Chapter 122 - 110: If the Customers Won’t Come, Then Go to Them
Chapter 122: Chapter 110: If the Customers Won’t Come, Then Go to Them
"This braised pork trotter is absolutely delicious! Did Zhou Yan make this? How is he so talented?!" Meng Anhe exclaimed from the heart, a half-eaten trotter in her hand.
The brothers Lin Jingxing and Lin Bingwen each grabbed half a trotter. Their faces were slick with grease as they gnawed away and nodded in agreement.
"Delicious!"
"It’s amazing!"
Lin Zhiqiang had brought home two braised pork trotters for dinner tonight, much to the delight of Meng Anhe and their two children.
"Zhou Yan just started selling them yesterday. I saw his little sister sitting at the door eating, and it looked so good. I know you love them, so I ordered two from him yesterday," Lin Zhiqiang said with a smile. He didn’t like pork trotters himself; he bought them specifically for his wife and kids.
"Zhou Momo’s big brother is amazing!" Lin Bingwen looked up at Lin Jingxing, his face serious. "Bro, are you sure you don’t want to be a chef? Whether our family gets to eat braised pork trotters every day is all up to you!"
"No way. I’m going to be a scientist!" Lin Jingxing gave him a sidelong glance. "You’re the one who loves to eat so much. You should be the chef. That way, you could have braised pork trotters for every meal."
"Really?" Lin Bingwen was stunned, his eyes lighting up.
"You just focus on your studies. Stop getting all these silly ideas, or I’ll give you a smack!" Meng Anhe made a fist and waved it in front of his face.
"Oh..." Lin Bingwen shrank back.
"That Xia Yao would definitely love this. Braised pork ribs and braised pork trotters are her favorites." Meng Anhe smiled. "It’s a good thing they live so far away. Otherwise, if she ate this every day, her stomach would be hopelessly captivated."
...
’Revenue: 501.2 yuan. Profit: 262.6 yuan! Not bad at all. I finally broke five hundred!’
Zhou Yan closed the ledger, his face beaming with joy.
With Comrade Zhou joining in, sales from the braised meats and cold dishes had repeatedly hit new highs. Today, they even surpassed 150 yuan, becoming a major pillar of the restaurant’s revenue growth.
Word of mouth for the braised dishes and cold-tossed chicken had spread like wildfire over the past two days, leading to rapid growth.
However, Zhou Yan wasn’t overly optimistic. This kind of abnormal growth could peak at any moment and then begin to fall off quickly.
At two and a half yuan per catty, pig’s head meat wasn’t an everyday purchase. Even a small portion cost seventy-five cents. No one was going to come back for it daily.
’If they find it delicious, buying it once a week would be more realistic.’
For example, after a surge in sales for the Twice-Cooked Pork with garlic shoots last week, demand had started to fall in the past two days. Zhou Yan had already reduced the amount of pork belly he prepped to avoid waste.
Of course, this was also related to new items on the menu. Customers would try new dishes, which also impacted sales of some of the other items.
Running a restaurant meant procurement was a dynamic process. As the owner who also acted as chef, buyer, and accountant, his daily pre-bedtime inventory and forecasting were crucial.
There were about three hundred grams of pig’s head meat left over today, so he let Zhao Hong take it home for her family to enjoy with some drinks.
’I’ll order one less pig’s head tomorrow.’
’Feedback on the Spicy Stir-fried Pork Liver is good. A lot of customers couldn’t get it tonight. I’ll get an extra three kilograms tomorrow to add ten more servings.’
With the textile factory as his main customer base, this was probably the ceiling for his current revenue. It would be hard to make another major breakthrough.
Now, the number of customers who weren’t textile factory workers was gradually starting to increase.
For example, during the morning noodle service, he would sporadically see a few people not wearing factory uniforms, who were probably teachers and civil servants from the town’s schools.
There were fewer at noon, but in the evening, groups of three or five would come for a meal together. This was a clear increase compared to last week and contributed a few dozen yuan in revenue.
This was a good thing. It showed that Zhou Yan Restaurant was starting to break out of its circle within Suji.
But the people with the most spending power in all of Suji were the textile factory workers.
’If I want to earn more money, I have to consider high-net-worth customers from outside of Suji.’
’For example, Jiazhou!’
For a small-town restaurant in an era of inconvenient transport, where people got around on foot or by bicycle, this was basically impossible.
Aside from a few dedicated foodies, even the most delicious cuisine would be thwarted by sheer distance.
’If the customers won’t come to me, I can bring the food to them.’
He remembered how his grandmother used to sell braised meat in Suji while also supplying several restaurants in Jiazhou. That idea was still on his mind.
He just didn’t know if those restaurants had survived the turbulent times, and if the new owners would still be willing to come to Suji to get braised meat.
’Supplying restaurants means having major clients. They’d take five to ten kilograms at a time, and I’d only have to braise it, not even slice it.’
’Even if the price is a little lower, it’d be easy money.’
When it came to making money, Zhou Yan was extremely motivated.
’Tomorrow, I’ll find a bricklayer to build the wall and apply the Dabai. That’s a big expense.’
’After that, I plan to buy more furniture. For example, a wardrobe for Mrs. Zhao, so she can hang her clothes up instead of having them come out all wrinkled.’
’The weather is getting colder, and Comrade Zhou and Zhou Momo have no winter clothes to speak of. I need to get them some.’
’It gets a little boring at night. If I could get a TV, even if it’s just to watch the evening news, things would be a bit more lively.’
’Living in a small town, the channels for information are too limited.’
’I should really watch the evening news. Open my eyes to the world.’
In his past life, all he cared about was making money. When he wasn’t on a filming job, he ate pork knuckle rice three times a day. He died without ever spending the million yuan sitting in his bank account.
In this life, earning money and spending it with his family... he felt like every cent he earned had meaning. It was incredibly fulfilling.
After counting the money and putting it in the cash box, he attached a small lock. Zhou Yan ran to the kitchen, took out all the kitchen knives, and started sharpening them on a whetstone.
SHA! SHA! SHASHA!
Zhou Yan hunched over, gripping the kitchen knife. The blade slid back and forth across the whetstone in a steady rhythm, growing visibly sharper and gleaming under the light.
He had learned how to sharpen knives from his master, but because his skill was so poor, his master never let him touch his knives.
But today, as he stood before the whetstone holding the knife, he actually had a feeling of being one with the blade.
With every pass, he could grasp the optimal angle and force, and he had a very keen perception of the knife’s condition.
Three minutes later, he picked up the slicing knife.
[An incomparably sharp slicing knife]
The system actually gave an evaluation.
Zhou Yan: ?
’This skill can create combos?’
’Nice. If I ever get tired of cooking, I can just become a travelling knife sharpener.’
’Sharpening knives is actually pretty stress-relieving.’
Zhou Yan picked up the second knife and started sharpening it with a SHHH-SHHH sound.
Comrade Zhou had four knives: a slicing knife, a cleaver, a Bone Knife, and another slicing knife.
The other slicing knife was originally unused, but now Comrade Zhou used it to slice the braised meat.
Comrade Zhou didn’t let him touch the cattle-butchering knife, but he couldn’t stop him from touching the slicing knives, so he sharpened them all.
He rinsed all the sharpened knives with clean water, dried them with a gauze cloth, and inserted them into the knife block.
Looking at the gleaming blades, Zhou Yan lay back down to sleep, completely satisfied.
’The little tips from the Wealth Mall weren’t learned for nothing!’
’They really work.’
...
Just as the sky was beginning to brighten, Master Zhou and Old Zhou went out to buy groceries.
Mrs. Zhao put Zhou Momo in a back basket and also went out the door.
"Mom, we can just bring the bowls back on our way. Why bother making a whole trip out with Momo?" Zhou Yan said, confused, looking at Mrs. Zhao, who was sitting on the back of his dad’s bicycle.
"What do you know? Your grandmother treasures that set of bowls. If you put them in a back basket and they get rattled and broken, you can just wait for a scolding," Mrs. Zhao said with a laugh. "I’ll go along. I’ll hold them in my arms on the way back, and as soon as we’re done, I’ll return them to her immediately."
"Alright." Zhou Yan nodded and didn’t say anything more.
Zhou Yan went to buy beef. Zhou Miao took Zhao Tieying to borrow the plates. By the time he came out after buying the meat, they had also returned.
Zhao Tieying was carefully cradling a blue cloth bundle in her arms. Seeing Zhou Yan, she smiled and said, "I borrowed them. Your grandmother said if even one gets a chip, you’ll be kneeling in the ancestral hall."
"Then you’d better hold them carefully." Zhou Yan grew a bit nervous upon hearing this. Her words were enough to show how much the old lady valued them.
He loaded the beef onto Comrade Zhou’s bicycle. Not daring to let him wobble around with it, Zhou Yan told them to head back to the restaurant first.
By the time he finished his shopping and returned to the restaurant, a large, sea-green patterned bowl was already sitting on the middle table.
Zhou Momo was leaning over the edge of the table, her eyes sparkling. Hearing the noise, she turned to look at Zhou Yan, pointed a chubby little finger at the bowl on the table, and said in a milky voice, "Brother, look, a pitty bowl!"
Zhou Yan parked his sturdy, old-fashioned bicycle and leaned in for a closer look.
The large bowl was truly a thing of beauty. The paste was fine and delicate, the white glaze was lustrous, the underglaze blue was a subtle, elegant shade, and the floral pattern was gracefully expansive.
Zhou Yan didn’t know anything about porcelain or antiques, but he could tell at a glance that this was definitely something special.
He had never even seen this set of bowls brought out for holidays or festivals, which meant it was a treasured collection of his grandmother’s, hence why it was so perfectly preserved.
Zhou Yan reached out, wanting to pick it up for a look.
"Brother! Don’t touch!" Zhou Momo cried out nervously, glancing towards the kitchen and whispering, "Mommy said if you touch it, you’ll get a spanking!"
"Little kids can’t touch, but grownups can." Zhou Yan picked it up and glanced at the bottom. The inscription was quite striking: "Made in the Yongzheng Reign of the Daqing Dynasty."
’If this is passed down for another two generations, it’ll probably be priceless.’ Zhou Yan decided that when he returned the bowl, he had to remind his grandmother to keep it safe and not let someone trade it for an enamel basin.
In this era, fake antiques weren’t that rampant yet. Items from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties were uncommon, and so were items from, well, *last week*.
He carefully wrapped the bowl, placed it on the top shelf of a cabinet, and with the tableware issue resolved, all that was left was to wait for He Zhiyuan and his team to arrive for the photoshoot.
Every morning was the busiest time: stir-frying noodle toppings and sauces, pulling and boiling noodles, simmering the Kneeling Beef broth, and also braising meat. The schedule was packed.
After the morning service ended, the mason, Master Zhang, brought his apprentice over with a cart of bricks, cement, and river sand. Taking advantage of the lull after the morning rush, he called over two laborers and had them move the bricks up to the second floor first.
The cement and river sand were mixed on the embankment near the river, and the laborers carried it upstairs.
"Master Zhang, starting this morning?" Zhou Yan handed a cigarette to Master Zhang and his apprentice. "Yesterday you said you wouldn’t be free until this afternoon."
"You’re in a hurry to live here, so of course I’d schedule you first," Master Zhang said with a smile. "I’ll get the wall built for you today, then give the other walls on the second floor a coat of lime plaster. The weather’s been dry lately, so it should be dry in two days with some ventilation."
"Great!" Zhou Yan nodded. Of course he wanted it done as soon as possible. Sleeping on the first floor all the time wasn’t a long-term solution.
"You started selling braised meat?" Master Zhang asked, glancing at the menu on the wall.
"Yes, for three days now," Zhou Yan nodded.
"I’ll buy a portion of the pig’s head meat tonight and take it home. Have my old man see if it’s authentic," Master Zhang said with a smile, then led his apprentice upstairs to get to work.
Upstairs, the renovation work was bustling.
Around ten o’clock, He Zhiyuan arrived with Li, carrying a camera.
The small square table for displaying the braised meat had already been moved to the doorway. In the center of the table sat the large, freshly washed porcelain bowl.
"This blue-and-white porcelain bowl is gorgeous!" He Zhiyuan’s eyes lit up as he looked at it. "It’s absolutely perfect for photographing the Kneeling Beef!"
Zhou Yan had changed into Comrade Zhou’s new chef uniform and came out with a smile. "Chief Editor He, shall we start the shoot now?"