The Cheat Emperor of the Culinary World

In order to promote the newly introduced BBQ dishes at the restaurant, the leadership team tried every method they could think of.

The results have been quite significant, with a large number of customers placing orders over the weekend.

Zhao Meng hasn’t taken a day off this week, and Fu Yu and Sun Qingning are busy taking turns to do the BBQ. Fortunately, they have Zhang Jinyu assisting in the kitchen, which barely allows them to manage.

On Monday morning, Fu Yu went to work to clock in.

As soon as he pressed his fingerprint, two electronic prompts sounded at the same time:

[Ding! Checked in.]

[Ding! Daily Task: Complete 10 tables of BBQ setups. Task Completion Reward: A key to a special dipping sauce practice class.]

10 tables of BBQ setups?

Isn’t this task a bit hard?

Usually, it’s good enough if we can have two BBQ dishes for one table setup. To fill up a table with dishes, and 10 sets at that?

It seems business at the restaurant is quite good today.

Fu Yu now kind of understands the system’s patterns.

As long as there’s a daily task, there’s definitely an opportunity to complete it on that day.

But as for the reward, isn’t it a bit too modest?

Special dipping sauce?

Whether it’s cooking seafood or making BBQ, dipping sauces are essential accompaniments.

Fu Yu can prepare several types of dipping sauces, all of which he learned from Zhao Meng back in the day.

He didn’t pay much attention then, but now he realizes Zhao Meng had always been warm inside despite his cold exterior.

Fu Yu had been reprimanded by Zhao Meng several times before, but the intentions were always good.

After all, as a chef, anything related to the culinary arts is something you should know about, isn’t it?

The saying ”skills never burden the body” is practically custom-made for the kitchen staff.

But dipping sauce?

What’s there to learn about it?

Fu Yu murmured to himself, then a thought crossed his mind.

Considering the system’s penchant, this special dipping sauce must be just an introductory offer, right?

There will definitely be more advanced cooking skills related to mixology later on.

Thinking of this, Fu Yu couldn’t help feeling a bit anticipatory.

After the routine morning meeting on Monday, Yao Shi gathered everyone in the kitchen.

First, he briefly summarized everyone’s recent work performance in the kitchen, then welcomed the four new employees.

He finally emphasized: ”In the upcoming period, the kitchen will likely be very busy, and the work will be quite tiring. But now is a critical operating period; the BBQ section has just opened and requires some time to be promoted. Establishing a reputation, improving customer satisfaction, and increasing order rates are currently the most important things for the restaurant.”

”The boss also emphasized this point in the meeting today, and to boost everyone’s cooperation and enthusiasm for promoting the BBQ section, the restaurant has set up a new set of order rewards. The kitchen and the front hall must cooperate well...”

The restaurant’s order commission traditionally follows the amount of the table setup for the front hall and the number of setups for the kitchen.

This better encourages order takers to actively push higher-priced dishes to customers and strive to increase the total sales amount of the setup.

The kitchen can also be more motivated and work actively during cooking.

However, this time, the restaurant has linked the interests of the front hall and the kitchen together.

The BBQ order’s commission is calculated separately; as long as the reward standard set by the restaurant is met, the commission can be secured.

To earn the commission, the order takers will surely work hard to promote, while the kitchen needs to put extra effort in grilling to maintain the flavor and spread good word of mouth if they want returning customers.

”Chef Zhao and Chef Gu will certainly be very busy these days, Xiaofu, Xiao Yao, Xiaozhang, and Xiaosun, you must cooperate well with Chef Zhao and Chef Gu to stabilize the BBQ section quickly.”

Zhao Meng and Gu Yunwu haven’t been idle lately, staying in contact and communicating with their regular customers back and forth.

After all, the BBQ section is a new addition for the kitchen, needing to be promoted quickly, spreading word of mouth, and increasing opportunities for exclusive orders for themselves.

However, unlike other places, advertising for a restaurant requires a good reputation first, and excessive promotional activities can have a counterproductive effect.

Most importantly, for the kitchen, no matter how fanciful the words, making the taste of BBQ dishes excellent is the most effective.

Good food is the most powerful advertisement.

Only when customers recognize it and it spreads by word of mouth can the best reputation be gained.

In some aspects, BBQ and regular cooking are similar, but in many ways, they are quite different.

Qianlima primarily specializes in traditional seafood cuisine, and those who come to dine are mostly families gathering, inviting guests for gatherings, and tourists visiting from afar.

Therefore, setups generally feature the restaurant’s signature dishes as the mainstay.

Customers often can name off well-known dishes without needing a recommendation from the order-taker.

BBQ, on the other hand, is different. BBQ, although also quite profitable, hasn’t been developed by the restaurant. Why?

Because BBQ can only be considered a fancy dish on a setup, it can never be the main dish.

No main dish, no setup.

Simply put, even if items like grilled abalone and grilled lobster, which seem quite high-end, are considered BBQ, they can only be regarded as sides.

The kitchen earns primarily from the setup commission.

So if customers order BBQ dishes, the ones replaced can only be other sides, and the main dishes generally remain unchanged.

And for the kitchen to prepare those BBQ dishes, additional manpower needs to be allocated, which is somewhat time-consuming.

The order-takers, however, have no reservations; they can promote whatever dishes they want.

Their concern is how to introduce dishes in a way that prompts customers to order more.

So even though the restaurant has introduced BBQ dishes, order-takers are encouraged to promote them more to customers.

But when actually introducing the dishes, the order-takers will undoubtedly focus on increasing the entire table setup’s price.

As for the dishes, that depends on the customer’s preference.

That’s why the boss decided to set separate standards for BBQ dishes, offering extra commissions, which makes the order-takers very happy.

After all, pushing dishes is based on the customer’s mood, but if they casually mention a dish, they might get an extra reward, which is quite enjoyable.

After the morning’s prep work ended, an order-taker brought the order forms over.

”One dining order form, and two takeaway orders. The takeaways are BBQ orders.”

The arrival of the dining order form signified that the busy, intense work was about to begin.

Following the order sequence, Zhao Meng received one dining order and one takeaway order.

After looking over the order form, he understood why the order-taker said the takeaways were BBQ orders.

The dining order was the restaurant’s usual signature dishes with two BBQ specialties.

But the takeaway orders consisted entirely of BBQ dishes.

The restaurant had already uploaded BBQ dish images to the takeaway website, and the promotional effect turned out to be so good.