G: So, how are things going at the restaurant? Are we still making a profit?
C: For the time being, yes. But business has slowed drasticallydue to the pandemicsafety measures.
G: I know. Overall, the economy is improving, but now the cost of ingredients is rising.
C: If we don’t get more customers soon, we may need to start cutting costs over the next few weeks.
G: That’s what I was thinking. But frankly, I don’t want to reduce the quality of our food.
C: I can understand that. But if we don’t switch ingredients, then we only have two other options.
G: What are the two options?
C: Well, in the short term, we can save money by cutting items from our menu. Recently, the sandwiches and steak plattershaven’t been selling very well.
G: I can probably guess what the other option would be.
C: Yeah. In the long run, we can’t keep all of our staff. At the current rate of increasing food costs, and with our lack of customers, we’ll go out of business in four to five months.
G: I’m not going to let that happen. But I need to think it over for a few days before I decide what to do.
