"It’s really great that Master Qin has this intention. Now I need to talk about the second urgent matter, which is the business hours of Huang Ji."
"Master Huang, I think there’s no issue with the lunch hours, but the evening hours are indeed a bit too short," Team leader Cao said, looking at Huang Shengli.
Huang Shengli remained silent.
The last time Huang Ji adjusted the business hours was because of "Taste."
"Since we’ve now established a rule to limit the quantity of guo’er, I can estimate the daily sales volume of guo’er based on the business hours and the customer flow of the past few days."
"Considering that guo’er’s preparation time is much longer than regular snacks, I think we can gradually extend the business hours starting tomorrow, initially increasing to 9 o’clock, and the day after... "
"Extend the ordering time to around 10 p.m.," Huang Shengli interrupted Manager Cao, "Stop taking orders at ten, close at eleven. Maintain the lunch hours as they are, with orders stopping at 1:30 p.m., to ensure the kitchen chefs have enough time to prepare."
Being at Huang Ji for so many years, capable of calculating the customer flow and serving quantity, of course, Huang Shengli can too.
"Ten is the limit. Even if Qin Huai and I can stabilize the guo’er serving after ten, the rest of the kitchen can’t keep up with such a large serving demand."
Team leader Cao quickly jotted this down in the notebook.
Huang Shengli looked at Qin Huai again: "Xiao Qin, you don’t need to work that late. You can start work at 4:30 p.m. and finish by 8 p.m. at your pace. But since you’re working in the evening, make sure to rest well at noon. I’ll have Gong Liang set up a VIP rest room at the Bone Setting Shop, so after lunch every day, you can go there to take a nap and recharge your energy."
Qin Huai understood what Huang Shengli meant. Guo’er, unlike other snacks, can be repeatedly steamed, and the taste when re-steamed is not much different from when it’s freshly made.
As a novel snack with an apple dough ball as its prototype, guo’er is steamed until cooked after shaping, and then it gets colored before serving. When served at the right temperature, it’s ready to eat directly.
After coloring, it’s left to cool, and when the customer orders, it gets steamed for a few minutes, which still tastes good.
Indeed, the making of guo’er is quite complicated, and there are few in Huang’s Kitchen who can assist Qin Huai.
For kneading dough, a standard dumpling dough is required for guo’er- firm but not entirely consistent, slightly adjusted based on the characteristic of the snack.
In this matter, even Zheng Siyuan couldn’t help. Zheng Siyuan knows how to knead dumpling dough, but it doesn’t mean he can knead guo’er dough; he hasn’t even learned the big spoon stir-frying technique, so he won’t practice guo’er.
The filling is made by Huang Shengli. Just to mention, for the big spoon stir-frying required for the filling, other than Huang Shengli, no one else in Huang Ji or the entire Gusu region can manage it.
Shaping is relatively simple, but only in comparison.
If any chef could master shaping dumplings in a few days, it wouldn’t become the epitome of top-level pastry snacks.
What? You said Qin Huai picked it up without even practicing for days?
To this, Zheng Siyuan can only say that people’s abilities are not uniform.
Breaking down the steps of making guo’er, the only parts that helpers can assist with, apart from the simple steaming if you have hands and feet, is the final coloring.
Coloring is easy, as long as you have hands.
But guo’er requires special coloring.
Many in Huang’s Kitchen feel that guo’er’s design compared to apple dough balls is two extremes, one is extreme aesthetics, and the other is violent ugliness.
The former requires aesthetic and artistic skills, as does the latter.
When Qin Huai occasionally makes guo’er, some enthusiastic colleagues in Huang’s Kitchen tried, but no one could make guo’er look uglier than Qin Huai did.
Xu Cheng emphasized in the article that guo’er’s design is repulsively ugly, outrageously so.
If the guo’er served doesn’t look ugly enough, how will you handle customer disappointment?
Wouldn’t that be false advertising?
The meeting among the three of Qin Huai lasted for over an hour, with Huang Shengli and Team leader Cao discussing while Qin Huai listened on the side.
The current management strategy of Huang Ji is simple.
Grasp the customer base, retain the customer base, and achieve renewed greatness.
"Taste" publishes today; domestic customers can arrive quickly by noon or evening, while international customers might take until tomorrow or the day after.
It can be expected that the entire January to the Lunar New Year, Huang Ji will be packed, long queues are entirely foreseeable.
And at that time, queuing won’t be like the past few days of minor playing around, queuing a hundred or two hundred meters just to buy buns.
By then, all those queuing will be dining-in customers, and long queue times from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. is not impossible.
Both Huang Shengli and Team leader Cao still remember, the first time Huang Ji featured in "Taste" years ago, due to lack of experience, they didn’t strictly control queue numbers and business hours, causing many customers to queue overnight to taste Huang Shengli’s dishes. Even when it was two or three a.m. and Huang Ji had closed, crowds still stretched outside.
The subsequent scalpers, queue jumping, arguing, and fighting situations need no further mention.
Why are today’s customers of Huang Ji and the surrounding neighbors so adept at handling any unexpected incidents arising from queuing and ready to enforce justice?