It was early evening, just after four, when the restaurant opened. I had a few passers by stick their head in and look around, but not many.
The station has about 300 permanent residents and crew. Of those about a third are currently working and another sleeping. That means on the entire station there are only about 100 people who might be on the promenade.
That sounds like a lot but for those readers old enough to have walked a shopping mall, one hundred shoppers in even the smallest of malls would feel empty.
So it wasn't surprising that other than a few people who gawked through the open doors I didn't have any customers until closer to dinnertime.
I spent the quiet time making a second batch of corned beef and cabbage stew. The recipe is pretty simple: Cabbage, onions, corned beef, carrots, and potatoes. Some people add green beans and okra. Cooking in a pot with corned beef can make almost any vegetable delicious.
The first batch was in a heated serving pot with a metal soup ladle and lid. I listed it on the menu as the soup of the day, and expected it to be a good seller.
I threw some chopped onions and green peppers onto the skillet, and put some bread dough in my pizza oven. The smell of food cooking would pull in hungry customers walking by on their way to the replimat. Assuming there were hungry customers walking by at all. Which there were not.
I threw a package of hot dogs onto the griddle and let them cook. Then I took a large container out of storage and filled it with the caramelized onions and peppers before they burned. I replenished the grill with more fresh chopped onions and decided to cook a few sliders on top of them.
Sliders always taste better when the meat is pressed thin and never touches the griddle. The steam from the bed of onions cooks the meat and infuses it with flavor. I grabbed the buns out of the pizza oven, and sliced them in half so they would be ready when the sliders finished.
The hotdogs were about to burn so took them off the grill and tossed them into a warming bath of saltwater brine. That would keep them hot and perfectly seasoned when customers did eventually arrive.
Some of the buns were hotdog size and I prepped a few of them and placed them in a metal container with a lid to keep warm.
I mixed a new batch of dough, tossed another batch of sliders and dogs into the griddle then took the other batch of dough that was rising and shaped it into buns for the oven.
Time flew by as I repeated that cycle. I flitted from the grill to the oven, to the chopping board, and the dough mixer then back again.
I had just finished the third batch of sliders when three soft chimes sounded in the kitchen. The chimes let me know when someone walked in. I looked up to see three members of Station security had walked through the open doors.
Primmin, Luru and the other Bajoran officer who was at my bedside during the first round of medical scanning were looking around at the walls and tables of the hobbit hole restaurant.
Primmin's face showed the confused half recognition of someone who was trying hard to remember something. That face disappeared when he looked at the bookshelf.
“Tolkien?! You made this place into… How?! Egman this is incredible work. Wait what song is playing?”
“Hello, Mr. Primmin. That song is a recording of Shore's Shire. Are you a big Lord of the Rings fan?”
“My grandfather read me the stories as a boy. You've turned this restaurant into a hobbit hole. Wait.. Hole in the Wall. That's a terrible pun. I love it.”
The two Bajoran officers were lost in the conversation so they just came up and examined the menu screen.
“What is a Slider? The third officer said.
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“It's ground beef steamed over grilled onions, served on a bun with or without cheese. You get three of them for 7 BPGC or 8 with cheese. American cheese.”
“They look small, I would eat much more than three.” He said.
The man has a build perfect for club bouncer or in this case station security. He looked like he lived in the variable gravity gym.
“I bet you could. I offer a box special 20 for 40 BPGC. I haven't put it on the menu yet because I wasn't sure of the demand. Why don't you all try one, and we'll see if you want to order the box of 20.”
I took a plate and placed three sliders on it. One for each of them.
Primmin quickly but carefully took one, smelled it and his eyes went wide.
“This is actual beef!” He exclaimed with a tone of wonder and a face of disbelief.
“Grassfed from a Kansas ranch.”
Luru and Bouncer guy, I'll call him Kronk for now, each took their sandwich and took a test bite.
The sliders were admittedly small, but all three vanished faster than expected.
Kronk swallowed and then said “ three boxes please.”
“All right, one box for each of you?”
“No, three for me.”
“ With cheese or without?”
“Can I try one with cheese before I decide?”
“Absolutely, here you are.” I passed him a plate then threw more chopped onions on the griddle.
The sandwich disappeared faster than the first.
“All three with the cheese, please.”
“I'll just have one box with the cheese,” said Luru.
“Box with cheese for me too, guess I'll be joining you at the gym after this Grun.” Primmin said to the Officer formally called Kronk in my head.
The three officers cleaned out the stockpile of cooked sliders I had built up. They sat at my long table with pyramid stacks of sliders, and began to eat.
Primmin had eaten three of his, before he called out. “O'Brian said you have Guinness. How much for a bottle?”
“13 BPGC, I only have real alcohol, no synthahol. Are you all off duty?”
“Real alcohol eh? Perhaps I'll have to take a nap instead of working out. Yeah three bottles, this round is on me.” Primmen said, then tapped the menu screen to transfer payment.
The spectacle of the slightly drunk security officers loudly enjoying the food brought in more customers. Soon my table was full, and customers were eating standing up or taking the food out to the tables of the replimat.
Sliders were the big seller, but when dinner rush was over I was sold out of soup and all the hotdogs I had prepared.
Grun finished all sixty two sliders and three bottles of Guinness. He belched loudly then fell asleep at the table. Luru and Primmin had to carry him to his quarters.
—
After ordering replacements for all my food stock from the cart store, I made a profit of a little over two thousand BPGC. Not bad for a single evening.
Most of my customers were crew just coming off duty. Apparently the security shifts are staggered from the other shifts to make sure that security changes don't happen at the same time as greater activity.
Once the rush was done, I went back into making dough and cooking buns. Over the evening I had to order buns from the cart store three times. That ate into the profits quite a bit.
I was rolling out another batch of dough when the door chime rang out again.
“Cart can you change the chime to be the door chime sound from TNG?”
[Done]
Important business concluded, I looked up to see the station commander Benjamin Sisko walk into the restaurant and stop three steps into the doorway.
“ This is something else! I heard that you had fixed this place up. I didn't expect such craftsmanship. Perhaps I should allow O'Brien to put you to work.”
“ Sorry Commander, I've used up all the materials I brought with me to get this done. They were very specialized, so I can't do this again. I'm better at building sandwiches than bulkheads.”
“And when your lease is up? Are you planning on leaving all this behind?”
“I suppose I'll know the answer to that when the time comes, hopefully a long time from now."
“If I should decide that it is sooner, what then?”
“Then I suppose I would have to pack all of this back up. I hope that's not what you have come here to tell me.”
“Not yet, Mr Egman. I have questions.” Benjamin Sisko walked into the room examining the table and bookshelves before stopping in front of the photo of his son and Nog.
“What are you, John Egman?”
—
