Ice Cream Palace is a new ice cream shop. After being in business for one year, the owner is wondering whether Ice Cream Palace should stay in business. She hired a consultant to analyze her business over the past year. The cost figures on the business are included below. These numbers are real, but they do not include the managerial labor provided by the owner. In her calculations, the owner did not include a wage for herself. The consultant assumes an opportunity cost of $30,000 per year ($2,500 per month}. The fixed components of the store's monthly costs include the following: Rent (1,150 square feet) ...................... $2,012.50 Electricity ..................................... 325.00 Interest on loan ................................. 737.50 Maintenance ................................... 295.00 Phone ....................................... 65.00 $3,435.00 Not all of the items on this list are strictly fixed. Electricity costs would be slightly higher if the store produced more ice cream and stayed open longer, but added cost would be minimized. The store's variable costs include two components: (1} behind-thecounter labor costs, and (2) the cost of making ice cream. The store pays employees a wage of $5.15 per hour. Including the employer's share of the social security tax, the gross costs of each hour of labor is $5.54 per hour. There are two employees working in the store at all times. The full cost of producing ice cream is $3.27 per gallon. Each gallon contains approximately 12 servings. Customers can add toppings free of charge, and the average cost of the toppings taken by a customer is about $.05: Gross labor costs ............................. $5.54/hour Cost of producing one gallon of ice-cream (12 servings per gallon} ............. 5 3.27 Average cost of added toppings per serving ....... S 0.05 The store sells ice-cream cones, sundaes, and floats. The average price of a purchase at the store is $1.45. The store is open 8 hours per day, 26 days a month and serves an average of 240 customers per day