Reborn in 1977

Time flies, and in the blink of an eye, it's September 1st.

After waiting for more than a week, the thruster parts ordered by the water transport company still hadn't arrived. Seeing that the cooked food workshop was about to open, Chen Fan had no choice but to go to the county to preside over the opening of the cooked food store.

In a triple room at the Gufeng County Passenger Terminal Guest House, Chen Fan woke up on time at 6:00 AM, turned over and sat up. Looking out the window, a Dongfanghong (East is Red) small passenger ship was docked at the terminal, and some passengers were boarding and disembarking.

The Dongfanghong large passenger ships run the entire Yangtze River route, generally with four floors, plus a top deck, which also has rooms, including the super dormitory on the bottom floor, which is mainly used for long-distance passengers.

These small passenger ships mostly have only two floors and mainly run short or branch lines. There are generally no berths on the ship, only rows of seats. However, unless standing becomes unbearable, most passengers will lean on the railings, and only return to their seats when they are tired of standing.

Many people on both sides of the Yangtze River who want to take a large passenger ship must first take a small passenger ship to a large terminal to transfer. Therefore, there are many more of these small passenger ships than large ones.

Fortunately, although Gufeng County is not a large terminal, thanks to its proximity to the Yangtze River and the insufficient number of berths at the Yunhu Passenger Terminal, several large passenger ships still stop here.

This has become the reason for the people of Gufeng County to consider it a large terminal.

Even though this "large terminal" is only a few streets long.

At this time, all passenger ships on the Yangtze River are named Dongfanghong, and are distinguished by numbers indicating which local ferry company they belong to. Unfortunately, no one taught Chen Fan how to identify the numbers. Zhang Wenliang and Anquan didn't understand either, so he could only watch the excitement.

However, he didn't have much time to watch the excitement.

Anquan came in from outside with a washbasin, yawning and saying, "Even washing your face and brushing your teeth requires queuing, such a waste of time."

Chen Fan turned to look at him, "Who told you not to get a single room? Single rooms have private toilets. You can stay in there all night and no one will care."

"That's for diarrhea, okay."

Anquan put the washbasin on the rack and hung the towel on the wire, and said unhappily, "Although the room fee is reimbursed by the team, we should save as much as possible. It's not too late to be extravagant when we make money in the future."

Then he slapped the bulging quilt on the middle bed, "Hey Hu Zi, are you a lazy cat? Get up."

Zhang Wenliang stretched out his hands, and with a "poof", lifted the quilt open, sat up and asked dazedly, "What time is it?"

In order to prepare for today's opening, they had been busy with the female workers in the cooked food workshop until after 10 PM last night before returning to the guest house. After returning, they took a shower, talked about things, and rested very late.

Anquan stretched out his watch and handed it to him, "See? 6:12."

Zhang Wenliang blinked, staring blankly at him, "What time does the store open?"

Anquan made a gesture, "8 o'clock."

Zhang Wenliang was very speechless, "Of course I know it's 8 o'clock. I'm asking you, the store opens at 8 o'clock, it's only 6:12 now, why did you wake me up so early?"

Anquan said righteously, "I can't sleep, the opening is about to happen, can you sleep?"

Zhang Wenliang's head slowly drooped, gently rubbed his face, and sighed helplessly, "I'm going to wash my face."

At this time, those who could sleep couldn't sleep anymore.

Chen Fan chuckled aside, but didn't move.

Anquan immediately aimed at him, "Why aren't you getting up yet?"

Chen Fan smiled and said, "The opening isn't until 8 o'clock, what's the rush."

Having said that, he still got out of bed slowly, stretched, and then started practicing the Eight Brocades exercise.

Now it was Anquan's turn to be speechless. After a while, he looked at him and said, "You don't seem worried at all?"

After several days of training, all 30 female workers successfully passed the training and graduated, even the salespersons and alternates were no exception.

Unfortunately, only 18 people are needed here for the time being, and the remaining 12 can only stay in Lujiawan... to serve the Nanhu Cooked Food Store.

Wasn't it the day when they made braised chicken for the first time that Secretary Yang and the others took the finished chicken and giblets to the town to promote them? Unexpectedly, the effect was surprisingly good. All the goods were sold out after only visiting 3 units.

Not only that, relying on the braised chicken and giblets, Secretary Yang and Captain Zhang joined forces to get the qualification to open a store in the town from Secretary Qian. Then, they urgently mobilized their circle of friends and rented a house near the crossroads in the town that day as a store.

Unfortunately, the house is a bit old and is still being renovated today.

Therefore, the sales situation of the cooked food store here is directly related to the overall development of the cooked food business in Lujiawan. If the start is not smooth, it will be a big trouble.

Although there are now many live poultry order customers, the contracts signed do not have any breach of contract provisions.

Mainly because people don't pay attention to these things at this time, otherwise there wouldn't be so many messy things a few years later.

So, people can refuse if they don't want it. The breeding industry in Lujiawan still needs a stable sales channel that it can hold in its own hands.

This is also the main reason why Chen Fan proposed building a cooked food workshop, and Secretary Yang and the others resolutely decided to support it.

This is such an important matter, how could you, Teacher Chen, not care?

Chen Fan finished a set of movements, and suddenly felt refreshed. He smiled and said, "Everything that can be done has been done. As the saying goes, place your bets and take your chances. Let's see what the result is."

The corner of Anquan's eye twitched slightly, and he pointed at him helplessly, "Your biggest problem is that you are outspoken. You even said 'place your bets and take your chances'. If people hear you, you can just wait to suffer."

Although the limelight has passed, there are still some people who "miss the past". They are like toads crawling on shoe uppers, they don't bite but they annoy you.

After a pause, before Chen Fan could speak, Anquan chuckled and said, "But then again, that's really the truth. Okay, after hearing what you said, I don't seem nervous anymore."

Chen Fan then smiled and said, "I'm not stupid, there are only two of us in this room, can you still sue me?"

Anquan was about to speak, but Chen Fan chuckled again, "Even if you sue me, I won't admit it!"

Hearing this, Anquan was even more helpless.

Chen Fan smiled and continued, "Okay, I'll tell you something to put your mind at ease."

He said mysteriously, "Do you know why I insist on setting the opening time at 8 o'clock every day?"

Anquan's eyes moved slightly, "Why?"

The working hours of various units in summer are 7:30, and in winter it is 8:00, but residents generally start buying groceries from 6:30. When Chen Fan determined the opening time yesterday, he directly set it at 8:00, which may lose a large number of potential consumers.

He was too busy yesterday to ask, and he was thinking of finding some time to ask today, but he didn't expect Chen Fan to bring it up himself.

Could there be some secret in this?

Chen Fan smiled slightly and said, "The first is to give the Commercial Bureau and the Farmers' Market Management Company some face. Opening later can show our attitude, which is that we are not competing with them for business. We only sell our own cooked food. This way, even if our cooked food store becomes extremely popular in the future and affects their business, they will have no reason to vent their anger on us."

Quan An nodded thoughtfully, "That makes sense."

Then he looked at Chen Fan, "If there's one, there's two. What else?"

Chen Fan turned and pointed to the pier outside the window, "Look, what is that?"

Quan An looked in the direction he was pointing, "A passenger ship, what else could it be..."

Before he could finish speaking, Quan An suddenly realized, "8 o'clock, there's a large ship docking at 8 o'clock!"

Chen Fan chuckled, "Exactly."

He looked out the window and said with a smile, "The Dongfanghong 49 is coming from Chongqing and is destined for Shanghai. The entire voyage takes 4 days. Do you think they will come ashore to take a look during the half-hour stop here?"

(Dongfanghong No. 49 passenger ship. The time is made up by me, don't take it seriously)

Quan An's eyes lit up, and he nodded sharply, "They will."

Chen Fan smiled and said, "There are over a thousand people on a ship. Even if one-third of them get off the ship, and half of those people buy something..."

Quan An immediately said, "That's still two hundred people. At this time, our cooked food store's steaming hot food has just come out of the pot. Even if only half of them come to buy..."

He said, widening his eyes, "I'm afraid we won't have enough to sell!"

Chen Fan shrugged, "If we don't have enough to sell, we'll just keep making it. Otherwise, why would I hire 12 chefs? This pier has 4 large ships and a dozen small ships every day. At least 2,000 passengers disembark to visit every day. Staying here is like guarding a treasure trove. Are you still worried about bad business?"

Hearing this, Quan An smiled like an idiot, shaking his head repeatedly, "Not worried, not worried."

Chen Fan chuckled, tore off the towel from the wire, and picked up the cup on the bedside table, "I'm going to wash my face and brush my teeth."

Thinking about a few years later, when the first private restaurant in the capital opened, it didn't even have a business license. Because of a lack of ingredients, it only made a dozen ducks, the kind of braised ducks with a very ordinary taste, but they were snapped up as soon as it opened.

His restaurant was only in a small alley, and it still had such good business just relying on the neighbors. Now, the cooked food store is located next to such a large pier, and the other two stores in the county are also located in residential and commercial areas. If we still can't sell our food, then that would be a real miracle!

After Chen Fan finished washing up, the three of them leisurely left the guesthouse.

Zhang Wenliang looked at Quan An, "Why do I think you're not worried anymore?"

Quan An turned to look at him, "Worried? Who's worried?"

Zhang Wenliang was immediately choked speechless.

Chen Fan looked left and right and walked straight to the breakfast shop next door, muttering to himself, in later generations, places related to passenger transport basically don't have good food. I wonder if there will be any difference in this era?

Soon, they entered the breakfast shop. The ordering area was at the entrance.

The cashier sat listlessly on a chair, with a table with two drawers in front of her. On the table were meal tickets arranged horizontally, similar to food stamps, with the names of different foods printed on them. Behind the table, a blackboard hung on the wall, naturally with the menu written on it.

Chen Fan glanced at it a few times and started ordering, "Comrade, I want an oil pancake, two youdunzi, three sweet potato cakes, a fried dumpling, and a bowl of tofu pudding."

Quan An muttered behind him, "Except for the tofu pudding, everything is oily. You really know how to eat, and you eat so much."

If it were 20 years later, that last sentence would probably become "Aren't you afraid of getting internal heat?", but now people lack oil, so these fried foods naturally become "high-end goods", which is why Quan An said "You really know how to eat".

The oil pancake doesn't need explanation. Youdunzi is similar to jiaoquan in the capital, but it's much more delicious. Jiaoquan is just a shrunken version of fried dough sticks, but youdunzi can be sweet, salty, meaty, or vegetarian. The sweet ones are mostly filled with red bean paste, the vegetarian ones are filled with shredded radish, and the meaty ones are naturally meat. They are mixed with batter and then fried in hot oil.

Some places' youdunzi have a hole in the middle, and some are a whole youdunzi. No matter what shape they are, the taste can be described in one sentence: crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, delicious.

Sweet potato cakes are also very simple. First, cut the sweet potatoes into small pieces, then mix them with batter, use a small strainer to make them into a cake shape, and put them in a frying pan to fry.

The batter on the outside is salty and crispy, while the sweet potato inside is sweet, soft, glutinous, and fragrant, still delicious.

The last fried dumpling is not an ordinary dumpling, but a large dumpling bigger than a palm, filled with chopped vermicelli, or chives, celery, pickled mustard greens, or even mixed meat filling, and then fried in a frying pan.

The taste is still two words, delicious!

Pay for the tickets, then line up at the pick-up window to get the food, take the plate and find an empty table to sit down, and Chen Fan starts eating.

He wolfed down the food, and it all went into his stomach.

Chen Fan smacked his lips, felt it for a moment, and the evaluation was that it was authentic and unique in taste.

It really can't be compared to the passenger station assassins of later generations.

Quan An was okay. Although he was a fat man, he didn't eat much. Zhang Wenliang, like Chen Fan, practiced martial arts, so he was a bottomless pit when it came to eating, but due to the limitations of his wallet, he could only order the same set meal as Teacher Chen.

After eating and drinking their fill, the three of them slowly crossed the river embankment and walked down the slope, and soon arrived at "Luwan Cooked Food Store."

Luwan, needless to say, is naturally taken from the three characters of Lujiawan.

At this time, the store door was already open, and two salespersons were wearing clean and tidy blue work clothes and white sanitary caps, repeatedly wiping the counter.

Chen Fan walked to the door and stopped, looking at the overall environment.

The storefront was about 4 meters wide, and the lintel was a wooden plaque with the words "Luwan Cooked Food Store" written by Secretary Yang himself, and then carved by the town's craftsmen. Chen Fan then threw it into the kiln for carbonization treatment, which made it look particularly high-end compared to the surrounding store signs.

The store was about 5 meters deep, and two-thirds of the area was occupied by a circle of glass counters, leaving only a passage about 1.5 meters wide to enter, where you could observe the products in the counter, and finally check out at the cashier inside.

Throughout the process, the salesperson would pick up the goods for the customer, so as to ensure food safety as much as possible, and only after checkout would the salesperson wrap it in oiled paper and give it to the customer.

In fact, it is the most common cooked food store model in later generations.

However, the counters are now empty, with only shiny ceramic plates waiting for the cooked food workshop to deliver the goods.