‘We don't need to talk about him,’ Divya says as she wraps her slender arms around my tummy, hugging me tight from behind. ‘This is your diner, now.’

‘Yeah, it is!’ I smile and squeeze Divya's hands gently before stepping out of her arms and turning to look at the best bestie in the whole world. I’ve known Divya since college, sharing a dorm and then a house together. Divya has always known how to put a smile on my face.

‘Good girl,’ Divya sings with a broad wink, sweeping off towards the kitchen, bangles on her wrists and beads in her hair tinkling as she moves.

After a text exchange involving no shortage of cursing Brann, Divya told her boss she was sick and arrived first thing on the diner’s second day. She came armed with coffee I didn’t have to make and a fiery determination I desperately needed. She’d been planning on helping on the weekend anyway but refused to do anything less than help run the place today since I was on my own. Something that I am eternally grateful for.

It also helps that Divya is a lot more into the kind of food the diner serves than I am. With Divya getting the kitchen ready, I take the opportunity to check the tables, neaten the furnishings, and update the smoothie menu. No more of that awful mango and wheatgrass! Now the mango and pineapple smoothie that Dad-bod enjoyed so much is the smoothie of the day, and a few other simple blends have been added to the chalkboard. Oh, and music! Today the place will be filled with plinky LoFi, just like Biz-bro decreed.

With everything in place, and the scent of baking making the whole place smell like heaven, I finally look at the front door. After yesterday’s ugly surprises, I was worried, but through the lightly frosted glass of the front door I can see people. People are standing around doing their doomscrolling and selfie-taking, just waiting for me to open the door!

I start doing some box breathing and remind myself that I planned this; it will work out, it will be okay. I never envisioned doing this by myself but I’m here, Divya is helping, and I’ve got customers.

With a shout to Divya and a quick tug to tighten my pinny, I stride to the door to officially open… again. With a big smile on my face, I use my by best hostess voice to say, ‘Thank you all for coming! Please, come on in.’

As people start shuffling in, I welcome each of them individually, doing my best to sound happy and confident even though I’m already dying inside a little each time I say “Slim Pickings”. If I own the place, I could change the name. Let’s think on that later, right now us for turning these people into paying customers.

Once they’re inside my first customers are taking even more selfies, exclaiming about how the décor and the smell of pastries—are pastries health-food?—is to die for and then discussing which hashtags to use. It’s a good thing I wanted social media buzz right?

With the music plinking away in a mostly tolerable combination with the chattering crowd, I wander around and thank everyone again for coming along, taking their orders on my mobile using the app I downloaded last night. No bugs so far, thankfully.

I head over to the kitchen, where Divya is humming to herself as she swishes and sashays around the little space completely out of time with the LoFi. She transfers the first pastries to a cooling rack as I open my mouth to make sure orders are coming through on the app.

‘Excuse me.’

I freeze, because yet again I did not hear the bell and whilst I don’t recognise the voice, I sure as fuck recognise the tone. It’s kind of impressive how much entitlement can be communicated with just two words, and how rude such a polite phrase can sound. I breathe, force a smile, and turn on my heels to face this new horror, saying, ‘Yes, love?’

The man grimaces, a poor choice for someone who likely wore a permanent scowl already. He’s one of the “influencer” types, like those taking most of the selfies in the diner, and has this “other people gifted me my clothes” aesthetic that has me even more on edge. He’s no more than an inch taller than me, a little husky, and his dark hair is carefully styled to look as messy and effortless as possible.

‘I was appalled at your terrible soft launch yesterday. I’ve been following this opening for a while now and first you move the opening day at the last minute, then you have some stooge post on MyLocal to drive some in-the-know hype but then when I get here determined to cover your amazing new place I found you were closed!’ He says in what seems to be a single breath. I’m honestly impressed.

‘I’m sorry sir, that you were disappointed to miss our soft launch yesterday. I do appreciate your commitment to the diner. As a thank you, how about I get you a Smoothie of the Day? On the house of course.’ I grind out in my best customer service voice as I try to de-escalate this Karen in hipster fleek—do people still say fleek? Eh, it fits.

‘A smoothie?! You think a smoothie is enough for wasting my time? Don’t you know who I am?’ He starts picking up steam again, clearly liking the sound of his own outrage. ‘I have one hundred and sixty two thousand followers who love to hear about my food adventures and I had to let them all down yesterday because of you!’

I gulp a little at how much this guy could probably tank all the hard work on the diner’s social media presence with a single message, and struggle to think my way through this.

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Divya, goddess of all things amazing that she is, steps up next to me and says, ‘Oh my gosh! Are you @foodBeast on Nowsta? I loved your coverage of The Little Hole In The Wall last year. You captured the mood and experience so well!’

He starts preening, like literally preening, under this gushing praise from Divya, his blue eyes widening just a little. I take a slow breath, thankful she’s given me some breathing room. It’s going to hurt my soul, but I must do this for my livelihood. I lean over, and with a conspiratorial stage-whisper say, ‘How could I have not recognised you? I’m incredibly sorry, obviously you’re better than all these other influencers here right now. How’s about I give you a full meal on the house, and we do a live stream where we talk about how awesome your efforts are and give you the chance to ask me anything about this place?’

He'd continued puffing up as I said my painfully obsequious words and though he pauses as he pretends to think it over, I know he’ll say yes.

‘Well, that sounds like it could work. After all, my fans do need to hear about how I find such potential diamonds in the rough.’ He says with a very unwelcome wink… Ew.

‘Amazeballs!’ I almost gag on my own pep. ‘Let me get you seated and I’ll take your order.’ I say as I try to hold in the world’s biggest eye roll. I wave my phone at Divya and mouth ‘orders’ as I gently start shooing Food-zilla back to his seat, knowing Divya would handle the kitchen.

After following him back to his table I find that Food-zilla is sharing with another influencer-looking guy in a bargain-bin version of Food-zilla’s outfit. The man looks bored, repeatedly swiping left on his phone. He’s blonde and pale and has a sneer on his narrow face that could be for his friend as much as for me; I’m going to call him Bin-fluencer.

‘Scott, did you really just harass the owner?!’ Bin-fluencer hisses, flicking me a somewhat apologetic smile before looking back to his friend. ‘I thought we talked about this!’ OK, I guess the sneer was for Food-zilla.

I try to ignore them as politely as I can, hoping to not to get in the middle of these two when I’ve only just managed to diffuse the aggro bomb, but resigning myself to probably having to comp both their meals. When it seems like the back and forth has finished I ask brightly, ‘So, what can I get you both?’ Bin-fluencer asks for the burger, nake, and a kombucha. Food-zilla, of course, orders the vegan tempeh pad thai, the most expensive and awkward meal on my menu, plus a side—the gall of this man!—of tempura vegetables to make everything even harder. For a drink he requests a half-steamed brown sugar oat milk iced latte even though I don’t have iced coffees on the menu!

FFS Jen! I scream in my head for a while, using the phrase I picked up years ago for when things get way out of control unnecessarily. I add as much as I can to the order app and then head over to the kitchen for the rest.

I manically start getting all the drinks from the different orders put together and out to the different tables; Food-zilla took up nearly five minutes with his uppity schtick and people are looking a bit miffed. Smoothies, kambucha, flat whites, juices, fizzy waters, cortados, cordials and more all get whipped up. When did people stop wanting colas? Whilst I’m rushing about getting drinks on every table, I’m trying to work out how the fuck I’m going to make this coffee order. How does one even half-steam something that should be served iced?

By now, Divya has started plating some of the simpler some-assembly-required meals like vegan pasties and salads so I can also start actually feeding people. I gratefully grab some plates and ask her about the steamed milk thing. I’m thankful this place is more her style than mine because, without batting an eyelid she covers how you can steam a small amount of the oat milk and part mix it in for a bit of a sweeter drink.

After dropping the plates off, I take on this Mt. Everest of barista challenges. I get the imposing, chrome machine hissing away on the espresso—really wish I was already used to the noise and not expecting it to blow up any second— whilst I start frothing some of the oat milk. I then mix some brown sugar in a bit of hot water, staring at it with mortification as the sugar just won’t dissolve. Time to assemble this monstrosity. I put some ice in one of my never-before-used coffee glasses, pour in a generous amount of oat milk, layer in the expresso, the brown sugar “syrup”, and finally the frothed oat milk. The damn open kitchen and barista area means I’ve not been able to bingle on how to make this like a professional so I really hope this is close enough. It looks nice anyway.

Cautiously proud of the concoction now in my hand, I put the iced coffee on a tray with a kambucha and take them over to the pesky duo. I tell them that I hope they enjoy their drinks as I’m already heading back to the kitchen to get the next batch of meals; no sense letting them hold me up.

More burgers, pasties, and a few bowls of pad thai start making their way to customers. Now that more people have been getting their food, everyone looks to be relaxing with only a few antsy people left. I try to studiously ignore Bin-fluencer shushing Food-zilla when he’s says his coffee was only a quarter steamed. I definitely need to keep ignoring him because murders on the official opening day is usually frowned upon.

A few more folks come in so I get them situated whilst starting to take payments from people who have finished their meals. Balancing all these people is hard whilst also glancing anxiously over to the kitchen every half a second to see when the burger and pad thai are ready for serving. Diya’s got this but the sooner I can get them eating, the better!

I scoot over and grab them almost before she’s finished in my eagerness to get the worst customer in the world gone. I bring the food over to Bin-fluencer, who is once again swiping away, and Food-zilla, who is muttering about lighting and angles. As I put the food in front of them, they both perk up and immediately start fiddling with their phones to take pictures of their food.

Another couple rounds of drinks, order taking, and delivering food to tables, and I see they’ve finally finished their meals after at least five minutes of photo taking. I do a quick review to see if I’m going to need to give anyone their bill just yet, and head once more into that super annoying breach.

As I approach, Food-zilla has cleared his plate and is talking animatedly with his friend. Bin-fluencer is sitting with his head in his hands, fingers clenching his short blond hair. Why are these two even friends? Spotting my approach he releases his head and turns a tired smile my way and Food-zilla does the same.

‘That was lit! My comps to the chef,’ Food-zilla says, pushing his plate towards me.

‘Anything else I can get you both?’ I ask as I clear their plates.

‘Only that livestream you promised!’ He replies with a vile smirk.

Fuck. My. Life.