Val glanced up at the clock above the bar as she finished filling carafes of water. Twenty five past nine. Through the large front windows she could already see a line forming; a grizzled older couple, Lonny and Margie, who had been regulars here since the days when it had been a dive bar; a group of four millennials and three, no, four sets of parents with strollers. Fuck Sunday brunch, she though to herself vehemently as one of the parents knocked loudly on the window and then gestured to his wrist.
“It’s freezing out there, you know,” he said with a snarky tone as Val unlocked the door and everyone filed in.
“We open at 9:30,” Val replied, making a note to herself to replace his coffee with decaf.