Chapter 36: Initial Victory
Three sets of kettles and stoves were prepared to cope with the peak period.
In addition, there were two large teapots for brewing tea for customers.
At the beginning, a stove, a kettle and a teapot were enough.
The first pot of water boiled quickly, and Fang Mingche poured it into the teapot with coarse tea stalks.
The cold wind was still a bit bleak. Selling boiling hot tea at this time of year, no gimmicks were needed.
Customers came soon, "How much is a bowl?"
Fang Mingche pointed to the sign, on which "two cents a bowl" was embroidered in smaller words.
He was too lazy to respond one by one and just marked it out.
"Two bowls, please."
Fang Mingche turned over two large bowls and picked up the kettle to pour them.
This was considered the opening.
Two two-cent coins were put into the tin box that had contained a large box of candy. Yanyan heard the "jingle" sound and looked over here.
She knew it was money. Making money, happy!
Only with money can you go to Beijing to visit your mother and buy meat -
Fang Mingche was setting up a stall in the carriage. He arranged for her to sit at the front of the train, away from the small stove and kettle.
She would get
up and move around from time to time. "Don't run around! Be sure to tell Dad if you leave."
"Yeah."
Setting up a stall here, Fang Mingche was not actually worried that his daughter would get lost. There were PLA soldiers standing guard next to them!
It felt so safe!
Besides, the father-in-law was so worried that he ordered people around, and most people would not dare to show off to the service staff in Tiananmen Square.
Here, you have to act civilized.
Seeing more and more people in the square, he had a warm smile on his face.
Some people were standing here drinking tea, and the sign was quite conspicuous.
Gradually, more and more tourists came to drink tea.
Two cents, it's really not expensive. It's very comfortable to drink a bowl of hot tea in the cold weather.
Fang Mingche gradually became too busy.
Fortunately, A Yan also arrived on her bicycle.
Fang Mingche continued to make tea for people, and she quickly picked up the boiling pot of water.
She clamped one of the burning honeycomb coals in it to another stove, and then added another piece of honeycomb coal
to each stove. She drew water from the bucket and boiled the second pot of hot water.
After finishing all this, she also brewed a pot of tea to pour tea for the guests.
The two of them collected money while pouring tea for the people who came to drink hot tea one after another.
Business is booming!
The money in the money box gradually increased. Although most of them are cents and dimes, it’s a lot!
Thirty-two bowls were washed and rotated non-stop. A small half bucket of water was specially reserved for washing dishes.
Fang Mingche was mainly responsible for making tea and collecting money for people, and Lin Yan occasionally did odd jobs.
The couple worked for two hours, and at eleven thirty, the morning wave of business was basically over.
At this time, all three stoves were burning.
But near noon, one can be stopped.
Fang Mingche checked the water in the bucket halfway, and now poured the remaining one-sixth of the bucket into three kettles to continue boiling.
Before he finished pouring, he changed the water for washing dishes. There was a drain next to it, which was used to drain rainwater.
Then he quickly hung the empty bucket on the back of his bicycle and went home to fill it with water.
There was no faucet near the square.
Going to households to fetch water for a long time and paying for it was actually not much closer. The nearest household was one kilometer away.
So he just went back to get it. He only needed to pedal the bicycle twice to get there.
The covered bucket he bought early in the morning was larger and taller than ordinary water buckets.
It was a bit like a large wine barrel, and the water could not be shaken out no matter how it swayed on the road.
One-third of the height, they also spent money to weld a row of very strong thick hooks at the iron factory, which are specially used to hang on the back seat of the bicycle.
Well, it was also Lin Yan who asked an acquaintance in the iron factory to make it. He made some extra money.
After the bucket was hung, it was not very high from the ground.
If A Yan could not borrow his father-in-law's car, he would plan to rent an old bicycle from Grandpa Gu.
The load-bearing capacity is no problem. In later generations, African brothers can carry three or four hundred kilograms.
When Fang Mingche came back with two large buckets of clean water, the mother and daughter sat together, counting the money with a smile on their faces.
It was almost twelve o'clock, and the tourists had gone to find a place to eat.
One of their stoves continued to boil water to deal with some guests who came occasionally.
On the other stove, three lunch boxes were heated in an antimony pot and a steamer. One lunch box was used on the train, and the other two were bought from a department store.
The lunch box contained one meat, two vegetables and rice, which were the meals Fang Mingche had prepared early.
It was too early and the tourists had not arrived yet, so he cooked at eight o'clock and arrived here at nine o'clock.
Yanyan's meals were prepared separately, just like the ones for her and her husband.
Seeing Ah Yan counting happily, Fang Mingche asked with a smile, "How much is it?"
Ah Yan smiled and lowered her voice, "More than seven yuan!"
She actually made more than seven yuan in the morning. There will be so much more in the afternoon, or even more.
After all, the afternoon is longer! She
made twenty yuan that day.
She collected two one-yuan notes, one two-yuan note and a fifty-cent note, leaving only the cents in it.
She couldn't help it, so she stuck to Fang Mingche and said, "I didn't expect it to be so profitable! It's really thanks to the traffic in the square."
Fang Mingche smiled, "This is Tiananmen Square! It's reasonable not to have this business. Moreover, there should be a lot of room for growth. However, it is definitely impossible for us to monopolize it. I say, you sold three or four hundred bowls of tea in the morning, aren't you tired?"
Nowadays, it is not allowed to hire people. Hiring people means exploitation. The couple can only do it themselves. It was not until 1987 that hired labor was explicitly allowed. The term "seven ups and eight downs" was only proposed in 1981.
It seems that two large barrels are enough for 400 cups of tea.
When the number of returning customers increases, we will see whether we need to add more large barrels.
However, soon there should be other people competing for it. Maybe there is no chance to increase it!
Lin Yan tried her arm and was still a little tired. Fortunately, Mingche did all the heavy work.
But, "It's okay, it's profitable! At the beginning, you told me that BJ was full of opportunities, and I didn't believe it."
Really, it's too profitable!
Apart from the hundreds of yuan spent on buying things, water is free, and the cost of honeycomb coal and coarse tea stems is not high.
This means a net profit of at least 500 yuan a month.
Fang Mingche laughed, and seeing his daughter also laughing with her mother, his mood was also very bright.
However, the tourism industry is actually still very depressed now. Only Tiananmen Square can have such a large number of customers.
Other places, including the Great Wall, are still overgrown with weeds.
He had expected it before, but now that he has actually made money, he is really at ease.
It is best to be able to get rich through hard work.
In fact, he would not make as much money as he would if he took the risk of selling goods.
But he probably wouldn't dare to invest all his money the third time he went to sell goods.
Moreover, he was lucky once and twice and nothing went wrong, but it's hard to say
if it happens too many times. In his previous life, he was actually indignant. Why did the college entrance examination score of BJ candidates have to be several tens of points lower?
But if young people can't find a job and can't live and work in peace, it will really be a big problem.
Especially in a place like BJ, they have to appease it.
In this life, he has to let Yanyan lose these tens of points. They rely on themselves!
(End of this chapter)
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