How did Lucille end up owning the Cook Coffee House and who are the important people who help her to run it?

Lucille,
Mattie's mother, ends up owning Cook
Coffee Shop because her husband, who opened it, fell off a
ladder, dying a
few months after launching the business.

Lucille's two
main
helpers in running the coffeehouse are Grandfather and Mattie, along
with Eliza, the free black
cook. As Mattie explains, a coffeehouse is a
respectable business for a widow and her
father-in-law to own
together.

Mattie would like to expand the business and
add
on to the shop so that they can serve more food than they do. As Mattie
states:

First we should buy another
coffee urn, to serve customers with
more haste, I said. I pointed a pickle
toward the north wall. Next is to expand into Mr.
Watsons lot. That way, we
could offer proper meals, not just tidbits and rolls."

However, her mother doesn't see a good market for
expanding.
Grandfather, on the other hand, believes that if they don't
expand, somebody else will come in
and fill the gap.

After
her grandfather dies, Mattie, with Eliza as her
partner, reopens the
coffeehouse and the two run it.