had convinced Roberto that he could be a good influence on him. Yesterday had been the first day of the break and Andy had pretty much sulked in the back booth of the store. Roberto wasn't looking forward to his negative attitude drawing a cloud over his business but he was trying to help his brother and he did think of himself as the kind of go-getter that could break past his negative front.
Andy had actually broken out of the shell of his tablet yesterday and asked a few questions about the business. He had told him that he was doing a major software update that would help him fix stuff on the device. Roberto wasn't as tech savvy as he'd want to be but he had listened to the young man talk about what was exciting to him. Something about deep code and editing but an influx of customers came through and Roberto had to break it off to handle business. After that, Andy had stayed on his phone until his dad had dropped in to pick him up.
Roberto wasn't looking forward to the grey cloud that the teen was going to bring to his back booth but it couldn't be avoided. However, with Wednesday of spring break being here and the weekend approaching, he knew that he wouldn't have to deal with the intrusion much longer.
He had a business to run, customers to please, and a market to disrupt.
All these thoughts were in his head as he did the prep work for opening until the first customers started to show up.