Chapter 64
One Bowl soon became packed.
At first, most of the customers were guests at the Kleber Hotel and servants who had come to Maison Monbel to make reservations.
But within days, the villagers began following the smell inside, and after about a week, merchants from the nearby market were taking up seats every lunchtime.
Then people from farther away began to appear.
“Is this the place that sells hot broth?”
When a merchant who had arrived by carriage asked that, I quietly drank water in my corner while pretending to be a customer and tearing off pieces of bread.
Rumors travel fast.
Especially rumors about cheap, delicious food.
Maison Monbel had spread through aristocratic circles, but One Bowl spread by word of mouth among ordinary people.
A servant staying at the hotel ate there and told a coachman, the coachman told people in the stables, and the market merchant ate there for lunch and told his business associates.
“They say the broth at that place settles your stomach.”
“They say you can eat enough to burst if you add extra meat.”
“They say the spicy one feels like it’s going to kill you at first, but then you start craving it.”
That was how it went.
Every time I heard such things, I felt strangely proud.
The business grew even faster.
Once we made takeout containers, business improved even more.
Some customers began buying broth by itself, and once takeout became available, we started delivering it as well.
At first, we were only open from morning until evening, but when people kept coming until dawn, we simply hired more villagers and began operating twenty-four hours a day.
In the mornings, merchants dying of hangovers came looking for clear broth, while at lunchtime, porters added two pieces of bread each to their spicy broth.
In the evenings, hotel guests ate savory stewed broth with their alcohol.
Before dawn, people preparing to leave for work early and customers who had spent the night drinking and carousing came in with faces ravaged by hangovers, gulping down broth to settle their stomachs.
Then one day, a noble customer came in.
A noble who had eaten at Maison Monbel, at that.
I recognized him.
He was the baron who had once eaten the marquis’s course and praised the dessert extravagantly.
He came in with two attendants, then his expression turned distinctly complicated when he looked around the restaurant.
From a noble’s perspective, it was understandable.
The place was cramped, with narrow tables and the smell of broth rising from large pots.
Coachmen dipping bread into broth and merchants sweating over spicy broth were a long way from anything that could be called dignified.
The baron froze for a moment.
“Is this… the restaurant run by House Monbel?”
The employee was nervous, but answered properly.
“Yes. This is One Bowl. Please sit wherever you’re comfortable.”
“Comfortable.”
The baron repeated the word as if he had just learned it, then
sat down with genuine awkwardness and ordered clear meat broth.
At first, he picked up his spoon very cautiously.
But after one sip, his expression changed.
From the second sip onward, he began eating a little faster.
By the third, he was tearing off bread.
By the fifth, he quietly asked his attendant,
“Did you say extra meat was available?”
The attendant’s eyes went round.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Then add it.”
I stifled a laugh in my corner.
Even nobles are ultimately people, and everyone becomes equal before delicious food.
Of course, not everyone was like that.
A few days later, a viscountess came in and immediately frowned.
Though she couldn’t hide that she found the clear broth not bad after one bite, she eventually set down her napkin when she saw the porters around her noisily slurping their broth.
“The food is tasty, but it is difficult to continue dining in such an atmosphere.”
She said that and left.
Marie watched her retreating figure and said,
“Are you upset?”
“No. Nobles can be like that.”
“But she said it was tasty.”
“Then that’s enough.”
One Bowl is that kind of restaurant.
Some people will dislike it because it lacks class.
Some will be horrified at the sight of commoners beside them sweating over their meals.
Some might even call the very act of dipping bread into broth vulgar.
It doesn’t matter.
For such people, there’s Maison Monbel.
This is where hungry people come.
And when you’re hungry, class is sometimes too expensive.
On the other hand, plenty of nobles simply came to eat and leave.
Young nobles in particular did so.
They came at first out of curiosity, then soon pulled their hats low and sat among the commoners.
The second son of a viscount ate the spicy broth while sweating profusely, yet he was still laughing.
“This is dangerous. It has no class, but I can’t put my spoon down.”
The friend sitting beside him said,
“Just think of it as leaving your dignity at home.”
“Then extra meat should be available too.”
“Of course.”
The two of them ordered extra meat and bread.
A wealthy customer is a wealthy customer wherever they eat.
Elysia looked pleased as she watched the silver and copper coins pile up.
“The turnover is good. There are lots of extra orders, too. Like you said, since we’re open twenty-four hours, money is coming in without a break.”
“Even if the price per meal isn’t very high, there are so many customers that it’s quite profitable.”
“I’m glad we didn’t significantly change the pricing structure when nobles started coming. If we’d unnecessarily created a nobles’ section, commoner customers would have felt uncomfortable.”
“This isn’t that kind of place.”
Elysia nodded.
“But what if nobles ask to eat somewhere separate and quiet?”
“We refuse.”
“All of them?”
“Yes. Tell them to make a reservation at Maison Monbel if they want to eat quietly.”
Marie laughed beside me.
“But they come here because they failed to get reservations.”
“Then they’ll have to eat what they’re given.”
That evening, after we finished service at Maison Monbel, Marie and I went down to the village again to visit the shop.
The shop was practically a battlefield.
The market merchants had left, hotel guests were coming in, and noble servants were buying takeout broth.
In the middle of it all, two young nobles had slipped in to eat spicy broth. They had done their best to hide it, but everyone in the shop seemed to know they were nobles.
Marie had a hard time holding back her laughter when she saw them.
I watched from my corner until the very end.
Broth kept flowing out of the large pots.
The employees still weren’t perfect, but they were gradually getting faster.
Customers lined up, empty bowls piled up, and coins kept clinking at the register.
The atmosphere was completely different from Maison Monbel.
There was no clink of silverware or wineglasses.
Instead, the place was filled with unrefined but human sounds: wooden bowls being set down, bread being torn apart, people blowing on hot broth, and the small sighs of full customers as they rose from their chairs.
I liked those sounds.
Marie came over beside me and said,
“Pretending to be a customer again today?”
“Yeah.”
“All the employees know now, you know?”
“The staff always knew. Even so, I’m a customer.”
“A suspicious customer.”
“Be quiet.”
Marie gave a small laugh.
“Still, it’s nice to see the place doing well.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s kind of amazing that even nobles who’ve eaten at Maison Monbel come here too.”
“Nobles are people too, and people don’t live only for special occasions.”
Marie looked at me.
I gazed into the shop and said,
“On special days, they can go to Maison Monbel, and on ordinary days, they can come here for broth. And commoners probably have more exhausting lives than nobles, so they may come more often.”
“For example?”
“The day they fail to get a reservation, the day their employer scolds them, the day business goes badly, the day after they drink too much, or simply a day when they’re hungry.”
“Whew, life isn’t easy.”
“Life isn’t easy to begin with.”
Marie thought for a moment, then nodded.
“Then there must be people who come every day.”
“Those are the best customers.”
I watched an employee carry out a stack of empty bowls.
One Bowl was drawing a constant crowd.
Some people were appalled by its lack of class, while others didn’t care and shoveled down two bowls each.
Villagers, merchants, servants, and nobles all ate broth from the same pot.
Of course, the world doesn’t become equal so easily.
Nobles are still nobles, and servants are still servants.
But at least in the moment hot broth enters their mouths, everyone wears a similar expression.
An expression that says it’s hot, delicious, and filling.
As long as people have mouths and stomachs, and hunger makes them seek food, this business will thrive forever.
I watched it all and muttered,
“This business will last a very long time.”
Marie asked,
“Why?”
“Because it has no class.”
She looked confused.
I smiled.
“Class goes in and out of fashion.”
“But hunger lasts.”
And One Bowl had a remarkably firm hold on hungry people.