Chapter 451: Stand Firm
Li Jie quickly completed the purchase of the store, and then went to various departments to apply for business licenses and permits.
Xia Juanjuan also accompanied Li Zhan and Li Jie through this step.
Because Yuanxiangju has received attention from the district, and the last time Xia Juanjuan accompanied the district chief to receive foreign guests was reported in the newspapers, the staff of various departments all know Xia Juanjuan.
Although it was not considered a backdoor, for Li Jie, a country boy from another place without a household registration, it might not be so easy for him to complete all the procedures if he were to do it alone.
Anyway, it took two or three months, and by the beginning of July, all the procedures were completed.
During this time, Li Jie had already repainted the store, bought tables and chairs, and everything was ready for opening the store.
Zhou Qiuhe then formally entrusted the store to her elder sister-in-law Li Zhaodi and her husband, and took the children to Beijing by train.
This would cost a day's money in Beijing, so Zhou Qiuhe and Li Jie did not delay and officially opened for business in mid-July.
When Xia Juanjuan delivered the ingredients to the restaurant, she would ask Li Jie to go to the restaurant and take back a portion for them. Therefore, the freshness of the ingredients was definitely better than that of other restaurants, even those old and famous hotels.
The couple gets up at two or three in the morning, kneads the dough, makes stuffing, wraps dumplings, cooks mutton soup, porridge, makes tofu pudding, etc. At five or six o'clock, they start steaming the dumplings, and also set up the oil pan to start frying oil rings, pancakes and so on.
Basically, if people nearby get up early, they will come to the store one after another around 6 or 7 o'clock.
Some are eaten in the store, and some are bought to take home.
For breakfast, one can have two fried dough rings, a portion of tofu pudding, or white porridge, or two steamed buns and a portion of porridge. The prices are not expensive, but they are affordable. Once the reputation of the good taste spreads, it is a small profit but quick turnover. Despite the hard work, it is still a profitable business.
After breakfast, lunch and dinner are next. Lunch and dinner are similar, with mutton soup, mutton noodles with big white steamed buns, or dumplings.
It is summer now, and Xia Juanjuan suggested that they set up a barbecue stall and sell grilled lamb skewers, vegetable skewers and the like so that everyone can come out to cool off and have a midnight snack, and the customer rate is quite good.
However, keeping food fresh in summer is also a problem. No matter how fresh the food is, it will start to go bad after half a day.
After Zhou Qiuhe and Li Jie saw the refrigerator in Xia Juanjuan's home, they gritted their teeth and bought one as well.
Considering that they were a commercial business, and their main business was to keep meat, wrapped dumplings and the like frozen, Xia Juanjuan got them a large freezer from Guangzhou. It was cheaper than a refrigerator, costing only 500 yuan, and she placed it in a prominent place in the store.
In this way, I also had an additional business selling popsicles.
Despite the hard work, Zhou Qiuhe and Li Jie quickly established themselves in Beijing. Their monthly profit was a little better than in the county, almost three or four hundred yuan.
In September, Yingying, Huanhuan, Dongbao and another little kid all registered to middle school and elementary school smoothly, and went to and from school together with Xiaowen, Xiaowu, Beibei and the triplets.
In addition to the work in the store, Li Jie would occasionally drive a Dongfeng truck to Qingshui Village to transport medicinal materials back to Beijing, or to the county town to transport clothes back to Beijing, which also provided a source of income.
During the evening market, Zhou Qiuhe would let Li Jie look after the store while she would go to other stalls to sell clothes and other things.