Running a restaurant is all about the taste of the food. If the food tastes good, the business will be good. Conversely, regular customers will not come back to your restaurant, and you will lose a lot of customers.
Restaurants vary in location and business nature. Some restaurants make money from "passing customers," meaning customers who only eat at your restaurant once and never come back, regardless of whether the food is good or bad.
For example, in a passenger transport fast food restaurant, bus drivers bring passengers to the compound every day. The passengers eat here and then leave, and may never come back to eat here again in their lifetime. Whether the food tastes good or not is not that important for this type of restaurant.
Restaurants around the market are different. Most of them make money from regular customers. If the food is good, customers will patronize your restaurant often. On the contrary, if you eat there once and then leave, you can't get them to come back next time.
The area has a huge flow of customers. Both restaurants offered special deals on their opening day, and there were so many customers that there wasn't a seat available. Their opening day was a success.
The free cold dish promotion ended three days later, but there were still so many customers that there was nowhere to sit during mealtimes.
Li Yuzhu bought some more tables and chairs so that customers could sit on the second floor to dine.
Su Wei built six rooms on the first floor, spanning twelve meters from north to south. Initially, she built two rooms per storefront, for a total of three storefronts. She built the house to make it easier to rent out in the future, and never thought of doing business herself.
The two rooms total over 70 square meters. If business is so-so, the two rooms are enough, but if business is good, they are clearly not enough.
Su Wei went to the furniture market in the morning and bought dining tables and chairs, which she placed in the storefronts on both sides so that customers would have a place to sit and eat during mealtimes.
Since it wasn't a single building, it would be inconvenient on rainy days. So Su Wei hired two cement workers to open two doors in the walls on both sides overnight, making the six storefronts a single unit. They just needed to buy some tables and chairs and put them in the right-side room.
Two days later, both restaurants gradually got back on track, but the restaurants here were different from those in the old town.
The new urban area has a small population. During the day, it is affected by the two wholesale markets and has a large flow of customers. There are also many people during dinner time. After dinner time, it becomes very busy. Some people still come to eat, but the flow of customers is very small. Therefore, it closes down after 8 pm every night.
However, this situation won't last long. As the population increases, business will naturally pick up at night, which is often the case in the early stages of new urban areas.
That evening, Li Yuzhu and her mother did the math. After deducting all expenses, the restaurant made a net profit of over 1200 yuan that day, which was a pretty good income.
My mother said, "Selling food can make so much money!"
Li Yuzhu said, "Selling food is profitable as long as the food tastes good and there are many customers; otherwise, I wouldn't have invited my cousin."
Li Wanting said, "You made the right decision to invite me. I didn't expect your place to have such a large customer flow, and the business is booming all day long, with customers eating at any time."
This is not hard to understand. The customer flow near wholesale markets and factories and schools is different. The customer flow near factories and schools is short during mealtimes, and there are no customers after meals.
Wholesale markets are unpredictable. Customers who come from afar are busy buying goods and don't have time to eat during mealtimes. It's normal to miss mealtimes, but mealtimes are still peak times for customers.
Li Yuzhu asked, "Is it even busier than where you are?"
Li Wanting said, "Of course, the customer traffic is much higher than where we are. The business is better than my shop. I also want to open a restaurant here, but it's difficult to even rent a storefront here."
I've searched all over this area these past two days, but all the available rental properties are already rented out. Could you help me buy a plot of land? I want to build a restaurant here; my family still has the money to do so.
Li Yuzhu said, "This vacant land all belongs to our family. You can build whatever you want. One acre of land is enough for you to build a villa."
Li Wanting said, "I need to discuss this with my father."
Li Yuzhu smiled and said, "If we've agreed, then go ahead and build a restaurant. The customer traffic here is too high; our two families can't handle that much business. I'm not worried about your family competing with me. Besides, many more restaurants will be built in this area in the future, so one more won't make a difference."
Li Yuzhu's words were absolutely true. The two wholesale markets have just opened, and who knows how many restaurants will be established here in the future? The number of restaurants will be as large as the customer traffic.
Li Wanting said, "Let me use your cell phone for a moment, I need to call Dad and discuss this!"
Li Yuzhu's mobile phone was on the table. She said, "Use it as you like."
Li Wanting picked up her mobile phone and dialed the number. Since there was no phone at home, she had to call her neighbor, and then ask the neighbor to call her father, which was a waste of time.
Long-distance calls are very expensive, and long-distance call charges were also very high in those days.
Li Wanting waited eight minutes but her father still hadn't answered the phone. She muttered to herself, "Why is he taking so long? It's driving me crazy!"
Li Yuzhu smiled and said, "It's okay, it's just a little wasted phone credit, don't worry."
Li Yuzhu really didn't care about the phone bill. It wasn't three years ago; now, spending an extra 10 or 20 yuan on phone bills was really nothing to her.
It took her father a long time to answer the phone. He said, "Daughter, is there something you need?"
Li Wanting said, "Dad, our hometown has a huge customer flow. I'm thinking of opening a branch here. What do you think?"
Running a food business is profitable as long as you have customers; that's the rule of business. My father had no reason to disagree. He said, "I'll arrange things at the shop tomorrow morning, and then I'll take the bus back to check on things."
Now that Li Wanting's maternal grandparents and mother have all passed away, this is, after all, her hometown, and her father has long wanted to return to develop his career here.
As the saying goes, fallen leaves return to their roots, and sons-in-law who marry into their wives' families often return to their hometowns with their wives and children after their parents pass away. Moreover, now that the mother is gone, the father has no reason to stay there.
The father and daughter chatted for a few more minutes before ending the call.
Li Yuzhu entered Su Wei's house, where Su Wei and her sister were counting money and doing accounts.
Li Yuzhu couldn't offer any help to the sisters, so she sat to the side and waited.
In those days, the face value of money was very small. A large portion of the money received was in ten-dollar denominations, and there were only a few large one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar denominations.
The rest were 5 yuan, 2 yuan, 1 yuan, 5 mao, 2 mao, 1 mao, and many cent coins and banknotes, which took a very long time to count.
There's a trick to counting money too. Since there aren't many 150-yuan bills, there's no need to count them. The two sisters can finish it in three minutes.
After counting all the ten-yuan notes, record the total. Twenty five-yuan notes are bundled together, and one bundle is 100 yuan.
The smaller denominations below are counted in the same way. After sorting the money, counting it will allow you to calculate your daily income.
In those days, counting money at night was really troublesome and time-consuming for doing business.
Unlike now, where small denominations are usually 100 or 50 yuan, and change is given away with the money, you don't have much change at the end of the day.
And a large portion of the payments are made via WeChat and Alipay, so there's no need to spend any money.
So when business was good, collecting money at night was a huge workload back then.
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