The Restaurant Opens Again

Arjun was currently surveying the restaurant, during the time it was closed its interior condition had gotten a lot worse, rats were running around, the walls were entirely covered with spiderwebs, the floor was covered with dust.

Seeing this a normal businessman would hire a cleaning crew to clean the place but right now Arjun could not afford that. Therefore he started cleaning the place by himself, he cleaned the place in a few hours.

After cleaning you would normally do pest control seeing the number of rats and insects but Arjun could not afford to do full pest control, he cleaned the insects and shooed away the rats, after that he scattered some bay leaves around to make sure that rats would not come in his shop. It was lucky that he was in India after all that was the only reason that he could open the restaurant at this condition at all if he had been in any other country he would have been fined heavily or even potentially jailed for this.

It was not like that his customers were some rich people who had never even stepped on dirt. His customers were ordinary working people and they did not mind such stuff as long as the food was delicious, it did not mean that it was an excuse to keep a filthy establishment.

After the cleaning had been completed, he started checking up on the kitchen equipment, before shutting his shop he had made sure to check the condition of the equipment and store them in the proper recommended way, therefore it did not take a lot of time for him to set up the equipment.

Now only the most important part was left the ingredients. First, he made the list of all the ingredients that he would need, currently, he had decided that he would start with a limited menu, therefore, the ingredients he needed was not a lot.

He first went around the neighbourhood shops asking the price of the ingredients that he would need, after which he opened the web and checked the rate of the ingredients on the regular web, after which he noted all the prices, after this, he opened the system app that was on his phone and started seeing the prices of the ingredients.

He found that that the difference was not that much between the regular web and the system web, even though the system was a little bit cheaper, however, he found that the prices of vegetables and fruits differed by a lot, between the system and the regular web. While some vegetables were a little bit pricier and the same, most of them were a lot cheaper not to mention fresher.

Arjun placed an order for the ingredients, he ordered enough to last him for seven days (based on the number of customers he wanted to receive) to qualify for the bulk discount and the free shipping.

He was informed that his order would arrive in 3 hours, Arjun was surprised by this it was none of that estimated time bullshit it gave an exact arrival now the only thing was to watch whether it would arrive on time or not.

Surprisingly the order arrived instantly on time, and he could even track the location of the order after the delivery had been dispatched in real-time. My god if only the online sellers figure out how to do this and they might have a chance at replacing actual brick and mortar sales.

Arjun received the order and started inspecting the ingredients that had arrived, after inspecting he was even more shocked than he had expected to be. Every single vegetable was in the perfect condition, it was neither too ripe not too raw just perfect for cooking, the vegetables also looked like they had been grown organically, there was no smell of pesticides or chemical on them, they smelled only like dirt. The flour was very plain and smooth and after touching it felt like that it had been ground on a stone mill instead of an industrial processor, the sheer smell managed to daze Arjun, the oil tasted very pure and like it had been cold-pressed and every other ingredient was the best possible it could be.

Arjun was very pleased with this, the ingredients of this quality were not even something that chefs of 5-star hotels got to cook with. If he could not figure out a way to beat a shitty fast-food chain restaurant with this, then he would have nobody to blame but himself.

Arjun experimented a little bit with some different recipes and made some changes.

It was 10 P.M. by the time Arjun left the restaurant, by this time he had fixed the menu for tomorrow and was ready to open his shop. After he reached home, Arjun had not realised just how tired he was, as soon he sat on the bed, he instantly slept. The next day Arjun woke up with a very hungry belly.

Arjun arrived at the restaurant by 7 A.M. and started doing the prep work. By 8 A.M. he was ready to open his shop. Arjun sat on the counter, after some time four college students came and sat down. Arjun recognized these students they used to be his regulars and it seemed that they had not forgotten about him.

The students asked Arjun where he had been, to which Arjun just gave an obligatory response. After which they placed their order. After Arjun took their order he went to the kitchen and quickly prepared the food.

After a little while, Arjun came out from the kitchen and served the students what they had ordered. The students started eating their respective dishes. As soon as they took their first bite they were shocked, the flavour of the dishes was very outstanding, it seemed that flavour was bursting from each ingredient, the students quickly started eating chowing down the food.

Before they could even realise it the students had finished their dishes, they were shocked by this, they called Arjun and ordered a repeat of everything they had ordered. Arjun went in quickly again and prepared the dishes and served them to the students, the students were again astonished by the flavour of the dishes, the first time can be a coincidence but not the second time.

After they had eaten, the boys went up to the register and asked Arjun for their bill. Arjun quickly did the total and told them the amount. The total bill came to Rs. 500 which the boys paid gladly. They were even surprised that it was even this cheap.

One of the boys asked Arjun,

"Brother you have certainly improved the quality of your dishes and it seems that you have not even increased your prices, you must have been in some sort of secret training while your shop was closed huh"

Arjun was amused by this and gave a smile.

The boy continued " Your dishes were just delicious I am going to have my breakfast hear only from now on."

Arjun replied "Thank you for the compliment, and please do return"

After this, some time passed and Arjun received few more customers and his interaction with them was pretty much exactly like above.

Arjun was very pleased by this, who knew if they would come to eat at his shop every day only time could tell. Like this, the first day passed.

His sales for today had amounted to Rs. 10,000 and after deducting the cost of all the ingredients and other expenses he figured that he made a profit of at least Rs. 1000 today.

Arjun was very pleased by this even if it was not a lot it was a very good start.

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It was the next day, Arjun went to the restaurant at his regular time. After some time, the boys from yesterday had shown up once again but today they seemed to be six. They all sat down and gave their orders. Arjun made the orders and served them to the customers. After eating his dishes all six boys seemed very content and praised his dishes very much, and after they had paid their bill and started walking away, Arjun could faintly hear one of them loudly laughing and telling the others that they should be thankful to him for bringing them to this place.

Arjun was once again amused by this.

As the day passed Arjun observed that he received a little more customers than yesterday and he was pleased by this. And at the end of the day, his sales for today was Rs. 12,000 meaning his sales had increased by a margin.

Arjun was very happy by this since this meant that he was growing even if by little.

Soon as the week passed Arjun continually opened the restaurant and soon more and more people started coming to his restaurants. And his sales had reached a high of Rs. 20,000 per day.

Arjun was very happy and continued working even on Sunday.

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POV Change-

Abhay had recently joined the fast-food chain as a Manager in their newest location in Kothrud, it was an area with lots of potential, there were many office buildings around, and many colleges meaning that there would always be an influx of foot traffic in front of there shop. And this seemed like a perfect place for a fast-food restaurant, they could food get food quickly and have it for breakfast and the chain even made packaging that made it possible to eat even while walking.

But the restaurant would have some competition, there some old restaurants in the place already but these would not likely be a problem. Most of the foot traffic density was young and the young people now overwhelmingly preferred fast food.

Therefore he was confident in their success, at first they had a little problem finding their footing but soon they got rolling smoothly and now after some months they had the majority of the market share, to the extent that some shops had even gone bankrupt and closed their restaurants.

Abhay was very pleased by this since this meant that they would not have any competition for the future. In fact, they were doing so well that there were lines outside the restaurant during lunch hour. But in the past few days, Abhay had noticed that there were no longer any lines outside the restaurant during lunch hours, the restaurant was still full though but it did cause some worry to Abhay after all he knew how fickle the food business was.

Therefore he tried to find out the cause for this, after some painstaking research, Abhay found out that the reason was that one of the restaurants they had put out of business had once again opened his restaurant and it seemed like the restaurant was doing very well. His customers were increasing day by day.

Abhay was a little a surprised by this, therefore he had decided to see what was going on.

The time was 12:30 P.M. and the day was Monday. Abhay was currently in front of the revived restaurant, he went in and saw a man behind the counter.

As soon as the man saw Abhay coming he got outside the counter.

Abhay went to the man and asked him where the owner of the restaurant was.

The man replied "My name is Arjun, and I am the owner. May I know how may I help you"

After listening to Arjun, Abhay greeted Arjun and said " Oh, so you are the owner, it's nothing I thought that I should just introduce myself. See I am the manager of the fast-food restaurant in front of your shop. So hello, neighbour"

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