Chapter 4

A week had passed and it was the day of the big event that the restaurant will be handling. It was the wedding day of one of their loyal VIP guest, which made everyone in the kitchen all busy doing their jobs. However, since the wedding reception would take place around five or six that night that the manager suddenly allowed another reservation for fifty pax for lunch. The guest made a reservation two days before the reservation date. It was a good thing that the main dishes that they asked for were all on the daily menu. It would be a big problem if they asked for a different main dish for the whole pax since it is already too late to order different proteins for the main dish. Vegetables and fruits are a lot easier to order compare to meats and fish that needed a week to order not days. It was already eleven am and the whole kitchen was almost done preparing for the lunch reservation. The whole kitchen had been busy since six in the morning especially the cold station and dessert station. Those two stations were the ones that need to prepare a different menu to serve compared to the daily menu that the restaurant has.

Mari and two more of her co-worker in the cold stations were done preparing for the lunch reservation. They are only waiting for the guest to arrive which is in an hour later.

"Alright, everyone, I've prepared our lunch. Since everyone is now done with the preparation later, we should all eat before the guest arrives. We only have thirty minutes of break and I need everyone to be ready after that" said Lucas who came just finished cooking the employee meal for everyone in both kitchen and servers. Usually, on a busy day in the kitchen some of the cooks or chefs don't have time to eat that is why when it wasn't busy even for half an hour, they take advantage of it to eat.

"Let's eat guys!" said one of the cooks in the Hot station. Everyone gathered and got their food. The food is more than enough for everyone to eat that is why no one will go hungry for a few hours of their shift. They will need a lot of strength to last the whole event of the day. And since the wedding reception would start at night, no one knows until what time it would last. Some of it lasts until almost midnight and even if it not, the whole kitchen still need to clean up their station thus most of the cooks or chef were able to go home almost or midnight at most.

After their meal, everyone went back to their stations and started to prepare for the fifty pax of guests that will be arriving anytime soon. Mari and two of her co-station Anna and Rick were doing some finishing touches for the appetizers that will be served.

"Mari once we are done with all of the plates, we can start preparing for the three hundred pax for later. We had a lot of things to do so we need to finish this fast." Said Anna. Anna started working in 'LOIS' two years ago while Rick was one year ahead of her. Before Rick, there was someone who is working in the cold station, he is now working in a different branch of 'LOIS' that is located in a different city.

"Got it!" answered Mari.

"You two know what dishes you will do for the hors d'oeuvres and canapés right?" asked Rick which earned him a nod from both Mari and Anna.

There are three kinds of hors d'oeuvres and three kinds of canapés that will be put up in the appetizer station that will be set up by the servers for the reception. It was decided by the couple to set up an appetizer table and dessert table for the guest to take whatever they want while they are waiting for the main event to start. In the middle of the wedding reception, the plated main dishes would be served to all of them. The two VIP tables in which would be sat by the parents and godparents of the bride and groom would have a different kind of plated dishes, this is by the request of the couple.

As the clock strikes at noon, guest starts to arrive inside the restaurant. The event was a corporate lunch meeting of one of the businessmen who own one of the buildings that are near the restaurant. Once all the guests have arrived, they were served with beverages and then the appetizers that were all ready to be served. It was Mari from the cold station who supervised the appetizers that will be given to the expedite table wherein Chef Gino and Lucas were standing. Chef Gino and Lucas were the ones to expedite every food that will need to go out in order. By the time the main dish needs to be served, Lucas will be helping out the Hot station to plate the dishes.

After two hours, the business lunch meeting finally ended, all of the servers were now rearranging the whole place. They need to set up the restaurant appropriate for the wedding reception. The Restaurant is big enough to hold a big event such as a wedding and other parties. The whole place can fit almost five hundred guests, during normal days dividers were placed for it to have private rooms. There are more private rooms upstairs for their VIP guest who wish to have a much peaceful and soundproof room.

"Mari, once you are done doing the hors d'oeuvres and canapés assigned to you, I need you to go to the pastry area. They need some hand for their platting later, can you do that?" asked Chef Gino who went in front of Mari who is still doing the hors d'oeuvres that was assigned to her.

Mari, Anna, and Rick will each make at least one hundred of each type of the hors d'oeuvres and canapés that were assigned to them. Since there are three types of hors d'oeuvres and canapés, The three divided the work by having one type for hors d'oeuvres and one type of canapés. Chef Gino asked them to prepare fifty as the initial number of each type but they still need to make another fifty as a backup, those were the changes that were decided three days ago which was fine for Mari and her team.

"Yes, Chef" answered Mari to Gino. She loves pastry and it is her dream to become a pastry chef one day. One of her reasons why she chose to go to country A was because she wants to enroll herself in one of the pastry academies she knew.  But achieving her dream was a little bit rocky since her parents wanted her to study for a master's degree in business management. Although they don't even own any business, her parents still want her to at least know how to run a business so that in the future she would know how to run one if she ever plans to build her own business. It was a sensible idea that made her agree to them but since she just started living in country A that she delayed it, she needs to focus on getting a working visa before enrolling in a university for a master's degree.

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After a few hours of battling inside the kitchen, the wedding party is finally over and everyone inside started to clean up their station. The whole service went on smoothly than expected. All the guests were so satisfied with every dish that they have eaten, some of the VIP guests even made a reservation for family dinners of their own. Others asked what time is the restaurant opens and the daily menu of the restaurant so that they could go and dine in there. The owner named Allan greeted the newly wedded couple and also thank them for choosing his restaurant as their reception. Seeing that he gain a lot of new customers that he was so grateful for the couple and his staff as well, the event won't be as successful as it is if not for the efforts and hard work of his staff.

"Chef Gino! I called Chef Michel a while ago and told him to send some food here from the new restaurant that we establish. He will be here any minute so I want you to gather everyone inside the kitchen, here at the dining area." Said Allan to Chef Gino who was talking to the manager about the few reservations that were made.

"sure, I wanted to try the food there for a long time now. You kept on hiding the location of that place from me, you know" Chef Gino and  Allan had been friends for a long time. He, Allan, and Michel were the original owners of all the branches of 'LOIS ' and other restaurants that they establish. Under the contract name of all the business permits were under them. They only asked Allan to be the one called owner since out of the three of them it is Allan who finished Business Management in college and even had a master's degree. While both Gino and Michel graduated from a culinary school. One would wonder how these three met and the only answer they would give was, they grew up together ever since they were a baby. Their mothers are best of friends so it was natural that all three of them would become friends as well.

"Hey! I know you are still sulking about that but Michel told me not to tell you, so don't blame me" said Allan. Allan and Michel were a married couple. They came out of their closet around when they were in college which was the same time they started dating as well. Two years after they graduated and the year when all of them first establish the main branch of 'LOIS', Michel proposed to Allan. They got married after a few months, although both of their parents did not agree to it Allan made them a promise about something. Gino on the other hand got married to his second girlfriend, his marriage was going smoothly at present plus his wife is now pregnant with their first child.

"Fine! You better give the address later or else Nessa would kill me. her cravings are getting bad you know and once she wanted something, I've got to give it to her or else she would be angry and cry out loud." Gino's wife is now in her second trimester wherein she started to crave a lot of things and she got easily carried away by her emotions.

"wow, but did she know about the new restaurant?"

"really? You're going to ask me that when you were the one who told her. She was so angry at me when she got home that day, she said that I didn't tell her about the new restaurant when I don't even know where it is"

"Well, the restaurant is not yet open so you could take her there during the soft opening that will happen two weeks from now"

"I told her that but she was still angry at me so I'm waiting for her to calm down. Despite all that, she is fine as long as no one would bring up the topic about the new restaurant"

"I see, anyway call all of your staff so that I could also thank them while we wait for Michel to arrive. He just texted me and he said that he will be here in ten minutes so have all your staff here now" said Allan who is now looking at his phone while he types his reply to his husband.

"Alright, alright, I will call them now." Gino walked towards the kitchen where he saw his staff done with their cleaning. They are just waiting to be dismissed by Chef Gino so that they could go home. After all, it is almost midnight and they all just want to rest, the wedding reception ended around eleven plus they clean up their stations thus they are all exhausted.

When Gino entered the kitchen he told them to go out and sit in the dining area. Once everyone took their seat, Allan thank them for the job well done they have done. Each will have a raise in their salary for that month as a reward for their hard work. He knew that it was tough to have two big reservations for that day, especially with all the adjustments and other changes that were told days before the exact date. Everyone was thankful for the reward and as well as the food that was given to them. Almost everyone knows who Michel was except for Mari and other new employees. Michel had not visited the main branch for almost a year now, he manages the other branches as well as the new restaurant that will open in two weeks.