Chapter 8

Chapter 8

8. I'm Preparing a Café as a Hobby.

‘That startled me.’

Elina shook her head hard as the memory of what she'd just seen resurfaced.

‘A professional marketing company? Or NewTubers?’

Either way, it didn't matter.

If they were filming that seriously, they were clearly investing considerable effort into marketing.

‘This might end more easily than expected.’

Everything pointed that way.

It was only a thirty-room hotel to begin with.

A modest lobby, a mini pool, and a breakfast restaurant.

It had only the bare minimum.

‘Now I'll sit in the café with some coffee and start recording properly··· huh?’

There was no café.

“May I help you?”

“Ah, yes. I wanted a cup of coffee, but I couldn't find the café.”

“Ah! We don't operate a lounge café. If you'd like coffee, you can have it for free at the breakfast buffet over there.”

At the entrance to the buffet she pointed toward sat a small bean-to-cup machine.

“If you don't know how to use it, I can······.”

“No, I'm fine. I'll be going.”

Elina found herself back outside less than five minutes after entering the hotel.

Entirely against her own intentions.

(How did it go?)

“There wasn't anything special beyond the clean interior. However······.”

(However?)

“They were filming promotional videos inside the hotel.”

(Ha! I see! They're nothing special, so they're trying to fill rooms with that nonsense. How pathetic!)

“I'll submit a report after I finish investigating the owner.”

(No, don't bother. There's nothing more to see. And tell marketing to bring in celebrity NewTubers and launch a major campaign!)

“How much budget should we allocate?”

(All of next year's contingency fund too!)

“Yes. Understood.”

***

The hotel was doing well.

Bookings poured in so steadily that some employees claimed they'd actually seen the normally stoic Frank humming to himself.

“Let's see what people are saying on our video.”

I opened my laptop and logged onto NewTube.

【How a Hawaiian Hotel Employee Greets Guests Every Morning.avi】

KOA_HALEMAKANI · 267,880 views

12K Likes 332 Comments ↪ Share

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(Come on~ come on~ Come to Hale Makani Hotel~ I'll be waiting for yooou~)

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└ Why the hell is a Hawaiian guy doing that lmaoooo

└ The fact that his hula steps are textbook-perfect makes it even funnier lol

└ First I was shocked by how muscular he is, then I saw the skirt

└ Lmaoooooooo

└ I was watching cat videos before bed and somehow ended up here

└ This is obscene..

As expected of the first-place entry, it had an incredible 267,000 views!

There were over three hundred comments too.

“People really do gain superhuman power when prize money's involved.”

And the promotional effect was immediate.

【TrapBible Monthly Satisfaction Rankings】

1. Hale Makani(★★★★★): 4.73

2. Waikiki Sun Beach(★★★★☆): 4.35

···

As reservations increased, our review score rose noticeably as well.

But it wasn't all good news.

- David L.: Everything's great, but there's nowhere to drink coffee. (★★★★☆)

- Robert & Helen W.: They don't operate a lounge café. (★★★★☆)

- Amelia B.: Drinks are······. (★★★★☆)

···

The occasional four-star review.

They all shared the same complaint.

The absence of a lounge café.

You want a café?

Yeah, so do I!

I spent more than four hours a day slacking off in lounge cafés on average, after all!

“Fine, I'll build one. The best lounge café there is.”

I immediately returned to the hotel and found Frank.

“Pardon? What do you mean······?”

Frank looked as though I'd suddenly started speaking Korean.

Was my explanation difficult again?

“We're opening a café. We have plenty of space, don't we?”

“That is true, but operating a café will increase expenses too much. We'd need premium beans, meaning we'd have to charge at least eight dollars a cup, which may be unrealistic. We'd also need to hire a barista.”

“I don't care if it loses money. We're going to sell the best coffee in Hawaii. Coffee so good you can't taste it just anywhere, even if it's a little expensive.”

I opened something on my phone and turned the screen toward Frank.

“President Kim, this is······.”

“You're saying it's hard to obtain?”

Frank reluctantly nodded.

“I'll take care of the beans. Prepare everything else.”

I left the hotel immediately and got into my car.

Right, first comes the lifeblood of coffee—the beans!

***

After driving for about an hour, I arrived at Big Ross Farm.

They produced the most expensive Kona beans in Hawaii.

Kona coffee.

One of Hawaii's few famous specialties.

Yet despite its fame, surprisingly few people actively seek it out.

Because the flavor is weak.

Under Hawaiian state law, a blend can use the Kona name with only ten percent Kona beans.

Fake Kona coffee disguised under the fancy term ‘blending’ was everywhere in Hawaii.

“If that isn't a nationwide scam, I don't know what is.”

In the end, if I wanted the real thing, I had to come myself.

But something about the farm looked strange.

Vines covered half the rusted sign,

and there was no coffee-making experience center or souvenir shop like you'd expect at a farm like this.

I'm sure this is the right address······.

Just as I stood at the entrance searching my phone for the farm's contact number,

a shabbily dressed middle-aged Southeast Asian woman who looked like a worker slowly came down the hill.

“Gift coffee, city. There. Plenty.”

Her English seemed a little rough.

Still, I understood what she meant.

“No. I'm not looking for gift coffee. I came to buy coffee for our hotel.”

I handed her a Hale Makani Hotel business card, but the woman shook her head.

“Not sell, here. Go city.”

“I'll come back tomorrow.”

Yeah, I knew they wouldn't sell it to me.

At those prices, they probably had tight contracts with existing buyers.

That was why I was in a hurry.

Judging by Vivian's skills, it would take at most two months for the café to be finished.

I had to make this happen before then.

It's been a while since I've felt my old salesman's blood burning!

***

One month later,

“Boss! Boss! He came again!”

“Again?”

The woman picking coffee cherries sighed when she spotted the luxury sedan parked in the distance.

The man who stepped out was once again unloading a bunch of things from the trunk.

‘How long is he planning to keep this up?’

She'd dealt with truckloads of annoying people who came asking to buy coffee.

She'd gotten so practiced at driving them off that it had become second nature.

Dress like the workers, speak awkward English,

and her Filipino heritage happened to help sell the act.

Even if they demanded to see the owner, she only had to say, ‘Don't know. Boss not here,’ and walk away.

But the Asian man who kept arriving with both hands full of drinks was different.

Every time she'd nearly forgotten about him, he came by and left gifts like this.

“It's hot out here, so have these while you work. And this is our coffee purchase proposal. Please take a look at it.”

Once again, the man left immediately after a short greeting.

He didn't cling to her or sit around refusing to leave.

All that remained was a stack of cold drinks bundled together with a document envelope.

‘Maybe I'll at least look?’

Without realizing it, the woman's guard dropped and she opened the envelope.

***

Another month passed.

【Hale Kope (House of Coffee)】

“What do you think?”

“Hmm, it's good.”

“What kind of reaction is that?! This is my second masterpiece!”

Just as Woo-jin had predicted, the lounge café renovation personally overseen by Vivian took only two months.

But Frank looked deeply worried as he stared at the completed café.

They'd built an impressive café exactly as Woo-jin ordered, but they still lacked the most important thing: coffee beans.

“Do you really think the owner will manage to get Big Ross beans?”

“Won't it be difficult? I heard even department stores can barely get 200-gram bags.”

“Probably.”

Frank's thoughts weren't much different from the employees'.

Forget Big Ross; even places selling one-hundred-percent Kona beans were rare.

‘But he looked completely confident again this time. Maybe······.’

That was when it happened.

- Jingle. Rattle.

Woo-jin entered through the main doors pulling a cart.

“What are you all doing? This is heavy. Hurry and help me move this. Whoa!”

As if they'd been waiting, Frank and the employees swarmed around the cart loaded with cardboard boxes.

Rough handwriting was written across the boxes.

[BigRoss 100% Kona Peaberry] 30kg

“My God! Not just Kona, but thirty kilograms of peaberry?”

“Open it! Hurry, open it!”

The instant the box was opened, a rich coffee aroma strong enough to sting their noses filled the entire lobby.

“President Kim, how did you get this?”

“Sincerity moves heaven. It's a little old-fashioned, but the classics still work in this business.”

“Sin-sirity moves heaven?”

Another incomprehensible phrase.

“It means if you put your heart into something, it'll work out.”

Either way, the fact remained that Woo-jin had obtained the beans through painstaking effort.

‘He never compromises once he decides to do something. To think he's this serious even about a tiny café!’

While Frank marveled at Woo-jin's achievement(?),

“By the way, what about the baristas who contacted us?”

“No applications yet. James agreed to handle it temporarily.”

“No. The barista is the heart of coffee. We need to find a proper one.”

“How do you intend to do that?”

“The same way as last time.”

“Ah!”

He meant the promotional contest.

“This time, let's hold a contest with a much bigger prize! Nobody turns down money.”

It was Woo-jin's firm determination to lounge around in the finest café possible.

When effort was needed, he used effort. When money could solve it, he crushed the problem with overwhelming amounts of cash!

It was far beyond anything a mere general manager could hope to comprehend.

© Kim Mangcho#1ond5