Week 19 - Saturday
Saturday. Sarah's intervention, combined perhaps with the initial positive reviews and word of mouth starting to gain traction, had an immediate effect. From the moment Theo opened, there was a steady stream of customers. Not a flood, but consistent. People mentioned seeing posts online, friends recommending it again. He worked non-stop, prepping, cooking, packing, taking orders. The +1 enhanced tools performed flawlessly, churning out perfectly cooked chicken and chips despite the increased demand, but Theo was the bottleneck. He barely had time to wipe down counters, let alone handle the increasing number of phone-in orders he hadn't anticipated. By the end of the day, he'd sold sixty orders. Double the previous day. Exhausting, but exhilarating. The shop was turning around, faster than he'd projected. But he was already hitting his personal capacity limit.
Week 19 - Sunday
Sunday was mayhem. Absolute, unadulterated chaos. It seemed every positive review, every social media post, every word-of-mouth recommendation all came at once. From the moment he opened, there was a line stretching out the door. The phone rang non-stop. Online ordering pings (he'd hastily enabled a basic platform Jono had half-set up) chimed incessantly.
Theo moved like a machine possessed. His world shrank to the counter, the rotisserie, the fryer, the packing station. Chickens came off the spit, were expertly portioned (his +1 knife making swift work), boxed with perfectly fried chips (+1 fryer keeping up effortlessly), salt sprinkled, lid closed, order number yelled. Take cash, give change, swipe card (+1 POS running smoothly), answer phone, bag order, repeat. He was sweating profusely despite the air conditioning, his muscles screaming from the repetitive motion, his voice hoarse. Customers were mostly patient, buoyed by the delicious smell filling the street and the positive buzz, but the wait times grew longer.
Around 6 PM, disaster struck. He went to the walk-in (+1 fridge keeping things perfectly chilled) to grab more prepped chickens. Empty. He'd completely sold out of the eighty birds he'd prepped, hours before closing time. He had potatoes left, but no main course. He had to go out front, face the still-substantial queue, and apologize profusely. "Sorry folks! Sold out of chicken for tonight! Unbelievable response! Chips still available!"
Groans of disappointment rippled through the line. Some people left immediately, grumbling. Others just ordered chips. He ended the day having served ninety chicken orders before selling out, plus countless chip-only orders afterwards. He could have easily sold over a hundred, maybe more, if he'd had the stock.
Late Sunday night. Theo stood alone in the wreckage of his small shop. Empty chicken racks, potato peelings everywhere, grease splatters on the walls, overflowing bins. He was bone-tired, muscles aching in places he didn't know existed, smelling strongly of charcoal smoke and fryer oil. He hadn't stopped moving for nearly ten hours straight.
He leaned against the counter, surveying the scene, then looked at the final sales tally on the register. Despite the chaos, despite running out of stock, the revenue for the day was incredible, exceeding even his optimistic projections for months down the line.
He sank onto one of the cheap plastic customer chairs, the adrenaline finally draining away, leaving a deep bone-weariness. He pulled out his phone, not to check messages, but to open the simple calculator app. His mind, even exhausted, craved the concrete validation of numbers.
He punched in the week's revenue figures, recalling the daily totals from the POS system. Wednesday's tentative $150, Thursday's $480, Friday's $480, Saturday's $960 rush, and today's $1540 mayhem before running out of stock. Grand total: $3610. Not bad for effectively four and a half days of trading from a dead start.
Then, the costs specifically for the shop this week. He'd have to refine this later, but for a quick calculation: The big initial food stock and supplies order he'd placed Tuesday night had cost around $1500 to get everything from chicken and potatoes to oil, spices, and mountains of packaging. Utilities for the week's operation? Maybe $100 for the gas and electricity guzzled by the constantly running rotisserie and fryers. And the first week's business lease payment, $700. He ignored his personal rent and living costs for this calculation – this was purely about the shop's performance.
He subtracted the estimated costs from the revenue: $3610 - $1500 - $100 - $700 = $1310.
He stared at the number. Over thirteen hundred dollars. Profit. In less than five days. From a shop people were actively avoiding two weeks ago. After covering the initial stock purchase. After paying the hefty weekly lease. It wasn't a fortune, not yet, but compared to Jono likely losing money weekly, it was staggering. And this was just the start, he realized, a surge of fierce optimism cutting through his fatigue. With proper inventory management, maybe some marketing beyond Sarah's initial blitz, a full seven days of trading... The potential felt enormous. The model didn't just work, it worked brilliantly.
The thought landed with profound certainty, cutting through the exhaustion. Tool Enhancement. It fucking works. It could overcome apathy, compensate for lack of skill, deliver consistent, high-quality results that customers recognized and valued. This rundown chicken shop, with just two key pieces of equipment enhanced as the core, though admittedly he probably enhanced anything else that caught his eye for good measure, was already proving to be a cash-generating engine.
The physical labor was brutal, yes. He couldn't sustain this pace solo for long. He absolutely needed to hire help, train them on the (now simplified, consistent) process. That was the next immediate step.
But the potential… He thought about the steady income stream this could generate once optimized with staff. Cash flow to fund bigger things. Maybe acquire another struggling business? A cafe? A bakery? Apply the same model?
And Sarah. Her marketing blitz had been the catalyst for the weekend explosion. Her skills were potent. How could he leverage that? Get her involved? The idea of partnership felt less abstract now, more like a practical necessity for growth. If he could find a venture that aligned her passions with his abilities… the possibilities felt vast.
He locked up the shop, the click of the +1 enhanced lock feeling secure, definitive. He walked home through the quiet suburban streets, exhausted but electric, his mind already churning with plans for hiring, optimizing, and scouting the next target. The climb was hard, the work gritty, but for the first time, the path towards serious wealth felt tangible, scalable, and maybe, just maybe, sustainable.
Theodore Sterling - Financial Ledger (End of Week 19)
Starting Balance (Beginning Week 19):$18,295.00
Income (Week 19):
Wed Sales (20 orders @ $7.50 special): +$150.00
Thurs Sales (Est. 30 orders @ $16 avg): +$480.00
Fri Sales (Est. 30 orders @ $16 avg): +$480.00
Sat Sales (Est. 60 orders @ $16 avg): +$960.00
Sun Sales (Est. 90 chicken orders @ $16 avg + Est. $100 chip orders): +$1540.00
Total Income:+$3610.00
Expenses (Week 19):
Personal Rent Paid (Week 19): -$450.00
Personal Living Expenses (Week 19): -$500.00
Business Lease Payment (Week 19): -$700.00
Initial Food Stock/Supplies for Shop Opening (Est.): -$1500.00
Shop Utilities (Est. first partial week): -$100.00
Total Expenses:-$3250.00
Net Change (Week 19): +$3610.00 (Income) - $3250.00 (Expenses) = +$360.00
Ending Balance (End of Sunday, Week 19):$18,655.00(Updated: $18,295.00 + $360.00 = $18,655.00)
Assets:Maria's Charcoal Chicken (Business Purchase Price): $38,000.00
Status: Successful Relaunch & Initial Profitability. Completed shop prep and permanent 'Tool Enhancement' of key equipment. Reopened 'Maria's Charcoal Chicken'. Initial sales slow but positive feedback confirmed high food quality. Leveraged Sarah's marketing expertise, resulting in rapid sales increase by weekend (Sat: 60, Sun: 90+ orders before selling out). Experiment proved Tool Enhancement model highly effective. Identified solo operation as immediate bottleneck. Achieved slight profit ($360 net) in first partial week (Wed-Sun) despite significant initial stocking costs. Capital stable at ~$18.7k. Next steps: Hire staff, optimize workflow/inventory, stabilize operations, plan further investment/expansion based on Tool Enhancement model. Collaboration potential with Sarah noted.
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Author: Hi All, thanks for reading and hope you are all enjoying the story.
I'm hoping the novel gets a bit more traction this week, please vote some power stones! I'll try and increase the release speed if the novel gets a bigger audience!
Help leave a review, or comments on how you think the story is going. In particular how the +1 could be used by Theo in smarter ways to achieve what he wants. Would love to see all the great ideas people can think of! It would be great to incorporate people's idea into the novel.
Please add to your library. When it hits 300 collections, I'll upload an extra full chapter (so 4+ parts) to celebrate. Chapters start getting bigger and bigger as more things happen.
Finally, a lot of advanced chapters are already available on patreon. If you want to read ahead, please join my patreon, it would really mean a lot to authors like me. Thanks everyone.
www.patreon.com/coffeetimewriting
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Author Update 2: There will be a slight pause in the releases as my other novel Data & Magic got locked for some reason. Working with webnovel team to resolve, so will wait till that is resolved before uploading again. Thanks all!