Era: Start as a buyer

Over at the office, Luo Cheng just came here to give out bonuses, not because his store was doing well, but because he was happy to be a father.

Luo Cheng is really focused on Huimin Canteen now, not to make money, but to find it interesting. To say that he wanted to take care of the elderly and children and give them a clean, hygienic and affordable place to eat, Luo Cheng really didn't realize that.

Luo Cheng's establishment of such a canteen is actually more of a play. Just like some people spend money to play games, he only plays it as a business-style game. Just take care of those who need care while playing.

Luo Cheng's canteen plans to use meal tickets to serve meals, and in printing receipts, he also plans to use the kind of meal tickets that existed in his own era.

As for staple food, they also made steamed buns. Of course, the steamed buns in this era were made of cornmeal, yellow and tastier than steamed buns. As for the steamed buns from Luo Cheng's time, you may not even have stick noodles. They are made from stick noodles mixed with some wild vegetables. The color of the steamed buns is actually gray or even black.

After leaving the office, Luo Cheng went to his canteen to take a look. The signboard for the canteen is also ready, it’s called ‘Machinery Factory Canteen’

"Mr. Luo, why is this canteen called the Machinery Factory Canteen? Our canteen has something to do with the machine factory."

"It doesn't matter, it's just for fun. This is just our first canteen. In the future, it might be called a textile factory canteen or a garment factory. It's just a random name."

"Oh, Mr. Luo, if the canteen is run like this, the profit will be too low. If there are too few customers, it will be difficult to make a profit."

"It's about preserving capital. Besides not charging any fees for our own employees, we can maintain capital."

"That's not difficult. With such a price and word-of-mouth reputation, there should be a lot of people coming to dine nearby."

"That's fine. In fact, a small loss is nothing. With the establishment of this canteen, the employees' working meals will be transferred here. If we don't have a canteen, I will have to bear the staff meals. If there is a canteen, any small losses will be earned."

Luo Cheng smiled and said to the manager of the canteen here. The manager was an aunt who was nearly forty years old. I used to be the manager of a fast food restaurant chain, so I definitely have no problems with management, as I can take care of the kitchen and front desk well.

Luo Cheng's operation of such a canteen is actually very easy to manage. If it is other fast food restaurants and the like, if the business is good, the chef will definitely keep adding more dishes. But Luo Cheng operates a registration system, and once the meal tickets are sold, they are sold for a month. Temporary ones are also sold, but with the temporary meal tickets, Luo Cheng allows the canteen here to buy an extra thirty people.

If you do it this way, you won't sell it once it's sold out, and the chef in the kitchen will be relaxed. And there is no need to arrange special personnel to sell tickets or anything like that. When it comes to cashiering, it is actually faster to check the dishes and match the tickets than to take orders.

"The opening poster should be put up in advance. The people in the back kitchen and front office are almost recruited."

"Let's give it a try. Tables and chairs will be delivered in the next two days. Let's see if anyone has purchased tickets in advance."

"Okay, tomorrow I will go and post the opening announcement and reservation form poster on the stairs."

Luo Cheng nodded. The decoration here is simple, mainly the kitchen renovation. And we don’t need to recruit as many kitchen and front-of-house staff. The only difficulty is whether everyone can accept this format. Many people want to eat. If they don’t have it at home, they will buy it temporarily when they go out.

Let everyone spend money to buy some so-called meal tickets without seeing anything. And it doesn't accept small purchases. Of course, it doesn't mean that you have to buy it for thirty days at a time, but Luo Chengding's minimum purchase amount is one hundred yuan.

One hundred yuan may not seem like much, but if you charge your card at other fast food restaurants, you won’t be able to eat for a few days. But the prices of vegetables here in Luo Cheng are too low. The canteen manager here is named Zhu Li. When she first came here, when she saw the prices, she thought it was a welfare canteen within a certain company. Or maybe they cooperate with some agency and get subsidies.

Vegetables actually cost one yuan a portion. That’s right, it’s just one yuan. Because the tickets Luo Cheng asked her to print at the advertising shop were just vegetable tickets, with no type at all.

The semi-vegetarian is two pieces, which is the egg type. Meat dishes cost three yuan, but the meat dishes do not include seafood. According to Luo Cheng, if you want to eat well, you can make it at home. Here are just ordinary dishes. The meat dishes can have big meatballs. For big meatballs that cost three yuan, make sure you use decent meat. Control the cost at two yuan, and just go with the quantity.

As for the rice, Luo Cheng asked Zhu Li to make it in two numbers, two ounces, four ounces, and six ounces. As for the price, two taels of rice is one yuan. The rice used was organic rice, but Luo Cheng did not measure it according to the weight of the rice in his time, but calculated it after cooking.

One kilogram of rice produces about two kilograms of rice, which actually means that one kilogram of rice sells for ten yuan. The retail price is similar to that of his rice store. All rice is treated as retailing ecological and organic rice. Moreover, the rice used in this canteen is organic rice, which can also be used as a means of publicity.

In this way, the elderly and children do not eat much. Of course, there are some who eat a lot, but generally they do not eat as much as young and strong people.

Rice costs one yuan, and two vegetarian dishes cost only three yuan. Even if it's one vegetarian and one meat dish, adding rice only costs five yuan. Moreover, the portions of the dishes in Luo Cheng's place are also quite large, much larger than those in fast food restaurants where a small dish is placed on a small plate.

If you really want to save money, or some elderly people don't eat much, they can only eat one dish for a meal.

There is also breakfast here. Noodles are two yuan, plain noodles, and extra items are included. Steamed buns, fried dough sticks and soy milk. Make the buns a big one, one for vegetarian buns and one for five for meat buns. The fried dough sticks are also served one piece at a time, and some additives are not added. The fried dough sticks may not look as good as the fried dough sticks sold outside, but it is healthy and affordable.

A bowl of porridge cost one yuan, and soy milk cost two yuan. In fact, the cost of soy milk was not high, but soy milk and tofu were rare items in Luo Cheng's time.

Anyway, there is a little profit left on everything, but if this profit has to pay for rent, water, electricity and labor, according to Zhu Li's calculation, if there are not hundreds of people coming to eat, the possibility of losing money is very high.

But Julie’s experience as a fast food restaurant manager for so many years was not for nothing. According to her personal analysis, at this price, if Luo Cheng didn't do something, the minimum purchase would be 100 yuan, and he would also have to register information. After it opened, it only accepted 20 or 30 temporary individual customers, and it would not sell more than that. Without this restriction, Zhu Li felt that there would be many people coming to eat.

But Luo Cheng was capricious. Not only did he impose a minimum purchase limit, but he also did not provide free tableware. The store has prepared some tableware for dining, but the charge ranges from one yuan to several yuan depending on the quantity.

Luo Cheng also sells aluminum lunch boxes, chopsticks and spoons. If you don’t want to bring your own tableware, you can buy these and put your name on the lunch box. Luo Cheng had a large cabinet specially made to hold lunch boxes. He could store the tableware here and find his own when he came to eat. The sink was connected to the entrance, and he could wash the tableware by himself after eating.

Anyway, as long as you don't use the tableware provided by Luo Cheng in the cafeteria, it is recommended to bring your own tableware, so you can use it for free. And Luo Cheng doesn't need to hire many dishwashers. He just hires one to clear the table. The staff can wash the dishes together.

All this is the same as the machinery factory in Luo Cheng's era. There were no dishwashing workers in the canteen of his factory. Some helpers in the kitchen clean the dishes for serving food. In addition, when there is a reception meal in the factory, the bowls and chopsticks will help clean them.

When workers and even leaders go to the canteen to get food and food, they always bring lunch boxes and wash themselves after eating. Even the director of the factory washes his own lunch box when eating in the factory.

Zhu Li didn't know how effective such a canteen would be if it opened, but she came to work here because she valued it. There is no pressure of turnover. I had a good job working in a fast food restaurant before, and it was a brand chain fast food restaurant. However, several years of virus infection have resulted in less door-to-door business. For takeout, most of the profits are taken away by the platform. Moreover, good locations and remote locations have no advantage on takeout platforms.

When customers order takeout, they look at the distance within the range, and it doesn’t matter whether your store is located at a busy intersection. Anyway, in the past few years, it has been difficult for many industries to do well, and many companies have closed down due to the inability to resist. This is the case in the store where Julie works, and it has little to do with her ability.

Luo Cheng wanted to run the cafeteria like this and be arbitrary, but in fact Zhu Li felt relaxed. Just follow the arrangements and execute them. You don’t have to think about doing activities every day to increase your turnover. What he was afraid of was that Luo Cheng couldn't resist after seeing the losses and opened up those restrictions. By then, the price would be profitable, but it wouldn't be high. It would be funny if one month's net profit was not as high as the salary of a chef in the kitchen. .