Page 37 of Collin: Episodes 13-15
Collin smiled and dropped his eyes. “Fair. I’m the enemy. It’s a weird place to be, but…yeah…makes sense. How did you get the bar?”
“It was my uncle’s.”
“So, you inherited it?”
“After he died, my aunt couldn’t keep up with it on her own; I’d just shucked my good-for-nothing husband. The farm we had came from his side, and technically, his dad still owned it, so I had nothing. I came here and helped out. When she died, the bar came to me.”
“So how much of this is your uncle, and how much of it is you?” Collin motioned up at the decor and the name in large, hand-carved letters above the backlit bar of bottles in old-world charm.
“About half and half. He’s still here, and so is she, and I like it that way. Their grandkid works here. They are a writer, so I give them part-time hours and keep more of it in the family. Maybe they’ll take over when I’m retired.”
Collin rubbed his thumb on his glass, eyes down. “I can see why you wouldn’t want to change anything.”
“Yeah.” She moved off to serve a customer coming back for another round.
Collin waited. She wasn’t going to ignore him. She seemed like the kind of woman who liked to face her problems head-on if she could or at least keep them in line of sight.
A bit later, she swung back around. “So, still going to try to convince me to give the place up?”
Collin shook his head. “No. I don’t think you should.”
She lifted her chin, looking at him a bit sideways. “Is this one of those slick reverse psychology things?”
He smiled, a little uncertain. “Um…yes?”
She half smiled in return. “You do suck at this.”
Collin laughed. “Left to my own devices, I wear ripped jeans, twenty-year-old T-shirts, and I work and study all day. I think they make me wear the suit so I blend in at the office. I am a good bartender though.”
“Okay.” She folded her arms on the counter and leaned toward him. “Tell me this slick reverse psychology thing then.”
Collin squirmed in his seat and tapped the counter. “Uh…I had this whole thing planned in my head, and now it’s gone. Um…all right, here we go. I used to be a bartender, right?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Uh-huh. You just said that. I could test that part of your story, you know.”
Collin blushed. “Test away. Anyway, bars are community spaces. You rely on repeat customers and being in a place where people naturally want to be. People come in because they like the feeling, they like the space, they use it to meet other people, watch the game, all that.”
She nodded.
“And if you shake that routine up, you could lose the clientele, and then the business is gone.”
She nodded again, eyes a little more contemplative.
Collin rubbed his thumb against the bar. It was beautiful gnarled wood, stained and varnished both by a master craftsman and time, the passage of thousands of hands back and forth across its surface. “Community is important. It keeps places alive. But we also need reasons for community to happen. Intention gets tired after a while. It has to be convenient.”
He glanced up, checking to see if she was still there, then looked down again. “You’re really good at making community here. Your foot traffic is high, comparatively. You have a really loyal customer base. But they are getting older.”
She huffed softly, her gaze traveling around her bar and then back to Collin.
Collin swallowed. “I can see that you’re adapting. You have spaces for different kinds of clients. You hold different events. You have a solid social media presence, but you’re trying not to be so trendy you drive off clients. And so far, it’s working. You’re one of the most successful businesses in this area, which is probably also why you’re one of the most resistant to change because it’s still working for you.”
“You’ve done your research.”
“Just a little bit. There’s a couple things limiting your foot traffic and your clientele.” Collin pulled out his phone and opened a note. “Parking. Late-night transportation. Pass-by traffic. Other businesses to draw in crowds and square footage. You can’t expand your current location, and city ordinances won’t let you install a rooftop beer garden like you tried to do five years ago. You also tried to open up sideways, and that also didn’t work.”
She pushed back and braced her palms on the counter. “You know a lot about me.”
“Just your public records.”
