Page 52 of A King’s Obsession

I gave her the square footage, watching her nod slowly as she took in the information.

“How many bars are you thinking?” she asked next.

“Depends on the building,” I replied, still looking at my laptop.

“And VIP?”

“Same.”

Her finger moved across the screen as she studied the plans. “Kitchen?”

“Maybe.”

That answer finally made her look up. “So what exactly are we looking for?”

I lowered my laptop. “That's my job.”

A little irritation crossed her face, and she sat back. “You dragged me to Miami because you said this was part of mine.”

Fair.

I turned my laptop toward her and motioned for her to come closer. “Then look.”

Jru moved into the seat beside me and leaned forward over the screen.

For the next thirty minutes, she forgot she was supposed to be irritated with me.

And I learned something.

She knew her shit.

She didn't ask me about decorations, booth colors, or any of the surface-level shit I half expected. She wanted to know how I envisioned the club functioning.

Where would liquor be stored?

How many employees would move through the floor during peak hours?

Would VIP have its own service station?

Where would security stand?

Did I want the second Vice to duplicate Westhaven or operate as its own concept?

Then she pulled up the current Vice layout and pointed toward the main bar.

“This needs to be different,” she said, enlarging the section on the screen.

I leaned closer to see what she meant. “What's wrong with it?”

“Nothing if you're a customer looking at it. It's pretty.” She enlarged the layout and traced a finger behind the bar. “But whoever designed it cared more about how it looked than how people actually have to work back here.”

That got my full attention.

“Explain,” I told her, shifting my attention completely away from the financials.

“When we got slammed opening night, everybody kept crossing each other trying to restock. That's why I said we needed another barback, but that's only fixing part of the problem. If you're starting from scratch with the next location, move storage closer to the busiest bar.”

She shifted the screen and pointed somewhere else, looking more comfortable now that we were discussing something she clearly understood.