No matter what happened, one thing was clear in Ronnie's mind. She didn't want this store to be imposing.
"You don't get it, Penny!" She had said a long while ago, as she and her partner designed the awning, "I don't want it to sound like anything else. I just want it to be a cute little bakery. You don't get customers—or friends—by being mean, Penny. You get them by being nice, friendly, and humble!"
She had done everything to get her store out and ready for it's big premiere. She used as much whites and pinks as she could afford, and she had even gotten help from her sister Penelope to help her in the physical construction. Sure, she wasn't a employee. Well, not yet at least. But the fact that she was one of the few siblings that actually supported her idea of opening a bakery did wonders in keeping her happy in these tumultuous planning phases for her bakery.
In addition to all that, had done everything to get the name out as well, from posting flyers all across town to begging her friends to come and visit once in a while and to also leave a like on the social medias. Alas, when it was time...
They had only seen a modest success.
Mayhaps Penny was right. A business couldn't survive on getting it's only orders from tourists and the Bean Machine. It certainly didn't help that Penny was scaring the customers either, as she had earlier sent some teens packing out the store.
"I told you this was a dumb idea." Penny said, her hands on her hips, "We shouldn't have made it a big deal to be like we're open! We should have just always acted like we were open. Y'know, like we've always been here."
"How is that helpful?" the normally cheerful Chernobyl of energy rolled her eyes from behind her glasses, "Maybe if you hadn't have scared those kids off—"
"They were, like, sixteen." Penny cut in, "They should have been in school, and were skipping. What 16 year old walks into a bakery at noon on a Monday?"
"Me." Ronnie stated as struck defiantly against her childhood friend, whining all the while. "You could have let them buy something. Now we're those two mean old ladies who scared off a bunch of kids."
"Like two kids."
"We scared two kids!"
"And we're not old."
In her frustration, Penny Simon considered just going out for a run. After all, she was not like Ronnie in that she did not share the big brunette's shining optimism nor her love for the culinary arts. However, knowing that she was only going to harm herself on such a walk Ronnie walked to the front door and blocked her access with her bouncing hips. They were pretty wide themselves thanks to Ronnie's belief in never being able to trust a skinny chef, and with her 270-pound frame that gave her ample room to block her friend in time.
"Penny... perhaps I should be the one to go on that walk."
"What, no!" Penny yelled back. "I just need to let loose some fucking steam after all that. Maybe this is a unwinnable situation, but-"
"This is not a unwinnable situation, Penny." Ronnie barked back, leaning up close to her friend. "Your good with business. If you stay here and we suddenly get an influx of customers, your the one who's gonna be best handled for that. Besides, I may be good for cooking but at the end of the day anything unsold is probably gonna end up in this gut. I'd rather it have a chance to be sold to someone else to make their day a bit brighter."
"Uh... o... okay..." Penny stated, surprised that her partner was able to give such a pep talk to her. "J...just promise that you don't end up coming back full, okay? Any bigger and you may start to have problems in the kitchen."
"You worry too much." Ronnie stated, as she turned her back on her friend and pushed on the front door. "I've cooked heavier than this back when I was part of the Buttercombe Softball Team! Really, I only had to slim down cause I couldn't afford custom sized clothing once I was out of Buttercombe."
"You're joking." Penny said, not buying it. "There's no way you've played high school softball with hips like those."
"Not joking! These hips have seen a home run once or twice!"
With a brisk leap, Ronnie was out of the little bake shop on Main Street, and had started her own brisk walk around the city. Having remained chubby all her life and especially being big during her later Buttercombe years, Ronnie actually had quite a lot of stamina for walking around. Plenty of people were to thank for that, from Marsha to her old friend Hannah and especially her mom Violet.
Violet had always encouraged her to keep her body strong, no matter how heavy she got. That's what moms were there for after all. She had always encouraged her to try to follow her dreams, personally teaching her how to cook at a young age to the point that she knew how to bake an entire cake at the age of 9, and could make an entire Thanksgiving Dinner by herself at the age of 14. She was a straight up natural at food, one that was only seen once in a generation.
The only time her mother hadn't supported her was ironically with the bake shop. When she had finally gotten out of college for her chef degree, she had stated her full intent to open up her dream bake shop, which was met with worry and discouragement. She had thought that she lacked any experience whatsoever in running a place by herself, and that she needed to gain prominent managerial experience before she should even consider running a bakery.
"Maybe she was- wait, what am I saying?"
*BUMP!*
"Ouch! Watch wh- oh, it's you."
"Oh, hey Katy."
Katrina Blackwell, one of Ronnie's old acquaintances back in Buttercombe and a former friend of one of her BFFs back then, Alice Cartyle. Ironically, while Alice had vanished away from her life in favor of going to Abercrombie Katrina managed to stay. And beyond even that, she had managed to become a full on regular in the Bakery. She had visited every day since opening, grabbing one or two boxes each filled with a dozen pastries to bring back to the nearby coffee stop.
"Katrina, please." The big-bootied Texan woman said, as her larger frame was pulled up from the ground. "You really should watch where you're going though. How could you not notice someone with a figure like this heading right towards you?"
"I... I was in thought." Ronnie admitted, sighing a bit. "Thinking about the bake shop a bit. It's not doing as well as I wanted it to."
"Not doing as well as you want it to, huh?" Her stomach grumbling a bit, Katrina pulled out a small box from her backpack and opened it up, revealing a miniature cake from Ronnie's bakery. She cut herself a slice and shoved it down her gullet as a quick snack.
"If I may ask a bit... do you see the Little Bake Shop on Main surviving a full year?"
"Gawd, I *gulp* hope so!" Katrina yelled, swallowing all the cake still in her mouth as she responded back. "As much as your sweetness makes me wanna vomit, you do serve the best pastries in town. Mo and the others back at the Bean Machine love them! That's why I've been coming back every day!"
"Really?"
"Yeah! Like... I only really eat your donuts every other day when I need energy, but I always get use some allowance from the tip jar to grab a box or two for everyone."
"...Thanks." Smiling a bit, Ronnie's happiness restored itself bit by bit internally as she learned of how her food was making people happy. "Do... do you have any advice on how to increase business then?"
"Hmmm... I'm not a business person, but one thing I know has to change is the name. Needs to be something more memorable than just "Little Bake Shop on Main", if you catch my drift."
Watching as Katrina walked past her with her massive figure, Ronnie contemplated what she had said. The name change was probably a right call, but she was drawing on blanks when it came to the idea of what to actually name it. That was something that she'd need to talk with Penny for over time, but she was sure that Penny would be better with names than she was.
One thing that she was sure needed to be done though was that she needed a way to get more recognition and fame. In order for her store to stay alive, she needed to find a way to gather attention and traction to the bake shop no matter what. She needed a good plan too, as she knew that a botched goodwill campaign was a quick ride to getting a place blacklisted from food blogs, and that was practically a death sentence.
Looking deep down, Ronnie knew that she was going to succeed. And she knew just how to do so. All she needed to do was...
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