Free Web NovelChapter 46: Chapter 40: The Factory Cafeteria’s Corner: Start Digging
Zhang Shufen had wine with two meals a day, ate meat every day, had filial children and grandchildren, and got along with her daughters-in-law. She lived a life that all the old ladies in Zhou Village envied most.
But she had her worries too.
Her youngest son was born the year her husband died a hero’s death. She named him Wei Kingdom, so her children would remember why their father had sacrificed his life.
Zhou Weiguo was smart and athletic from a young age. He always brought home a stack of certificates from school sports meets, and plenty of young girls liked him. His schoolbag was often full of love letters written in a childish hand.
At eighteen, he enlisted in the army. The certificates turned into commendations and notices of meritorious service—for rescue missions, winning martial competitions, and more. He received them almost every year, eventually rising to the rank of company commander, the same rank his father had held.
He sent most of his military allowance back home, and she saved it for him.
Until the year a telegram arrived from town. When she saw him again, he had lost an arm and walked with a limp.
The county leaders came, and the villagers lined the road to welcome the combat hero home. People came from all the surrounding villages to see him.
The scene made her feel a bit dazed. It had been just as lively the year her husband came home.
She wanted to cry, but in the end, she smiled.
Her son was a hero, just like his old man, but this time, her son had come back alive.
The organization took it very seriously. They wanted to arrange a job for him, and his monthly disability allowance was fully provided.
But they couldn’t persuade the stubborn Zhou Weiguo. He said he didn’t want to be a burden on the country and just wanted to go home and farm.
Four years passed in a flash.
And he really did manage to cultivate the family’s small vegetable plot with just one hand, making it look quite impressive. The vegetables grew even better than their neighbors’.
Over the past two years, she had arranged blind dates for him, but as soon as the girls came to see him—missing an arm, with a limp, a scary scar on his face, and no proper job—they immediately fled.
Zhou Weiguo became the butt of the villagers’ private jokes. They said he was stubborn, a fool for turning down an official post, an obstinate idiot.
At thirty-four, he was already considered an old bachelor in the countryside.
The old lady was worried sick. She’d tried everything, from gentle persuasion to harsh words. The organization sent people to visit during every holiday to try and convince him, but nothing worked.
She never expected that today, Zhou Yan would actually manage to persuade him.
’I never realized this kid was so persuasive,’ the old lady mused, her face filled with relief.
Before Zhou Momo was born, Zhou Yan was the youngest of the grandchildren. When he was little, his mother and father were busy, so he loved to run over to her place to get a free meal.
If Zhou Weiguo really went to work, she didn’t care whether he became an official or not. As long as he could get out into the world and live a meaningful life, she would be content.
Besides, if a girl took a liking to him after he started working, she wouldn’t have to worry anymore.
Zhou Yan and Zhou Weiguo chatted at the doorway for a while. He briefly described the world of the future, packaging it as knowledge he’d read in books, which made Zhou Weiguo’s eyes light up.
"For a man to live in this world and do nothing, how is that any different from being dead wood or rotten grass?" Zhou Weiguo slapped the persimmon tree hard, his gaze resolute. "Alright. I’ll go to the personnel bureau tomorrow."
In that moment, Zhou Yan once again saw the shadow of the eighteen-year-old boy in him.
No, he seemed even taller now.
"Then I’ll go with you tomorrow, Uncle. I’ll come pick you up," Zhou Yan said, standing up.
"No need. I’ll borrow a bike and go myself." Zhou Weiguo also stood up and patted him on the shoulder with a smile. "If I need someone to accompany me for something this small, what else can I do? You just worry about the restaurant. Maybe I’ll even come to your place for lunch."
"Okay." Zhou Yan nodded and pulled a stack of Great Unity bills from his pocket, handing them to Zhou Weiguo. "Uncle, here’s the hundred yuan I borrowed from you before. I’m paying you back."
Zhou Weiguo took it with a smile, stuffing it into his pocket without counting. He looked at him and said, "Come find me when you need money. I’ll keep this saved for you."
"I won’t be shy about it then," Zhou Yan laughed as well.
Zhou Yan sat for a little while longer before saying he had to get back to the restaurant.
"Not staying for dinner? I was just saying I’d kill a chicken for tonight." The old lady emerged from the chicken coop, a big rooster with glossy feathers in her hand.
"I have to go back and work on the new menu. Let’s save it for next time," Zhou Yan said with a smile.
"Alright." The old lady tossed the rooster back into the coop, then turned and went into the main hall, coming out with half a bag of oranges.
"Here, take this. It’s the list of spices and bones needed for the braising liquid. When you have everything ready, come and get me." The old lady handed a piece of paper to Zhou Yan. It was covered with the names and quantities of various spices, more than twenty in total.
"Okay." Zhou Yan carefully folded the paper and put it in his pocket, then took the oranges. "I’ll come get you as soon as I’m ready."
"Go on, then. Let Momo stay and play here. After dinner, I’ll have Wei Kingdom send her back," the old lady said with a smile.
"Okay," Zhou Yan replied, got on his bike, and left.
He went home first.
Comrade Zhou was in the yard, bending embroidery needles into fishhooks. He glanced up at Zhou Yan, then toward the gate. "Where’s Momo?" frёeωebɳovel.com
"She’s at Grandma’s. Uncle will bring her back after dinner."
Zhou Yan leaned in closer, watching him carefully heat a needle until it was red-hot before bending it. Two finished hooks lay on the ground, along with several that had snapped.
"Dad, aren’t you afraid Mom will beat you if she sees this? You’ve gone through a whole box of needles," Zhou Yan laughed. He wouldn’t dare do something that would earn him a beating from his mom.
"Beat me for what? She wouldn’t dare." Comrade Zhou continued bending the needle, unconcerned. "I bought this box new. She has no idea."
"Where is Mom?" Zhou Yan looked around. The main hall was quiet.
Their home was a one-story bungalow with a small yard enclosed by a fence. The ground was paved with stones Comrade Zhou had collected from the river. A grapevine grew by the gate, its leaves now beginning to fall.
There was one main hall, two bedrooms, and a latrine in the corner. The rammed-earth walls were mottled and aged but kept spotlessly clean. There wasn’t a single dead leaf in the yard.
"She went next door to play one-cent mahjong. She only gets one day off a week, so she needs to relax a bit, you know," Zhou Miao replied. free𝑤ebnovel.com
"Alright, I’ll head back to the restaurant then." Zhou Yan placed the oranges on a stool and turned to leave.
"Not staying for dinner?"
"No, I can’t. I’m planning to start selling braised dishes and stir-fries next week. I have to go back and finalize the menu today, get everything prepared. Tomorrow’s going to be crazy busy," Zhou Yan replied and headed straight out.
"Stir-fries? Braised dishes?" Comrade Zhou looked up, but Zhou Yan had already ridden far away on his bike.
On the way back, Zhou Yan’s mind was completely occupied with how to price the dishes.
A portion of braised beef with dried bamboo shoots required about a third of a pound of beef. A full pound of beef cost 1.5 yuan, and that was the cost price his dad got for him.
Braised pork ribs and minced beef also used about a third of a pound of meat, and the ribs were even more expensive, costing 1.8 yuan per pound.
For one dish, the cost of the meat alone was forty-five to fifty-four cents.
Side ingredients, oil, seasonings, firewood, wear and tear on equipment, labor, and so on would add another twenty to thirty cents.
A rough calculation put the cost of braised beef and minced beef with green and red peppers at around sixty-five cents, while the braised pork ribs could reach seventy-five cents.
Carp was forty-five cents a pound. A portion of Huo Xiang Carp required two fish, each weighing about eight-tenths of a pound. Cooking fish used a lot of oil and seasoning, which he estimated at thirty cents, bringing the total cost to about one yuan.
Zhou Yan thought of the restaurant’s old menu: Garlic Pork Slices for 35 cents, Salted Burnt White for 45 cents, Twice-Cooked Pork for 60 cents, Dongpo Pork Knuckle for 1.20 yuan...
There was a reason Comrade Zhou had run the restaurant into the ground.
This menu was priced to compete with the factory cafeteria.
It seemed fine on the surface, but it was full of pitfalls.
The factory cafeteria’s procurement could get the best, freshest ingredients from the supply and marketing cooperative, and with ration coupons, the price was almost half off.
The cafeteria could get pork belly for one yuan a pound, while Zhou Yan had to spend 1.8 or even two yuan.
Moreover, the factory cafeteria also issued meal tickets to the workers, so its prices were already cheaper than state-owned and private restaurants.
To insist on matching the factory cafeteria’s prices, or even going lower—it would be a miracle if he didn’t lose his shirt.
He’d price the braised beef with dried bamboo shoots and the double-pepper minced beef at one yuan per portion, and the braised pork ribs at 1.20 yuan.
The Huo Xiang Carp was a complicated dish, and he also had to account for spoilage, so he’d price it at two yuan a portion.
Cucumbers were out of season; otherwise, he could have added Shredded Cucumber to the menu to fill it out.
This pricing was about a third more expensive than the cafeteria’s stir-fried dishes. For example, the cafeteria’s braised carp was 1.50 yuan a portion.
There was no other way. Zhou Yan needed to make money from the restaurant; he had to have a profit margin.
Besides, if being cheap was enough to keep customers, Zhou wouldn’t have been sitting alone in an empty restaurant every day back then.
Taste was what created a dish’s premium, what the diners recognized and valued.
On this point, Zhou Yan was quite confident.
The students from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute had created a buzz around Zhou Yan Restaurant. Zhou Yan figured a lot of workers would come by tomorrow to join the fun and see what magic this little restaurant held.
He definitely couldn’t miss out on this massive wave of attention.
Plus, recently, many customers had been urging him to hurry up and add stir-fries and braised dishes. Even just serving a few of the noodle toppings as standalone dishes would be fine. Some people really just didn’t like noodles.
He had also just learned how to make Huo Xiang Carp. With the Kneeling Beef, he could scrape together a menu of four dishes and a soup.
The target demographic was the core clientele of the factory cafeteria’s stir-fry counter.
He was highly motivated to poach customers from the factory cafeteria.
He would start tomorrow!
Zhou Yan rode his bike back to the restaurant and saw someone standing at the entrance.
"Uncle Lin, what are you doing standing here?" Zhou Yan squeezed his brakes, looking at Lin Zhiqiang with some surprise.
"I was just thinking you weren’t here." Lin Zhiqiang looked at Zhou Yan and smiled. "Zhou, I’m planning to treat someone to a meal at your restaurant tomorrow. Besides noodles, do you have any other specialty dishes?"
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