(62) Restaurant's Opening

Two days later, Lin Yiyi’s restaurant, “Number One”, was complete.

She had originally expected the time frame to be summer time when her two children were on summer vacation when all was said and done. The efficiency of the construction team surprised her.

Before its grand opening, Ms. Lin Ping had contracted an experienced advertisement company to plan a set of advertising activities for her daughter’s restaurant. 

They first advertised it online, showing the restaurant’s overall environment and the sumptuous-looking specialty dishes. Naturally, the dessert after the main meal was also an important selling point.

At the same time, they have also announced the date of the grand opening and the promotion activities during the first week in WeChat and some food apps. 

Buy one get one free.

All the fans online reposted it to their own friend group circles and also asked their friends and relatives to like them. 

When the post had over 50 likes, they would offer free desserts and beverages in addition to the promotions.

They fully took advantage of human’s greed for little perks.

Either way you looked at it, it was a good deal. Buy one get one free was already equivalent to 50% off. And, there would be free desserts and beverages on top of that.

Everybody made their mental notes on the grand opening date. 

The promotion activities would go on for the entire first week; they could visit any time during the week.

If it wasn’t for Ms. Lin Ping, Lin Yiyi would never be able to come up with all these ideas.

That being said, the outcome was very obvious.

They had quite a bit of customers since day one.

The restaurant was divided into two stories. Including the kitchen, the total area was almost 700 square feet with 25 4-people tables and 16 2-people tables.

Meaning, the maximum number of guests they could have at the same time was 132, and some of the 4-people table only had 2-3 individuals. 

Once the restaurant was full, all the customers that were not able to get seated would have to wait outside. 

They never expected a line out the door on the very first day.

Lin Yiyi was exhausted after the first round.

All the advertisements and promotional activities were just to get the name out. They didn’t expect to make money from it. 

Except that, with the first day being so busy, relatively speaking, their preparation work seemed to be a little lacking.

Lin Yiyi had the shop manager go and looked for some folding chairs in the afternoon. This way, the customers who were waiting would be able to wait sitting down.

She had noticed some customers who had left after they saw the line.

Some of them had lost their patience halfway through the line.

Lin Yiyi had the servers prepared more beverages and served them to the customers who were still waiting in line.

These were all minor things, but they tend to work very well in retaining most of the potential customers.

The patrons were not yet familiar with the restaurant, but as long as they have a good feeling about it, next time when they had to make a decision between two restaurants, they’d naturally lean toward the one that gave them the good feeling.

Lin Yiyi was also very confident in her cooking skills.

As long as the patrons came in and tried out their food, she trusted that even after the hype of the promotional activities were gone after a week, she would have earned a fair share of returning patrons.

When patrons walked into the restaurant, they were just there to try it out, so most of them would order a couple dishes from the Chef’s Recommendation list.

The Chef’s Recommendation list was put together carefully by Lin Yiyi. Those items must maintain a minimum level of quality.

And the result was obvious.

 After trying the first couple dishes, a lot of the patrons added more to their orders.

Why was it that the food industry was such a big thing in China?

Because there were a lot of foodies!

After the first day came to a close, Lin Yiyi and the shop manager calculated their earnings for the day.

Even after the huge promotion and subtracting the expenses, they had still made a very sizable profit!

The shop manager stroked his chin and said, “This was a pretty good profit compared to the other restaurants nearby. Once we return to our regular prices, we only need to have a promotion from time to time.”

The shop manager was one of the ones that Ms. Lin Ping had poached from another restaurant.

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