One hour earlier.
Franchise Operations Team Leader Park Wongi had come to see me with a thick stack of documents.
He didn't seem upset that I was getting involved in his team's work.
In fact, he made it clear that he wanted us to work together to solve the problems.
[List of Stores at Risk of Closure]
The documents he handed me contained an incredible amount of detail.
Just reading them was enough to understand how seriously Team Leader Park and his employees took the task of saving struggling stores.
I began examining the reports carefully.
Some stores had problems with their owners, like the Seongun Seafood Taean branch.
Others had opened in unfavorable commercial districts, like the Étoile Bakery Sillim branch.
Of course, I wouldn't know the full story until I visited the locations myself.
And I wasn't planning to help just anyone.
After all, I wasn't a volunteer.
My objective was already clear.
I wanted to travel around the country, gaining experience through commercial district recovery.
The experience and connections I accumulated along the way would eventually become invaluable assets that money alone could never buy.
After turning through several pages, my hand stopped.
Gaon Charcoal Grill, Balsan Branch.
The figures beneath the restaurant's name were rather strange.
It had been operating for three years.
Its sales had been increasing steadily until one day, when they suddenly plummeted.
Something wasn't right.
A gradual increase in sales meant that the restaurant had steadily attracted customers without relying heavily on marketing.
So how could its sales collapse practically overnight?
And to such an extent that it ended up on the list of stores at risk of closure?
Unless an entire commercial district had collapsed or some major incident had occurred, a graph like this was extremely unusual.
...Something's going on here.
The employee in charge was Assistant Manager Park Hyeongho.
Judging by the report, he had worked quite hard to resolve the problem.
[Five on-site visits. Legal review completed following a meeting with the landlord. No viable solution identified. A prolonged dispute is expected.]
Beneath the summary, Assistant Manager Park's frustration was documented in considerable detail.
Should I investigate this place first?
After reading the report, one corner of my mouth curled upward.
The problem wasn't the franchise owner or the commercial district.
It was the landlord.
The world was full of strange situations, but this one was particularly unusual.
A landlord was deliberately interfering with his own tenant's business?
It made no sense.
If the tenant went bankrupt, the landlord would lose his rental income.
And in an economic downturn like this, finding a new tenant wouldn't be easy.
He was practically kicking away his own source of income.
That was why I decided to investigate.
I had a feeling there was something hidden behind this situation.
I told the team members I was going out for lunch.
It wasn't a lie.
I really was going to eat lunch.
But if I told them the whole story, they would undoubtedly insist on coming along.
I figured it was better to keep the details to myself.
And now...
Just as the navigation system announced that I had reached my destination, I slammed on the brakes.
"...What the hell is that?"
A cargo truck was parked in the middle of the road with its cargo compartment wide open.
It looked impossible for another vehicle to pass until the truck moved.
The road led exclusively to Gaon Charcoal Grill.
And just as the report had described, the truck was blocking nearly half of it.
So this is the privately owned road. And the truck driver deliberately takes his time loading the cargo?
What exactly were they hoping to gain by forcing the restaurant owner out?
There were occasional cases of malicious landlords evicting the owners of successful restaurants, giving the existing employees higher wages, and taking over the businesses themselves.
But that didn't seem to be what was happening here.
If it were, Assistant Manager Park Hyeongho from the Franchise Operations Team would probably have heard something about it.
Such a scheme would be practically impossible if they turned Seongun into their enemy.
I was studying the very obstacle that had caused the restaurant's steadily rising sales to collapse when...
"E-Excuse me, sir! Just a moment!"
A man hurried out of the restaurant entrance and waved, asking me to lower the window.
"What's the matter?"
"Ah, I'm terribly sorry, but you can't drive in right now. You'll have to reverse a little. I'll guide you from behind. I'm really sorry, sir."
"What's going on?"
"That cargo truck is blocking the road because the driver says he needs to load some goods. It looks like it'll take a while."
It'll take a while, huh?
Probably because the man had left his cargo compartment open and was smoking in the shade of a shipping container instead of actually loading anything.
He was almost certainly working for the landowner.
The intimidating-looking man was staring straight at us.
He didn't appear even slightly apologetic.
"The goods don't seem to be ready yet. Couldn't you ask him to wait in your restaurant's parking lot until they arrive?"
"Ah... Well, there's a bit of a story behind that. I'm terribly sorry. There's a paid parking lot a little farther down the road. Would you mind using that instead? I'll cover the parking fee."
Part of me wanted to park directly behind the truck and block its exit.
But that wouldn't do this restaurant any good.
For now, I wanted to observe the situation a little longer, so I moved my car as the owner suggested.
He was an interesting man.
We had spoken through my open window, so he must have seen that there was nobody else in the car.
A customer arriving alone at lunchtime.
There was almost no chance I would order meat to grill.
I was probably just going to have a bowl of short rib soup or cold noodles before leaving.
The owner couldn't possibly be unaware of that.
He must have known that the parking fee could easily exceed whatever profit he made from my meal.
But from what I had just seen, the Balsan branch owner seemed to possess more than simple kindness.
He had an excellent sense for business.
This wasn't a loss.
It was an investment in the future.
Even customers who ordered the cheapest item on the menu deserved the same treatment as everyone else.
Unfortunately, there were still plenty of restaurants that failed to understand this.
Order beef ribs, and an employee would grill them for you.
Order pork ribs, and you would be expected to grill them yourself.
In particularly bad cases, even the employees' tone and the way they looked at customers would change.
It was enough to make you wonder why they bothered selling pork ribs at all.
Ironically, this kind of discrimination could even make customers who ordered beef ribs uncomfortable.
After all, the restaurant was openly advertising that its friendliness depended entirely on how much profit it could make from you.
It was a common mistake among business owners.
They only considered the brief moment when a customer placed an order.
It was as though they believed someone who ordered beef would only ever eat beef for the rest of their life.
Customers needed to be treated equally.
Someone who came alone for a bowl of cold noodles might return the next day with a large group and order beef ribs.
What mattered wasn't how much a customer spent on a single visit.
It was their lifetime value.
Just like the Balsan branch owner I had met a moment ago.
That brief interaction was enough to tell me that he understood the fundamentals of running a business.
It also explained why his sales had risen so steadily.
He seemed to have an excellent attitude toward his work.
Growl.
Hmm...
Since he had paid for my parking, I should probably upgrade my lunch to short rib soup.
An old baduk club in a back alley of Balsan-dong.
An elderly man with an oily, shiny face had stopped in the middle of a game to speak with someone over the phone.
"All right. Today, empty everything out of the shipping container and load it onto the truck."
-Everything?
"That's right. It'll be troublesome if they start filming us or something. Mr. Kim will be there shortly. And don't take any other jobs starting today. Load the goods onto the truck at lunchtime and put them back in the container in the evening."
-...U-Understood, sir.
"Good. Keep up the work."
After ending the call, the elderly man casually placed his phone beside the baduk board.
Jo Gapsu.
He was an influential local figure who owned an enormous amount of land and numerous buildings, not only in Balsan-dong but throughout Gangseo-gu.
"Is something going on?"
The man sitting across from him asked the question as he placed a white stone on the board.
"Ah! It's about that barbecue restaurant I mentioned the other day. I've told them to speed things up. It's about time we brought this matter to a close."
Councilman Bae Dongcheol nodded with a satisfied expression.
Born and raised in Balsan-dong, he was a five-term Seoul city councilman whose influence extended beyond Gangseo-gu and across Seoul.
An influential politician and a wealthy landowner who practically controlled the Gangseo-gu area.
The two had been sitting across from each other like this for thirty years.
"Right. We need to settle it before the end of this month. If we drag things out, someone else might end up benefiting instead."
Jo Gapsu rolled a black stone between his fingers.
He knew exactly why Councilman Bae was in such a hurry.
The redevelopment of Balsan-dong's old district.
Rumors had been circulating for several years, but this time the plans seemed to be taking a much more concrete shape.
"The transfer to my son's name needs to be completed within a month."
"Understood. But does your son really want to run the restaurant? The food business isn't exactly easy."
"Does it matter? Even if it fails, he only needs to keep it going for a year."
"Hahaha. That's true. Understood. I'll make sure the transfer to your son's name is completed as quickly as possible."
Councilman Bae glanced around before slowly lifting his teacup.
"Everything needs to be settled while I'm still in office. That way, there won't be any complications afterward."
His remaining term was effectively their deadline.
Gaon Charcoal Grill would be transferred to his son.
Meanwhile, Jo Gapsu would purchase as much of the nearly landlocked property behind the restaurant as possible.
And once the redevelopment project was officially approved?
They would demolish the Gaon Charcoal Grill building and construct a road through the property, creating an access route that connected directly to a ten-lane boulevard.
"We need to make the most of this opportunity. Don't you think it's about time we moved on to bigger things?"
"Of course, Councilman. As always, I'll do everything I can to help."
Gapsu's narrow eyes curved into a smile.
He would gladly give away a building or two for free.
Compared to the information and political influence Bae Dongcheol possessed, a single building was practically worthless.
"Good. That's how it should be. Let's make sure we don't end up with a troublesome situation where the tenant refuses to leave."
"Hahaha. That won't happen. The restaurant has already started operating at a loss. And starting today, its evening customers will disappear too."
Councilman Bae Dongcheol was determined to push the redevelopment project forward.
To accomplish that, the building occupied by Gaon Charcoal Grill had to be demolished.
That was why he had decided to install his son, who had no interest in running a restaurant, as its owner.
[A City Councilman Determined to Revitalize a Declining Neighborhood. Even His Own Son's Restaurant Building Is Demolished to Create a New Access Road!]
That was the sort of article they would publish.
Dongcheol could practically hear the cheers of residents who knew nothing about what had really happened.
He looked at Gapsu with satisfaction.
A man who could handle dirty work without ever becoming the subject of damaging rumors.
That was precisely why Councilman Bae had kept Gapsu by his side for so many years.
"Shall we go get some lunch, Councilman?"
"Shall we?"
"Yes. We can take a little walk around the neighborhood and have a bowl of short rib soup."
Councilman Bae's eyebrows twitched at the mention of short rib soup.
"...At that restaurant? Are you sure that's a good idea?"
"Hahaha. That's exactly why we should go. Isn't it only natural for a landlord to want his tenant's business to succeed? After all, we have absolutely nothing to do with what's happening."
In other words, he intended to create a receipt that would help prevent even the slightest suspicion.
The barbecue restaurant had suddenly become successful.
To make its owner leave of his own accord, they couldn't simply apply overwhelming pressure.
Instead, they needed to slowly and gently starve the business until it died.
After all, the law was always on the tenant's side.
There were three enormous beef ribs in my bowl of short rib soup.
Strange.
As far as I remembered, two ribs were the standard at Gaon Charcoal Grill.
The price on the menu hadn't changed, yet there was an extra rib in my bowl.
It wasn't a problem.
Something like that was well within the owner's discretion.
The real problem lay elsewhere.
It was lunchtime, but there were more employees than customers.
That wasn't good.
When there were no customers, employees should stay somewhere out of sight.
Depending on the customer, being watched by idle employees could make the dining experience uncomfortable.
I decided to mention that to the owner later and continued examining the restaurant.
Everything was spotless.
There wasn't a trace of grease on the floor, and the tables were polished until they gleamed.
The absence of covers on the smoke extractors above the grills suggested that they were cleaned every time a table changed customers.
After observing the restaurant's interior, I took a spoonful of the short rib soup.
"...Huh?"
It wasn't the best short rib soup I had ever eaten, but it tasted much better than I had expected.
The flavor was slightly different from that of the other branches.
It was less sweet, with a wonderfully clean and refreshing broth.
The owner seemed to have made a few adjustments of his own.
Most people didn't understand why hamburgers from the same brand could taste different depending on the branch.
Simply giving every restaurant the same manual and supplying identical ingredients didn't guarantee that the food would taste the same.
The cook's experience, the condition of the kitchen equipment, the way ingredients were stored, and how quickly those ingredients were used.
Countless factors influenced the flavor of a dish.
And that was how something like the short rib soup in front of me came into existence.
The restaurant owner had taken a head-office recipe that guaranteed a certain level of quality and added his own expertise.
He passes.
I had decided.
I was going to help the owner of the Balsan branch.
Our chairman was a great believer in mutual growth.
In other words, I certainly wasn't making this decision because it might benefit my own business in the future.
Connections were simply something you happened to build while doing your job.
That was all.
At least, that was what I had just decided when...
Jingle, jingle.
Bzzzt. Bzzzt. Bzzzt.
I couldn't tell which happened first.
Two elderly men entered the nearly empty dining hall.
And my previously silent smartwatch began vibrating like crazy.
Then I witnessed something I had never seen before.
Red diary entries filled the entire screen of the diary app.
