Food: Selling Boxed Meals at a Construction Site

Just as Xu An expected, by noon the next day, Delicious Restaurant’s banner at the construction site had changed: "Delicious Restaurant, eight yuan for three dishes and a soup."

Xu An’s response was to add another main dish option. The two choices were braised chicken and a steamed pork patty with preserved mustard greens, and customers could pick one when getting their meal.

The change was minor, but the effect was immediate.

Before, the restaurant only had one main dish. Customers had to eat whatever Xu An’s side was serving, with no other options.

Now, with another main dish available, those who didn’t like the braised chicken could have the steamed pork patty with preserved mustard greens, and vice versa. This gave the diners a new choice.

A large crowd of workers was led over to Delicious Restaurant. More people stayed to eat there today than yesterday, barely managing to fill the place.

Although Jin Dayong wasn’t entirely satisfied with the foot traffic, he knew that you eat a meal one bite at a time and win over customers little by little. He couldn’t rush it.

After eating at Delicious Restaurant, a few workers thought it wasn’t bad and started discussing whether they should eat there from now on.

By walking just a hundred meters more, they could get a free tea egg. The food itself wasn’t any different from Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant, so what did it matter where they ate?

Just as they were discussing this, they ran into Qiao Xingguo, who was just leaving Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant after lunch.

Qiao Xingguo had a look of pure satisfaction as he discussed the day’s meal with his wife.

"That braised chicken today was amazing. I could eat a whole bowl of rice with just the sauce."

"The potatoes in the braised chicken were delicious too—so flavorful and filling. But I bet that steamed pork patty with preserved mustard greens was just as good. I saw other people eating it, and it smelled incredible."

The workers who had just eaten at Delicious Restaurant overheard the couple’s conversation and were bewildered. ’Wait a minute, wasn’t Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant serving the steamed pork patty with preserved mustard greens today?’

They had seen the flyer; today’s special was the pork patty. ’So where did this braised chicken come from?’

The men hurried over and stopped Qiao Xingguo to ask him about it.

The moment Qiao Xingguo saw which direction they were coming from, he knew they had eaten at Delicious Restaurant and immediately grew smug.

"You guys ate at Delicious Restaurant, so you wouldn’t know! HAHA! Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant is offering two meat dishes now. Today was braised chicken and the steamed pork patty with preserved mustard greens. You can pick one, whichever you like."

The men were stunned. If they’d known Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant had braised chicken, they would have taken the free tea egg and come straight back to eat.

’Such deep regret!’

The men immediately made up their minds. From now on, they would first check what Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant was serving, *then* go over to Delicious Restaurant to collect their free tea eggs!

Meanwhile, the on-site strategy was a resounding success, and meal box orders increased to one-and-a-half times their previous volume.

But the surge in orders brought another problem: the restaurant was now short-staffed.

Previously, they had about one hundred meal box orders a day, and three people could just barely handle the deliveries.

Now that the number had increased to over 150, each of the three delivery people was responsible for more than fifty orders. Forget about whether they could physically make all the deliveries; their vehicles couldn’t even hold that many boxes!

’Looks like I need to change my business strategy,’ Xu An thought. ’First, I have to upgrade the equipment!’

The pedal-powered tricycles needed to be replaced with electric ones. He also needed to add canopies for protection from the wind and rain, preventing them from being grounded on rainy days.

Second, the delivery containers needed an upgrade. Until now, they had been using simple styrofoam boxes, which were neither secure nor professional.

Drawing on his knowledge of delivery boxes from the future, Xu An commissioned a merchant to custom-make ten of them. Each box could hold up to fifteen meals.

The outer shell was waterproof and washable, making it easy to keep clean. The inside was insulated, so they wouldn’t have to worry about the food getting cold, regardless of the season.

Finally, it was time for a major hiring initiative. Xu An delegated this task to Old Han, asking him to find students at the college who wanted to work—either to earn some money part-time or simply to experience having a job.

Once the students were recruited, Old Han would serve as their team leader and receive an additional fixed salary of two hundred yuan.

Since orders were placed by phone or QQ messenger with cash on delivery, Xu An worried that a dishonest person might just run off with a delivery box and all the collected money.

Therefore, part-timers would first have to come to Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant and leave their ID card as collateral. In return, they would receive a delivery box and an order for ten meal boxes. After completing the deliveries, they would return to the restaurant to get paid and return the box, at which point they could retrieve their ID.

The final problem was the distance. Xu’s Fast Food Restaurant was a twenty-minute trip from the Hai City Library construction site. If part-timers started their deliveries from the restaurant, each could only make one or two runs before the lunch period was over.

The two newly purchased electric tricycles were the solution.

Every day, once the meal boxes were ready, they would be transported in bulk by the electric tricycles to the entrance of the Hai City Library construction site. All the delivery riders would pick up the meals from this central point to begin their deliveries.

This way, as long as the part-timers were quick on their feet, each could be guaranteed to deliver at least thirty orders over the lunch hour.

With these changes, Xu An no longer had to worry about order volume growing too fast. He could even expand the delivery radius by another 300 meters.

Old Han was incredibly effective. In a single afternoon, he recruited five young men for Xu An. They were all students from Hai City Nautical College and had a decent knowledge of the local area, which made training them easier.

At 11:30 AM, Xu An and Xu Heping each mounted an electric tricycle. Following behind them were six riders, each with a delivery box secured to the back of their own bike. The tops and sides of the boxes were printed with the large words "Xu’s Fast Food," creating a rather impressive sight.

They turned countless heads wherever they went.

After arriving at the entrance of the Hai City Library construction site and parking at their temporary stall, Xu An pulled out a notebook and started assigning tasks.

Orders of less than ten meals were to be delivered by a single person, while orders of ten or more were assigned to two or three riders.

Led by Old Han, the six riders each took their assigned orders and scattered in all directions, disappearing into the bustling crowds.

In 2012, food delivery services were just beginning to expand, and most people were still unfamiliar with the concept of a delivery industry.

The sudden appearance of these six riders in the city piqued the curiosity of many.

While most people simply treated it as a topic for idle chatter, the sight planted a seed in many of their minds.

There was a place called Xu’s Fast Food, and they delivered.

Delivering meal boxes alongside Old Han was his roommate, who had been completely absorbed in video games since the start of summer break, having the time of his life.

Old Han couldn’t bear to see his roommate so carefree, so he sold him a pipe dream. He claimed that for just two hours of work a day, his roommate could earn over a hundred yuan—an opportunity too good to pass up.

His simple-minded roommate naturally fell for it and eagerly tagged along with Old Han to become a rider.

However, after finishing their first delivery run of the day, he realized something wasn’t right.

One run took the two of them fifteen minutes, and they could deliver a maximum of twenty meal boxes. That came out to ten yuan, or five yuan each.

Over two hours, they could make eight runs at most, delivering a total of 160 boxes. That added up to eighty yuan, which was only forty yuan per person. ’Where was the "earn over a hundred" he was promised?!’

Besides, the total number of orders for the day was less than 160, and that had to be split among six people. That came out to just twelve and a half yuan each.

For the first time in his life, Old Han’s roommate felt so openly deceived.

"Well, tell me this: was lunch delicious or not?" Old Han asked, completely unfazed by his roommate’s accusation.

"It was," his roommate admitted. He thought back on the meal and couldn’t help but smack his lips. Lunch had been genuinely delicious.

"So there you have it. You get a free lunch and earn over ten yuan for two hours of work. What’s so bad about that?"

Then, Old Han continued to sell him the dream.

"When I first started here, we only had seventy or eighty orders a day. In just two or three days, that number has doubled. The orders are only going to keep piling up. You’d better not be the one complaining when we have too many to handle."

Hearing this, his roommate nodded. He had to admit, Old Han had a point. He even began to worry about what they would do when they eventually had too many orders to deliver.