The Golden Dubloon's Grog Hub

     Shielding his eyes from the sun, Steve dodged a small group of pirates quarrelling over a game involving a bag of Dubloons, eagerly smelt food cooking for the next Food Club session and observed as a cart full of petpets headed towards Warf Wharf. This was a very different world to the clean, well-kept offices he came from, full of the smells of damp wood and grog. He couldn’t see a fancy coffee shop anywhere.

     Reaching the Golden Dubloon, Steve pushed open the door and entered cautiously and asked a Kacheek dressed in a red and white striped dress for the manager. She nodded and disappeared behind a door, and in a few moments a blue Lupe appeared.

     “Yaar, you be Steve, correct?”

     “Yes, that’s me.” Steve confirmed. “And you’re…Captain Hackett, right? You ordered a commercial made? I have it here.” The two entered the Lupe’s office, where the Meerca inserted the Virtupets Video Tape into the machine and sat down on a chair.

     “Have ye ever wanted a belt buster burger without bothering to get up from yer couch? A hankering for our famous Krawk pie but having a bad hair day? A round of grog for ye shipmates? Ye be in luck! Golden Dubloon have ye covered with our brand-new delivery service! Simply telephone and we’ll send out a buccaneer to yer door! No need to swab the deck tonight!”

     “Yarr, that be good” declared a blue Lupe, the manager of the Golden Dubloon named Captain Hackett, leaning back in his chair and considering. “That’ll make a fine NeoVision commercial. Now…” he said, making eye contact with the disaffected looking Meerca on the other side of the desk he was sitting at and bringing out a woven sack of coins from a drawer, “yer pay. I believe we agreed yer pay would be 30 Dubloons?”

     The Meerca frowned and replied “Well, I was hoping for Neopoints…”

     “Neopoints? We don’t be dealing with that here. Ye accept Dubloons or else ye don’t get paid. Savvy?” At this, Captain Hackett narrowed his eyes threateningly.

     “Alright, alright! Don’t make me walk the plank or whatever.” The Meerca rolled his eyes and accepted the bag of Dubloons. “I hope the machine is still open.”

     As the Meerca left the room, the Lupe watched the tape again and nodded his head. Yes, this would be perfect. No other restaurant in Neopia had done a delivery service yet. Not even the Fresh Foods shop delivered. Who needed that pesky pretentious Kelp nonsense when you could get Golden Dubloon food right to your door?

     It was certainly a massive success. Hungry Neopians everywhere jumped on the idea of being able to order without leaving the house and for several weeks the phone lines were jammed at peak mealtimes and the Neomail orders flooded their inbox at a rapid rate.

     Unfortunately, this presented a huge logistical problem for the restaurant operations. The success of the ordering system meant sometimes customers attending the restaurant waited a while to be served. Many tempers were flared and many threats to walk the plank were made before they finally had to recruit more staff to keep things running smoothly, but even then, they still had problems.

     For a start, Neopia is huge. Spanning a vast globe, it simply isn’t logistically possible to deliver food from Krawk Island to The Lost Desert and have it still remain warm and in decent condition. And of course, you run into the issue of food going missing en route because the poor delivery people just can’t find where they’re delivering to, or a RE hits them on the way and their food is relieved from them, among other issues. Eventually they had to set a geographical limit to where they could deliver after many complaints, not from customers, but from Golden Dubloon’s poor staff.

     -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     “I ordered a pizza, two burgers and a tropical breeze an hour ago and when they got here, they were cold and wet!” thundered one disgruntled Koi.

     “Sir, you live in Maraqua. Everything is cold and wet.” replied a confused member of the waiting staff.

     “I know, but this is not acceptable! I expect a refund!”

     “Hold on, I’ll get my manager on the phone.” The Kau walked over, found Captain Hackett, already past his patience with all the complaints, and handed him the telephone.

     Needless to say, the Koi, after receiving threats about being sent to Davy Jones locker if he dared complain again was terrified and ate his food without much complaint. He also didn’t feel much like ordering from the Golden Dubloon again.

     Another customer complained that somehow, their delivery person had managed to drop their food off the edge of a cloud.

     “In Faerieland?!” Captain Hackett exploded. “You mean the Faerieland that crashed a few years ago? Ye be pulling my leg! Be gone with ye!” The Lupe put the telephone down and sighed. “That be the third time this week! Same scoundrels every time.” He turned to a Blumaroo that had entered the room and addressed them. “Clarissa, please go and fetch me a mug of grog.”

     “Uh, OK sir. There’s another customer in the lobby who wants to see the manager. Says they’ve waited an hour and a half to be seated.”

     Captain Hackett turned around, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was really starting to regret this delivery business. Just then, Clarissa returned.

     “Here you go, one mug of grog. I think you deserve this, sir.”

     “Thank ye, Clarissa.” The Lupe sipped the drink gratefully. “Why did I get into this delivery shenanigans?”

     The Blumaroo looked round the door at the now extremely irate customer, a yellow Zafara who was yelling at another hostess and shrugged.

     “Why do we do anything? By the way, I would go and do something before that Zafara starts throwing stuff. He seems pretty mad.”

     The Lupe nodded and ran out. He grabbed hold of the Zafara’s arm and forced him out of the door. “And stay out!” As he returned indoors, he took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about that scoundrel everyone. Everybody here gets a free drink for the next hour!”

     --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     Every new venture has teething troubles, and luckily Golden Dubloon’s didn’t last too much longer. Unfortunately, Kelp also caught on to the idea of a delivery service, as eventually did Fresh Foods and the Bakery, but the logistics of delivering across a world so diverse as Neopia got easier as they figured out the best ways to deliver to each area- even Maraqua!

     The NeoVision advert? It was so successful, they called the Meerca back to produce a series of adverts and an entire marketing campaign. The Meerca didn’t mind too much that he was paid in Dubloons, as long as the machine was working and provided a favourable exchange rate. He got a lot of work after that on every other shop and restaurant’s sudden hunger for providing delivery services too.

     But let it be known that the Golden Dubloon did it first.

     The End.