Chapter 27 Planning the Business of the Family Shop
Upon entering, I was taken aback by the way the two of them had tidied up so thoroughly!
Guo Xiaohua immediately put down the broom, and upon hearing this, her face was full of pride. "That's right! Brother, you don't even know how long Grandma and I cleaned up together!"
Last time, he glanced at the storefront and thought the space of about ten square meters was quite large.
After cleaning everything out, Guo Baiwen roughly surveyed the room and figured that after setting up a cooking counter, the remaining space would barely be enough to squeeze in five or six small tables.
He had some ideas about what kind of business he wanted to do next, but now was not a good time to talk about it.
Although he rode in an oxcart both when leaving and returning to the city, he still walked quite a distance as he went door-to-door to find tenant farmers.
Grandma Guo and Xiao Hua had been busy for half a day, and they also saw the oxcart following behind Guo Baiwen.
"This is?"
"Xiaohua, come and lend a hand," Guo Baiwen first handed his basket to his sister, and then made room to give the bamboo chair stick to Grandma Guo.
Finally, after taking the folding table off the oxcart and paying the driver an extra two coins, he carried the table in from outside the door, huffing and puffing.
Grandma Guo touched the chair stick, feeling both happy and distressed. "This...this cost so much money again—"
"Don't worry, Grandma, it didn't cost much."
"Oh, you should just comfort Grandma."
Although she scolded him playfully, she still helped carry the table into the kitchen.
It was only when Guo Baiwen pushed the table aside with a 'bang' that Grandma Guo realized that this strange-looking thing was actually a table that could be folded up.
"Why did you suddenly decide to buy a table?"
The dining table for our new house hasn't been delivered yet, and the space next to the stove is a bit too small, so the family often bumps into each other while eating.
Guo Baiwen was originally thinking about whether to go to Hu the carpenter's house to ask for a ready-made table, but they gave him one during the morning sign-in.
It's still foldable.
Although I tapped it, it probably isn't solid wood.
I don't know if it's wood-look plastic or engineered wood, but at least it feels smooth and easy to use.
Even if we don't use it for meals anymore, we can still use it to display things.
Since the front yard faces the street, and we had just swept it to allow for ventilation, we left the door open.
Some things are better left unsaid, only to be shared privately with family.
"Grandma, I took a look at what's being sold in the market outside, and after thinking it over, I thought it would be better to open a food stall in that storefront."
Grandma Guo hesitated for a moment, "But Grandma's cooking is fine for our own consumption, but to really open a shop—"
That's giving her skills too much credit.
It's no wonder Grandma Guo thought that way. Guo Baiwen wasn't very good at using the stove at that time, so apart from the simple steamed egg dish he made at the beginning, he never cooked again.
Guo Xiaohua is someone who only knows how to eat, but doesn't know how to cook.
If they were to open a food stall, Grandma Guo would be the only pillar of the family left!
Guo Baiwen was both amused and exasperated. "Grandma, I didn't ask you to do it—no, I can't say it wasn't you who did it."
That's a strange statement.
“It’s us, we’ll do it together.”
As Guo Baiwen spoke, he took a rather large earthenware pot out of the basket that Xiao Hua was carrying.
"Look, I even have a secret recipe here!"
Having been here for so long, he has drawn hot pot base six times in total, each bag containing four small pieces of beef tallow hot pot base for one person.
People in this area love spicy food. Whether it's dry spicy, fragrant spicy, or sour spicy, everything they eat has to have chili peppers.
Especially now that the weather is cold, selling spicy food makes people feel warm and satisfied.
He had observed this when he dined with the Zhao family before. Although Xiuning County wasn't a particularly wealthy county, families with some spare money still had a habit of eating out.
Just look at how well their delivery service is thriving, and you'll know.
Moreover, their family consists of an elderly person and two young children. Running a grocery store requires frequent restocking, while running a tofu shop requires working from dawn till dusk. No one would dare to open a shop without having more than ten years of experience.
Moreover, doing these other small businesses inevitably clashes with the businesses of the neighboring businesses.
After much thought, I decided that opening a food shop would be the best option.
But it's not like the restaurants in the streets outside.
When he bought the house, Guo Baiwen had already planned to open a shop, and he visited the market outside many times.
Although the eateries weren't as impressive as the restaurants, there were still quite a few of them, big and small, in Xiuning County.
Moreover, each shop has its own signature dishes. Larger shops offer a variety of cooking methods, such as frying, stir-frying, and boiling. Even smaller street food stalls have their own specialties, like braised dishes, fried foods, and hot pot.
There are quite a few delicious things to eat.
This whole experience completely opened Guo Baiwen's eyes.
I had previously hoped to leverage my past experience as a street vendor to make a name for myself in Xiuning County.
It just goes to show that everyone's brains are working incredibly fast when it comes to making money.
His only hope now is the hot pot base he can get from the sign-in system.
Although chili peppers and hot pot are now available, cattle are still prohibited from being slaughtered at will in the community. Being able to use beef in cooking is already considered a remarkable achievement.
Who would have thought of using butter as the base for this pot?
The difference in taste between hot pot broth made with beef tallow and spicy hot pot broth made without beef tallow is significant.
For ordinary families, using soybean oil or lard to make it is considered a significant investment.
After all, it's just a small street-side shop; the costs of the storefront and the target customer base are all there.
Its price is destined to be low.
If Guo Baiwen hadn't had the sign-in system, and if this weren't his own shop, he would have gone crazy trying to find expensive beef tallow to make a hot pot base himself.
He had inquired with Zhao Dayong and the others beforehand, and now the Great Qi Dynasty basically registers people according to their ancestral home. Even if people with agricultural registration open a shop, they will not be forced to change their household registration as long as they are not involved in large-scale commercial activities or tax payments.
This is also why he made up his mind to use this storefront to create a legitimate shop with a stable income.
He didn't intend to open a large restaurant or eatery. After all, setting up a stove for cooking on each table would be too expensive if the cost was roughly calculated.
Guo Baiwen planned to cook spicy hot pot around a stove, just like in the modern world.
They simply built a large rectangular platform in the middle, where people helped blanch the vegetables, prepare the braising liquid and dipping sauces, and then used long wooden strips to form a table around the perimeter.
As for the dishes inside, they were simply divided into two pots: one pot was full of meat dishes, and the other pot was full of vegetables.
The vegetarian dishes are mostly inexpensive greens, radishes, dried tofu, lotus root slices, soaked wild mushrooms, and the like. They are cut diagonally into bite-sized pieces in advance, and you can buy three pieces for one coin. The price is cheap, and there are always people willing to come and try them.
As for meat dishes, he plans to discuss with the butcher next door about ordering some cheap, fresh pork offal and other offal every day. As long as these things are cleaned properly, they can be blanched in the pot and taste delicious.
If you want even more variety, you can buy some minced meat and mix it with some vegetables to make meatballs, such as tofu meatballs, chive meatballs, pickled cowpea meatballs, and so on.
Whether it's offal or meatballs, make them smaller and sell them for one piece or one meatball. That sounds like a very reasonable price.
The main thing is that once the broth of this beef tallow hot pot is cooked, the aroma wafts out, and he doesn't believe that no one can resist the smell and be tempted to spend a penny or two to try it.
As for the remaining dipping sauce recipe, he plans to first see how well the pure hot pot base sells.
If the response isn't good, he'll try to make two different dipping sauces to balance the flavor.
One way is to mix the chili sauce that Grandma bought before with her homemade chili sauce to make a sour and spicy dipping sauce. Another way is to go to the oil mill, buy some sesame paste, mix it with her homemade chili sauce, and make a sweet and spicy dipping sauce.
Not to brag, but his grandmother's homemade chili sauce is also delicious.
If it were just the flavor of the broth, it would already sell very well, so he wouldn't have bothered to create a dipping sauce.
After Guo Baiwen explained his ideas to Grandma Guo, Guo Xiaohua became very excited, feeling that her family was about to make a lot of money.
But Grandma Guo was still a little hesitant.
The main problem was that she had never tasted anything made with this so-called 'secret recipe,' and she was very skeptical about whether it was really as delicious as her grandson claimed.
Guo Baiwen knew what she was worried about, so he said, "If Grandma is still worried about anything, we can try it out tonight since we just bought this table. We can see what it tastes like."
"If you still don't like it after tonight's meal, Grandma, then we can try another business, okay?"
Having said all that, Grandma Guo had no reason to hesitate.
She nodded. "Then I'll go to the butcher shop next door and cut some meat for you in a bit."
"Wenzai, you only mentioned how much the meat and vegetable dishes cost. If we're really planning to sell this spicy hot pot, what will we use for the filling?"
"Flatbread? Or should I make hand-pulled noodles?"
This question stumped Guo Baiwen.
He hadn't thought about that question yet.
Not only is it time-consuming to make noodles by hand, but also the broth might become cloudy after being boiled in a pot.
He even imagined that the broth was like the broth from a braised food stall, simmered every day, and all he had to do was add a new broth when the flavor got weak.
But if you have to get up early to make pancakes to go with it—
Firstly, there weren't enough people in the family to begin with.
One person cooks, one person keeps the accounts, and one person clears the table.
The division of labor is very clear, and there really isn't enough manpower to make more pancakes.
Secondly, if these pre-made pancakes don't sell, the family can only keep them and eat them slowly.
He thought for a moment and suggested, "Then why don't we just prepare a bowl of dough in advance and use a separate earthenware pot to scald the dough pieces?"
Leftover flour can be kept at home to make noodles, dumplings, or flatbreads.
"For three coins, you can scald a sieve of black flour dumplings; for mixed flour, it's five coins. After they're cooked in clear water, you can add them to the bowl with vegetables."
"Just remember to pour an extra spoonful of soup over it then."
-----------------------
Author's note: I got hungry while writing this. I haven't had spicy hot pot in ages because I'm on a diet (secretly drooling).
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
