Chapter 9: The Menu

The menu was the first problem. Not the bakery's menu — Simone knew her menu. Eight years of Flour & Finch had produced a rotation she could execute in her sleep and that her three full-time bakers could execute without her. The problem was the menu that had appeared in the window of the new shop two doors down, the one that had opened three weeks ago under the name *Meridian Patisserie*. The Meridian menu was laminated and precise and contained seventeen items, each with a French subtitle and a price point ten percent above Flour & Finch's equivalent. Simone had stood in front of it for twenty minutes on opening day, taking photos on her phone. She had taken the photos home and compared them to her own menu and had felt the specific anxiety of someone who had been the only serious bakery on Clement Street for eight years and was now, unexpectedly, not. The problem was not that Meridian was better. She hadn't tried it yet. The problem was that it looked better — the branding was sophisticated, the window display was styled by someone with a design background, and the laminated menu had that specific quality of something that had been focus-grouped. Simone's menu was handwritten on a chalkboard. She liked her handwritten chalkboard. She also, she admitted privately, felt the sudden precariousness of things she had liked because they were hers and hadn't needed to be competitive. She went to try the croissant. Research purposes. The man behind the counter was tall, with the particular focus of someone who had been doing something for a long time and had reached the stage where focus was automatic. He handed her the croissant without unnecessary conversation. She took it to the window and bit into it. It was excellent. She walked back to Flour & Finch and started improving her croissant recipe.