Her Beasts Volume Four

Tea House Plans

Holly's restaurant plans were much easier to take care of than the plans for Fawn's grocery store. Much of the restaurant would just be a copy of how Iris's restaurant was set up with only minor changes implemented. When Iris had discussed what sort of things Holly might want different from how Iris had her restaurant had set up, Holly had two major things she wanted to address.

The first problem was that she didn't think there was enough space for everything. While Iris had pointed out that a larger restaurant was possible and that they could even build a second floor exclusively for larger, private dining parties, the cost to pay off the restaurant would end up increasing as a result. Luckily, this ended up not being an issue for Holly who was actually pleasantly surprised to see how successful her Tea House business is.

Business had been strong before the festival because the tea-themed restaurant was new and it had been popular during the festival because of the festive atmosphere. However, even now that the festival was over, Holly was, apparently, having some females ask if they could reserve the private dining spaces well into the future. Having a new restaurant that was built to accommodate the extra-large families so common in the beast world was a must.

The second issue that Holly had was that she wanted her restaurant to be able to be more decorative and to feel more appropriately designed for the type of dining service they were providing. With such high prices for food, it was necessary for there to be a more comfortable and luxurious feel to the experience. Besides this, many of the customers Holly had liked to sit around and talk for hours, but hard stone chairs and a crowded restaurant did not accommodate such preferences.

Iris had a good idea of how to solve both issues, but it would require a good bit of creative thinking and funding to create the sort of restaurant Holly wanted. Since money wasn't a huge issue to Holly now that she was making a good amount of profit and she owned her own home, Iris spent a few hours drawing blueprints and discussing the matter with Hazel and Holly.

In the end, the Tea Room plans ended up being a large three-story building. There was a basement level with half refrigeration and half dry storage. Both areas would be mostly shelving with very few bins as meat was actually not needed very often with the menu Holly had. Some people would order meat teas, which had soups and roasts, but most of the customers were there for the sweets and tea. Iris made sure to custom order shelving that would be both sturdy and have a tall enough gap in between shelves to accommodate the three-tier trays the desserts and finger sandwiches were served on.

For the ground floor, a third of the restaurant was dedicated to kitchen space. Baking so many things at once required more hearths than Iris's restaurant had, so it was agreed upon to double the amount as well as to include plenty of counter space and standing space. Holly's males wouldn't all be in the kitchen, but it was still very easy for kitchens to feel overcrowded. Another third of the ground floor was turned into a shop for the to-go items to be sold with shelving and a check-out area. Since Holly had been sending her mates out to sell the goods at a market stall, Iris felt this addition would make things much easier and it was still separate from the kitchen and dining areas. 

The final third of the ground floor was for dining with several small, private rooms. These rooms could house up to twelve people and were set up to be more comfortable. Iris planned to have the carpenter's workshop build large wooden couches, which would have specially created cushioning added to them. Basically, it would be like a thinner mattress that would only cover the portion of the couch one would sit on while the back would still be wood. Still, Iris hoped it would add some comfort to the seating. A table would be sandwiched in between two couches with three sets in each of the rooms. Finally, the rooms would be finished off with hearths, animal skin rugs, and some greenery.

There are no reliable ways to grow decorative plants like flowers in the beastworld. So, Iris had to get creative. Since bushes can be grown in pots, Iris had the stone masonry workshop build large stone pots that would then be filled with soil before planting various fruit bushes in them. This would give the customers some nice greenery to look at while also offering Holly fresh fruit that could easily be harvested. She certainly went through enough fruit that none of it would go to waste.

The top floor was exclusively for large, private dining rooms. These were, essentially, the same as the smaller ones that were located downstairs, but they could house thirty-six customers in one room. The stairs up to the upper stairs were located in the shop portion of the building and there were a total of four large, private dining rooms on the top floor. This was double the amount that Iris's restaurant had and was bound to be a double-edged sword for Holly and her mates. She would be able to accommodate more customers and was less likely to have to field as many complaints about the wait for a table, but it would be more difficult for her mates to keep up since more customers would need to be waited on at a time.

Still, Holly felt much more satisfied with the finalized plans for her restaurant than she thought she would be. The size of the restaurant was larger than Fawn's restaurant had been, but there was less refrigeration to care for. The furniture was around the same cost as both shops required specialized furniture to be made. Still, Holly only ended up needing to pay an extra thousand crystals to pay off her restaurant. This was still better than Fawn's agreement, though, since Fawn also had to pay rent on the food storage and processing buildings, which would be a permanent affair, unlike the rent-to-own shops.

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