Food Intelligence King

Chapter 160 Preparations for New Business
The current location of the community canteen was rented by Chen Zhou from his aunt.

Because it has been used by four generations of users, Chen Zhou did not renovate it himself.

After he took over, his main task was to install a doorplate.

As for the interior, especially the structure inside the walls, he hadn't really studied it carefully.

The things Chen Zhou and Ms. Lin checked most often were the store's ventilation and drainage systems.

I never imagined that this wall in my store could be connected to the rental and sales center next door.

This is truly valuable information.

Chen Zhou made a mental note of it.

In addition to serving customers, the rental and sales center is also in a state of being rented or sold.

If needed in the future, it can be connected to the current community canteen, making it a store of over 90 square meters.

According to Zhang Jing's inside information, this wall can be completely knocked down.

His rental agreement with his aunt only stipulated that the property would be restored to its original condition upon expiration.

Chen Zhou had previously thought that he would save up money to buy his aunt's shop first, and then buy the shop next door.

Looking back now, it seems unnecessary to invest so much money.

At this moment, Old Meng, the neighbor from the east side, interrupted Chen Zhou's plan.

He was slightly disappointed to learn that his store could not have such a collaboration with the community canteen.

As a taster of new products for the store, Lao Meng is often invited to the store to sample the food.

He felt that if he could knock on this wall, it would save Chen Zhou or Xiao Zhao the trouble.

"What a pity, this wall of mine isn't good enough."

Zhang Jing laughed and said, "No, Brother Meng, your wall can't bear the weight."

The junior sister blinked but didn't say anything. Like Old Meng, she had indeed knocked, but there was no response.

Of course, Zhang Jing was about to resign from the rental and sales center.

People still kept bringing up the topic of her.

Everyone is quite interested in this little girl's future plans.

While eating the steamed buns from the shop, Zhang Jing also told her story.

To put it bluntly, the young girl is also someone who got in through connections.

She hasn't done anything substantial since she arrived at the rental and sales center.

Although she earns 1,800 yuan a month, she doesn't need to clock in and basically no one cares about her.

Her parents found her this job so that she would have something to do and could also take the civil service exam or the postgraduate entrance exam.

However, due to various reasons, he has not been able to achieve his wish after several years.

To this day, she still doesn't know whether this wish belonged to her parents or to her.

Zhang Jing looked at Zhao Yilin and sighed, "I feel like I'm just not cut out for studying."

The junior sister didn't know how to comfort the other person.

Because she had always been a good student, consistently ranking at the top of her class from elementary school to university. She even pursued a second major in college.

"Keep it up!" the junior sister encouraged.

Before leaving, several neighbors exchanged WeChat contacts with her.

Zhang Jing smiled and said, "I will come here to eat again in the future."

Chen Zhou glanced at the intelligence report and thought to himself, "That's right. Today is just a meal before I leave the company."

However, the scene of adding each other on WeChat reminded Chen Zhou of people he had met at dinner parties when he was working before.

Even though we might not keep in touch much in the future, we should still leave each other's contact information.

His friend list still contains many people he's only ever greeted.

Tony took it very seriously.

He wanted Zhang Jing to come to his shop to help wash hair: "Anyway, you're just sitting around doing nothing."
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"Let's talk about it later, bro. Thanks."

"Okay, we've exchanged contact information. Let's get in touch later."

After finishing her meal, the little girl said goodbye to everyone and left.

Old Meng glanced at Tony, "You're dreaming! Getting people to come to your shop for a hair wash. Aren't you afraid your wife will scratch you?" "You've misunderstood me," Tony emphasized. "I just wanted to help the ladies out."

Chen Zhou smiled and said, "Tony is a kind-hearted person too."

“Of course,” Tony nodded, “and I can’t out-scratch my wife either.”

It's normal for couples to have occasional friction.

Depending on the personalities of both partners, different couples will have different ways of arguing.

Taking advantage of the opportunity to chat, Chen Zhou also talked to his two neighbors about his plan to add smaller portions of dishes.

This is part of the process of understanding customer suggestions.

Besides steamed buns, the two of them had also eaten the food Chen Zhou cooked, and they were very much looking forward to the new business in the store.
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"From now on, you'll have to come over at noon."
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"Brother Chen, why don't you rent the whole area next door?"

Taking too big a step can easily lead to disaster; we need to stabilize the initial small-portion dish business first.

However, that was indeed what Chen Zhou was thinking.

When the time comes, we'll rent the rental and sales center next door, knock down the walls, do some simple renovations, and we'll be busy.

After the midday business was finished.

The restaurant also made some minor adjustments to the kitchen layout to make room for serving smaller portions in the future.

The junior sister was contacting people to buy tableware, just as Chen Zhou had instructed.

One type is a 304 stainless steel metal plate for dine-in service, with double-layer heat insulation.

Another option is takeout containers. These need to have small compartments, and hygiene must also be taken into consideration.

And the serving bowls used in the store to hold small portions of food.

After the initial menu was finalized, the task of purchasing ingredients was left to Aunt Zheng and Xiao Hou.

One of them is good at bargaining and choosing, and the other is very strong.

Combining them is just right.

With employees around, there's no need to do many things personally.

In the past two days, the community canteen has been making every effort to prepare for the new business of small-portion dishes.

Chen Zhou also prepared the initial dishes at home.

Dinner was definitely part of the reason.

Chen Taotao was quite happy and hoped that her father would research new business opportunities every day.

In addition, we take photos of the actual dishes and post them in the residents' group chat.

This can be considered a warm-up for the smaller portions of the dish.

The group member "I'm not a foodie" seemed even happier than Chen Taotao.

He immediately started a voice message in the group: "This is great, Mr. Chen. I'm alone, so the small portion is perfect! I'll have to order this braised pork and braised eggplant."

It's so infectious that even the speech-to-text function produced a "hissing" sound.

Nobody in the group believed he wasn't a foodie.

Chen Zhou remembered that he was a freelancer and didn't need to go to the office every day.

This also represents the thoughts of a segment of the population.

Property manager Gao tried to start a food ordering group, but no one in the group responded to him.

They chatted about which dish Mr. Chen posted they liked best.

"It tastes like a very home-style dish, but it's very appetizing."

"Mr. Chen's shop is absolutely trustworthy in terms of quality!"

Manager Gao could only add the number of 18 property management staff to the list, another day being ignored by the homeowners.

Ms. Lin, who had been lurking in the group, gave a fairly objective assessment: "Many of the customers in the owners' group are usually at work, and most of them come in the morning."

Chen Zhou nodded; the small-portion dishes are available at noon.

When the community canteen sells steamed buns, most of its business is concentrated in the morning.

From another perspective, this will also attract more customers from outside the existing homeowner community.

(End of this chapter)