Food Intelligence King

Chapter 90: Information Updated; I Have to Pretend I Didn't Recognize This Customer

The next morning, Ms. Lin woke up at the same time as Chen Zhou, as usual.

Today she has to bring her child to the store for lunch, and then bring back some steamed buns for her colleague.

Therefore, Chen Zhou did not ask her to prepare breakfast separately for him.

"Take a nap for a while, then bring Tao Tao over with you."

"Ah."

After waking up, Ms. Lin was not sleepy at all.

She turned to her side and focused intently on admiring her daughter's sleeping posture, which was the same as her husband's.

Although it was indeed Ms. Lin who suggested that Tao Tao gradually become independent between the ages of four and six, Chen Zhou felt that she was even more reluctant to let her go than he was.

Around 7 o'clock, the mother and daughter arrived at the store.

Some of her regular customers and neighbors had seen Tao Tao back when she was still at the steamed bun stall.

So he greeted the little guy.

"You can give your uncle some recommendations. Whatever you order, your uncle will eat it."

Chen Taotao now understands that the small shop in front of her is her family's business. Moreover, her parents are not far away, and Sister Zhao is helping her bring out steamed buns, while playfully pinching her little nose.

So she wasn't too shy around strangers.

Pointing to the menu above his head, he helped the old man make his selections.

"Uncle, try this, and this too."

The uncle was literate, and he thought to himself: there is no way to eat rice porridge with millet porridge.

So I ordered steamed buns anyway.

I saw my daughter interacting with the customers for a couple of minutes.

Chen Zhou shook his head and smiled as he recalled Old Zhang, whom he had just met that morning.

After Tao Tao finished eating, Ms. Lin picked up the breakfast from the takeout box and prepared to send her child to school.

She greeted her husband, who was busy in the kitchen:
"I'm leaving."

Chen Zhou put down the steamed buns he was holding and quickly called out to her:
"Not only did you cut in line, but you also tried to skip out on your bill. Your behavior is appalling! Do you know that?"

Ms. Lin rolled her eyes at her husband, then smiled and left.

It's just that she couldn't reach it, otherwise she would have given Chen Zhou an elbow.

Inside the kitchen, while the boss and his wife were talking, Aunt Zheng pushed out another row of steamed bun wrappers.

The store has been busy these past two days.

Chen Zhou and Aunt Zheng were making steamed buns when they received a special reminder from Ms. Lin in the morning—

[Positive review +0.5] It slipped by quietly, along with several positive reviews +1.

Others really can't tell the difference.

But it's estimated that Ms. Lin and her colleagues should be quite satisfied with their meal.

With Aunt Zheng joining the kitchen team, the work was basically done so that even when people took a break, the pots and pans never stopped cooking.

In addition to the dishwasher and other appliances we bought a few days ago,
The small shop handled this hot topic with ease.

Chen Zhou glanced at it briefly, and the online response was quite positive.

While it's true that many out-of-town tourists won't be able to come here often, it will still boost the local influence.

The [Food News] mentioned newly harvested seasonal corn, and he bought a whole bag of it.

They cooked a pot of it at the shop.

I didn't plan to sell them. After finishing my business, I shared some with the neighbors—my junior colleague, Aunt Zheng, and Sister Meng from the tobacco shop next door. I also gave Tony a few.

It's quite popular with women.

I'll bring it back to Ms. Lin and Tao Tao tonight; they both love it.

Chen Zhou thought the taste was only so-so.

It's simply a bit softer and sweeter.

When you're really focused on eating the corn, the skin on the kernels sometimes gets stuck between your teeth.

After dinner that day, Old Chen made a rare phone call to Chen Zhou to chat.

After their previous conversation, the father and son are now talking more.

But there weren't many topics to discuss, and the conversation quickly turned to the eldest granddaughter.

Chen Zhou opened a video call and asked Tao Tao to come over and say hello to her grandfather.

Old Chen asked his granddaughter with a smile what she had for dinner. "I ate two ears of corn! They were this long."

Chen Taotao gestured, her face full of pride.

But in reality, she only took two sticks, giving most of one to Chen Zhou and feeding the other half to the cat.

Old Chen doesn't care about any of that.

He encouraged her, saying, "My granddaughter is really amazing. Next time you want to eat something, Grandpa will take you."

"Stewed flatbread!" Chen Taotao blurted out.

Sometimes, when you ask a little girl what she wants to eat, she either thinks for a long time or just says something she's eaten recently.

After hearing this, Old Chen asked her curiously:

"What's a 'hubing', Taotao?"

The little girl replied, "It's cornbread. You didn't know that, Grandpa? It's crispy. I'll ask Dad to make it for you next time."

Old Chen frowned as he listened to all the talk about his granddaughter, who was always talking about corncobs.

After Chen Zhou answered the phone, he very seriously instructed his son: "Make something good for the child, don't just fool him all the time!"

"I see, Dad."

It's a bit hard to explain Chen Zhou's actions, as if he's mistreated Chen Taotao.

Old Chen used to eat cornbread dipped in salt when he was a kid. He probably belongs to the generation that gets scared of corn.

But now, corn is considered a whole grain and various varieties have been developed.

It has become a recommendation for healthy eating.

Times have really changed.

Saturday morning.

I'm still updating the intelligence from home this time.

Chen Taotao slept in today, and only Chen Zhou and Facai, along with the cat, were in the living room.

Fa Cai seems to really like eating corn.

I don't know if she liked it from the start or if she was influenced by Chen Taotao.

At 7:30, the intelligence was updated—

[Food News (Rare)]: An excellent spot for catching shrimp has appeared in Dongwan Park. Chen Taotao is in good luck today, and she is expected to catch prawns that are 20cm long.

A 20cm long prawn is indeed quite rare.

Since it's Saturday and I have the day off, I'll take Tao Tao, who's quite lucky, over for a visit.

However, Chen Zhou felt that changing the food news to baby news would be equally apt.

The second point remains the same—

[Customer Update]: Tomorrow will see the peak of this surge in customers. Sun Zhen will also be visiting your shop that day.

It's Sunday, so there will definitely be more people.

However, there is another customer named Sun Zhen.

Chen Zhou cursed inwardly: This bastard came back to the country without even telling me, he just came straight to me!

Are you trying to give me a surprise again?
The joy of reuniting with a close friend was inexplicably dampened by the intelligence alert.

"I should have used targeted intelligence," Chen Zhou thought to himself.

Now I have to play along and act like the shop owner who's ignoring everything.

The last piece of intelligence—

[Market News]: Tianli Vinegar Factory is launching a promotional campaign targeting small and medium-sized businesses. The products in this campaign are large commercial bottles.

To be honest, the small package of vinegar I received as a gift when I visited the Tianli exhibition hall has almost run out.

Many customers were ordering takeout, but Chen Zhou didn't try to cut costs on that.

But when he sees the same brand, he always feels like he's caught a sheep and can fleece it as much as he wants.

However, the manufacturers' promotional activities and their customers are actually a two-way selection process, a mutually beneficial affair.

Fortunately, this time I probably won't have to make a separate trip.

Tianli Vinegar Factory was quite far from his home, but Chen Zhou had the phone number of their sales manager.

You can contact the other party when you go to work on Monday.

To-do list +1.

(End of this chapter)