In contemporary Sacramento, a retirement consultant and a realtor take their cooking hobby to the next level by opening a pizza parlor...despite knowing nothing about running a restaurant or the industry's ups and downs.

SYNOPSIS:

Meet SUSANNAH MACAULAY...a retirement consultant for Sacramento’s Elvas Avenue Financial Services who previously flew an Air Force bomber during the second Iraq War. When she isn’t helping people retire, she loves to cook...especially her famous red-white-and-blue pizza.

Competitive-and-romantic Susannah has a fun-loving work-at-home husband, CRAIG ALLRED; they’ve got two teenage children in wisecracking, guitar-playing SUSY and searching, pinball-loving ELI.

The Macaulay-Allreds have a colorful couple next door, too: Russia-born VALENTINA DOBRYNIN, an adventurous spirit who grew up here in America and now sells houses for Sacramento’s Golden State Realty; and her hubby, the bold, irreverent BRAD DRAZENOVICH...who’s fallen out of love with his job as an assistant manager at an electronics store.

Susannah, Craig, Eli, Susy, Valentina, and Brad love to hold potlucks...and during one on an April Friday night, Valentina and Susannah spill the beans about their fantasy job: The twosome want to start their own pizza parlor.

Not just any pizzeria, mind you. In a city full of great pizza restaurants, Susannah’s and Valentina’s “will be in the tradition of a local legend...Shakey’s.”

THEIR COWORKERS take it hard when, at separate parties, the two women announce their decision to quit their present jobs to go into the restaurant racket.

After drafting a business plan, the former consultant and the ex-realtor gain more inspiration by visiting the site of the very first Shakey’s...now home to a family eatery that not only replaced Shakey’s original building, but also specializes in Craig’s favorite beverages...mimosas.

Valentina’s and Susannah’s endeavor sounds better and better to Brad, who, at his place of work, sneaks off from helping A YOUNG COUPLE to go into his store’s employee lounge to watch a house-flipping show on TV...and calls Craig to entice him into helping Brad flip a local abode.

So what if Brad and Craig don’t have real-estate licenses.

Valentina’s old boss, MARIO GONZALEZ, does...so the two husbands tag along with Mario to fix up a house in the city’s Sandra Heights area.

This house is so bad its water makes Craig sick.

The two wives become heartsick when they find out the Old Sactown building they coveted doesn’t fit their needs for a new version of Shakey’s...and more so when their bank turns them down for financing.

Susannah and Valentina bounce back when they find a place on Advantage Way...two miles north of the Golden 1 Center, home of basketball’s Sacramento Kings.

This new choice used to house four fast-food eateries in the same building...chased out by an IHOP next door and an In-and-Out Burger across the street. The two BFFs renovate the interior to give it that vintage Shakey’s look, hire EMPLOYEES, then christen their new restaurant Sumadova...the result of Susannah and Valentina combining the first two letters of their first names and the first two letters of their last names.

Sumadova opens on the first Monday of the new year...but only serves beer and other drinks because the food supply truck didn’t arrive in time for the grand opening.

Susannah takes the snafu hard...yet Valentina’s meditational skills allow her to ride out the situation, one that smacks of Shakey’s own, uh, shaky April 30, 1954 debut. “If it hadn’t been for the beer,” Valentina tells Brad, “we would’ve lost our first customers.”

Things look up for the new pizza parlor that first week in business, with its two owners counting on their enthusiasm as well as organizational skills from their past gigs...and CUSTOMERS raving about the nostalgic, fun vibes. Those vibes even include old-time piano playing...courtesy of Valentina.

Then Sacramento Bee food critic TARYN HOLLISTER steps inside Sumadova that first Saturday night to interview the owners and review the menu items. And it’s on an evening where Craig, Eli, and Susy become customers because Craig’s own cooking hasn’t been a hit...despite lessons from Susannah.

Taryn’s resulting review sucks the air out for Valentina and Susannah: “...she wrote that those four fast-food places that were in our building should never have left.”

That review not only costs Sumadova customers; it even hampers Brad’s, Craig’s, and Mario’s house-flipping work...to the point where graffiti fill the residence and the house’s new appliances are stolen. The culprits: KEITH and ANNETTE KENNAN, who live next door to the fixer-upper...and were disgruntled former clients at Susannah’s old place of work.

Sumadova’s crew looks for answers to bring the eaters back. First, Valentina encourages Susy to join her...on banjo, an instrument the latter’s biggest idol, Taylor Swift, plays. Then customer JENNILEE CLEAVER, the gym teacher at Susy’s old grade school, takes over on piano so that Valentina can give Susannah extra help running the pizzeria.

Finally, Valentina comes up with The Big Solution: The whole staff infiltrates other local pizza parlors to “find out what makes them tick.” Ultimately, Sumadova will incorporate the rivals’ best ideas.

That solution comes from a woman who, like her taxidermist parents BORIS and OKSANA, “can’t steal secrets to save my soul...” in spite of an uncle and paternal grandparents who spied for the KGB.

All that spying by the Sumadova staff eventually lifts the restaurant back to its opening-week heights...causing hubby-wifey food reviewers MALIK CRAWFORD and ANJANETTE ROSARIO-CRAWFORD to put their stamp of approval on the place and, in time, cause Taryn to exhibit a change of heart.

RUT