Oliver Brennan is happy and content. Living with his boyfriend of two and a half year, working at a night club as a bartender while attending classes at the university in hopes to get a degree at business, he is enjoying his youth to the fullest. He...
This is how I imagine the shop to look from the outside (of course, with a different name).
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Present day, Boston
"Dylan, I need you behind the counter, Mel is losing it!" I yelled from the storeroom where I was gathering ingredients for afternoon sweets and sandwiches. It was another busy day, and I was just barely managing. We were getting more and more customers each day, and I was starting to consider getting a part-timer. We would end up collapsing out of exhaustion if I didn't get help in the near future.
"Got it!" he responded, and all that was heard after that was loud stomping and a thud of closing doors. I smiled a little and started to walk back towards the kitchen.
It had been more than 5 years since that incident, and I couldn't be more satisfied with my life. After finishing my degree in business, I left Chicago and started to work as a part-timer in a small bakery called Puffy Joe. I had no idea why it was called this way, and when I once asked, I was almost killed by the owner, Krista, so I stopped. The only thing I knew was that it had something to do with her ex. And with my experiences with exes, that kind of information was enough to shut me up.
I kept on working there for a year and a half, learning how to do different kinds of sweets and cakes, attending Baking courses and Ordinary cooking courses at the same time. Then, I got an unbelievable offer I could not refuse. One of Krista's friends was moving out of the city and needed to sell his shop in the Centre of Boston. What more, it was on Oliver Street, which seemed almost like destiny. So I bought it. I took a loan, asked my friends from the cooking courses for help, and in half a year, we were able to open the shop.
It was hard work. The shop was originally a snack shop with all kinds of foods, so it wasn't really equipped to be a coffee shop, but we managed. And I couldn't be more proud of what we achieved.
I got myself Ollie's Café on Oliver Street. It was hilarious. Some of my close friends and family members tried to change my mind about the name, but I stood my ground. It seemed just right.
I still remembered the reactions of my customers when they first saw the name. Some were amused, some thought it was genius and, of course, few thought it was stupid and cliché. But I couldn't care less about those people. My shop became one of the most visited cafés in this part of the city in no time, so the name had a good effect.
I might have been a bit arrogant here, but with the success we got in a matter of a few months, I dared to say the café was one of the most popular ones in the center. We were even interviewed and featured in a morning show pursuing the best places to have breakfast on a busy morning. And to show off a bit more, there was even some kind of survey about the quality of Boston's Cafés, and ours came out as the third winning choice.
I couldn't help the tears when I first heard the news. All my hard work, all the hours spent trying new sweets and special coffees. All the nights we stayed awake to make the shop look presentable. All the hardships we had to overcome to end up here. Everything was worth it!
