The restaurant stood at the foot of a hill. I had passed there several times without noticing it, partly because I was new to the area.

Initially, I was skeptical about the quality of their meals. But they gave me good reasons to become a regular customer.

Lunch time, you were sure to find me there, with Lisa my co-intern.

After some months, I noticed new set of workers at the restaurant. Same owners.

Soon, this became a pattern.
Why were they constantly changing the waitresses?

One day, I bumped into one of the former waitresses. I was a regular customer so she easily recognized me.

“Why don’t I see you anymore at Moojeez Foods?“ I asked, glad that I’ve finally found someone to solve my puzzle.

Her reluctance to speak made me alarmed. What were they feeding us that scared every new employee?

But before leaving, she said something that made me suspicious of the restaurant and its owners.

“Those people…” That was all she said.

What could that mean?

The restaurant was run by a couple. The man looked younger, the woman much older.

Each time I went there, I’ve always wondered what attracted them to each other, because they seemed such an odd pair.

The fool that I was, I couldn’t stop going there. They made the best variety of my favorite lunch.

The food joint was by a big school, and whenever there was a match, students flocked every space. And you know how boys easily get magnetized to pretty girls. Many of the waitresses had secret admirers who came there purposely to see them. Hence, as they were laid off after a few months, with time, the number of customers at the restaurant began to wane.

Each time I visited the place, I scanned carefully, sniffing and listening hard to every conversation for clues, but to no avail.

There were previous incidents there that I hadn’t paid attention to, until much later. We were watching a match one evening, and I had a call from my mom. Because of the noise, at first I ignored it. But she was persistent. Unfortunately, the place was so tight with sweaty boys whose eyes were glued to the screen that it was hard to recoil outside. Instinctively, I went forward, to an area between the kitchen and the container converted into a storeroom for the restaurant’s items.

In the middle of my call, an angry face popped up, demanding who gave me the permission to use the space for my call.

It was the owner of the place, the man. He knew me very well, had always smiled to me till that day. His overreaction puzzled me.

Later, when I started noticing dead flies in foods I ordered  from their restaurant, and the disappearance of waitresses, I resolved to stop frequenting the place.

I never got to dig to the bottom of my suspicions. And each time I visit a promising new restaurant, I always think of Moojeez Foods and what secrets we were eating unknowingly.