Gary Bell is bankrupt, exhausted, and finished with fine dining when Janet Finn offers him a way out: run a 24-hour franchise garage, shop and takeaway in Coldmere, a northern coastal town with steady passing trade and unusual night customers. The rules are simple. Keep the visible business clean, profitable and boring. Use the Black Book suppliers for the other locals. Never improvise kindness after midnight. What begins as a desperate second chance becomes a comic horror of product codes, loyalty cards, old rooms, hostile customers and franchise compliance. In Coldmere, hunger has a hatch, and Gary owns the rota.