How hard can it be to run a breakfast restaurant?

In 1998, I worked as an apprentice in a steamed bun shop in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu for several months. Although I didn’t work for a long time, I still have a deep understanding of the various hardships involved. .

In the summer of 1998, I failed the college entrance examination. After being isolated at home for a period of time, I decided to go to Zhenjiang and seek refuge with my uncle, hoping to find a job with him.

My uncle has been in the braised vegetable business in Zhenjiang markets all year round. He knew many people and quickly helped me contact a steamed stuffed bun restaurant. The owner of the bun shop is from the town next to my hometown, and he has a pretty good relationship with my uncle.

My uncle’s original intention was for me to learn a craft first, and after I mastered it, he would help me find a storefront and let me open my own bun shop. So, I took my bed luggage with me and was sent to that steamed stuffed bun shop by my uncle, where I worked as an apprentice. The store manager took care of my food and accommodation, but I received no salary.

It was winter when I went there. At five o'clock every day, it was still dark outside the house, and Master would wake me up through the bedroom door. After I agreed, I got dressed first, put away the folding bed where I would sleep at night, folded the quilt, and placed it on the table in the stairwell of Master's house.

Then, I quickly unplugged the stove, added some crushed briquettes to the furnace, used a blower to blast the furnace hole, then added water to the large iron pot, and prepared the first step of steaming the buns. step.

After a while, the master and mistress also finished washing one after another. The master took out a large piece of noodles that he had made one night from the noodle vat, put it on the chopping board and kneaded it vigorously, while kneading it. Add alkaline water to the dough. Mixing alkaline water with alkaline water is a technical job. If you add too little, the buns will taste sour. If you add too much, the whole buns will look yellow, making them look unattractive.

After the alkaline water is mixed, someone needs to keep kneading the dough on the chopping board. This is very labor-intensive and cannot be slippery. If the kneading is not done properly and the alkaline water is not kneaded evenly, the steamed buns may be flowery, white and yellow, which is simply damaging your own brand and must not be sold.

So, in the beginning, the master was doing the technical work of mixing alkaline water and kneading dough, and I watched quietly from the side. Later, I would also try to mix alkaline water and knead the dough under the guidance of my master. When I was almost done kneading, the master kneaded it a few more times to finish. To be honest, kneading dough is really physical work and very tiring.

The dough was almost kneaded and the water in the big iron pot was boiling. The master and I started to wrap the stuffing around the buns. At the beginning, I rolled out the buns, and Master and his wife made the buns. At the beginning, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't keep up with the pace of the two of them, and I couldn't supply enough buns for them.

After rolling for a long time, I also mastered certain skills. First, shape the dough into a round shape, and then use the rolling pin at an angle to roll out only the edge of the dough. The dough will slowly rotate with the rolling pin. There is no need to stop and change directions, just roll three times, five times five times, divide two times, and a bun skin is rolled out. Later, I patted the dough into a round shape with my left hand and rolled out the bun wrapper with my right hand. Using both hands at the same time, the rolled out dough was thick in the middle and thin at the edges. I was already practiced at rolling out the dough.

I basically get up at five o'clock every morning. After making the bed, the first thing I do is light the stove. Next, I wait for the master to mix the alkaline water, then knead the dough, roll out the dough, and make buns. When the morning rush hour arrived, my master and I had been busy making steamed buns, shaomai, flower rolls, sugar triangles, etc. The master's wife was in the front responsible for selling buns, bagging them, and collecting money.

Master’s bun shop is very close to the train station. Sometimes before our first basket of buns is steamed, there are passengers who get up early to catch the train and look for the lights to buy buns. There is a nearby chemical factory, which is also a big customer of Master's store. Every morning, people come to buy steamed buns. They buy two large convenience bags, half meat buns and half vegetable buns.

When we really started to get busy, it was between 7 and 8:30 in the morning. Master and I were so busy that we didn’t even have time to wipe the sweat from our foreheads. When the master’s wife was selling buns in front, she would also He often came back to urge us, either because the steamed stuffed buns with meat filling or bean paste filling were gone, and then he would urge us to make shaomai in a hurry.

Master’s shop not only sells steamed buns, but also siomai, Hanamaki steamed dumplings, and soup dumplings, mainly steamed buns. If there are too many steamed buns and steamed dumplings and they are not sold out, the master will pour some oil in the pan and make fried dumplings or raw fried dumplings for sale. In short, they must not be wasted!

After half past eight, there were fewer people buying steamed buns. We had been busy all morning and were already hungry. Although Master’s family sells steamed buns, we rarely eat steamed buns even if we endure hunger. Firstly, we don’t have time, and secondly, we are tired of eating them already! In most cases, Master will ask the proprietress of the noodle shop next door to give one to us. Make a bowl of noodles and occasionally add an egg.

After breakfast, the harder work really started. Master used a steamer to steam the red beans. After the red beans were steamed, he also had to steam the glutinous rice. After the glutinous rice is steamed, it is first put into a large stainless steel basin and set aside for making the siu mai filling.

After both items were steamed, I took the large iron pot off the stove and rinsed it with tap water. Start by scooping the steamed red beans into a plastic rice basket with a water ladle, then put the basket into a large plastic basin with a lot of water, and squeeze the red beans with your hands until they become pureed. , the bean paste will be like sand, leaking into the water from the holes in the basket, and the bean skins in the basket will be poured out directly. After pinching a scoop, repeat the same action.

This job seems easy, but in fact it is very tiring. In winter, my hands are always soaked in cold water. The most important thing is that after holding and kneading a large pot of refried beans with both hands for a long time, I felt that the hands were no longer my own. They were so sore that I couldn't even hold the chopsticks when eating!

The next thing I have to do is to pour out most of the water in the basin, scoop the mashed beans that have settled into the plastic basin into the large iron pot that is stewed on the stove. The master will add a lot of white sugar to the iron pot, and use a big shovel to constantly stir the sugar without stopping, otherwise it will easily stick to the pot. Among all the fillings for steamed buns, bean paste filling has the highest cost, so the master usually does the work of boiling the bean paste. At most, when he first started cooking the bean paste, he would ask me to help him shovel it for a while.

After making the bean paste, the next step is to chop the vegetables. The master will pour the Suzhou greens bought from the vegetable market directly into a large iron pot with boiling water, and wait until the vegetables are cooked. , take it out with a large slotted spoon and put it into a snakeskin bag. After scalding one pot, scald the next pot. After all the vegetables were blanched, I started to knead and squeeze the snakeskin bag until all the excess juice of the vegetables in the snakeskin bag was squeezed out.

Next, I poured the vegetables from the snakeskin bag onto the large chopping board, waved my two knives, and chopped the vegetables rhythmically like a drummer. At the beginning, I thought it was fun, but I didn’t find it fun at all when I chopping with my two knives on the chopping board for a long time every day. This has become a task that I must complete every day!

After the vegetables are chopped, the next step is to mince the meat. Fortunately, Master’s meat grinder is electric, so I can feel a little more comfortable. I just need to put the cut pieces of meat into the meat grinder and that’s it.

After the meat is minced, my main task for the day is finally done. The remaining small tasks of peeling onions, chopping mushrooms and bamboo shoots are all trivial to me. .

Adjusting the flavor of vegetable stuffing, mushroom stuffing and siu mai stuffing, these important tasks are all done by the master. I can only watch from the sidelines and can't help at all. Master didn't dare ask me to complete such an important job. If I accidentally put too much salt in it, I would be in big trouble! If I were the master, I wouldn't dare to leave such a task to an apprentice!

In the afternoon, I have my own free time. Every afternoon, Master and Mistress will go upstairs to take a nap. I can’t sleep in the store on the first floor, so usually, I will Choose to watch TV or buy a copy of "Yangtze Evening News" for 50 cents.

After dinner in the evening, I can still watch TV for a while, but around eight o'clock, Master will ask me to make noodles.

The noodle vat at Master's house is very big. We basically have to make forty or fifty kilograms of flour every day. Kneading the dough is not an easy task. Master first pours flour into the noodle vat, then melts the starter, and then pours it into the noodle vat. inside, and then add water to the noodle vat. I rolled up my sleeves and kept stirring and kneading the noodles in the noodle vat. After the vat of noodles was mixed, I was so tired that I was sweating on my forehead and back. It was winter at that time!

When it was dark at around five o'clock the next morning, Master asked me to get up again and light the stove. I rubbed my sleepy eyes and repeated what happened yesterday, day after day.

The above is just my daily work. By the end of the year, Zhenjiang locals like to go to the steamed bun shop to process steamed buns. They prepare the fillings themselves, and the master is responsible for steaming them for them using his own noodles, and charges a certain processing fee based on the quantity. Zhenjiang people also like to celebrate their birthdays around the Chinese New Year. As long as someone has a birthday, there will be people coming to the bun shop to buy birthday peaches. There must be a lot of them!

So once the fifteenth day of the twelfth lunar month has passed, Master’s bun shop will It’s been extremely busy, and the ordering business for steamed buns has been scheduled until around New Year’s Eve. Every day we not only make buns for sale in the morning, but also make buns made by others. From time to time, we also have to make surprise peaches for others.

At that time, my master and I got up at around five o'clock in the morning and worked hard until about ten o'clock in the evening. We were so busy that we didn't even bother to eat. At that time, after a day's work, I lay down on the wire bed and fell asleep in less than two minutes. I rarely even dreamed!

There were only a few days left, and it was almost New Year's Eve. One day at noon, we were busy until three o'clock in the afternoon before we took time to have lunch. Master felt sorry and ordered three bowls of beef noodles from the noodle shop next door. When the lady boss next door brought us three bowls of noodles, before I even took two bites, the wife began to think that Master was wasting money. She said, "What kind of beef noodles should I eat? Didn't I know how many kilograms I had?" It seems like my family is very rich!

I didn’t say anything, just lowered my head and continued to eat noodles. The master’s wife was still complaining to the master that he shouldn’t order beef noodles. What happened to a bowl of beef noodles as a treat?

The master didn’t care about my feelings at all and kept nagging. The master was so angry that he threw the noodle bowl and the couple started fighting. Seeing the master and his wife fighting over a bowl of beef noodles, no matter how good my appetite is, I definitely won’t be able to eat it anymore! I put down the bowl and quickly stepped forward to break up the fight.

To tell you the truth, what the teacher’s wife said is really chilling. I helped them for a whole winter, and they didn’t give me a penny of salary, just because I ate a bowl of beef noodles from them. , the couple even fought over it! Although I feel bad, I still have to break up the fight.

When I finally separated the two of them, the master's hair was completely messed up, and the master's face also had a few blood stains. The master's wife was sitting on the floor crying and cursing. The master and I couldn't care about her anymore and had to hurry up and continue making buns.

After finishing the day's work, before going to bed at night, I told Master that the Chinese New Year was about to come, and I planned to go back to my hometown tomorrow. I might not come here next year. I would like to thank them for their kindness to me during this time. of care.

After listening to what I said, Master was stunned for a moment, then burst into tears. He told me that his wife had this kind of virtue, and her eyes were always focused on the interests in front of her. Don't take it personally and help them work for a few more days no matter what.

I told the master that I wanted to go back to my hometown and have nothing to do with my wife. It was because I felt that this line of work was too hard and I didn’t want to do it! But I still agreed to the master and help him work for a few more days.

In the next few days, the master’s wife completely shut up and stopped nagging. At about ten o’clock in the evening the day before New Year’s Eve, after finishing the day’s work, the master took the three-wheeled motorcycle with him. Get on my bed and luggage and prepare to send me to my uncle's house. Halfway there, Master stopped the car and forced me to give me two hundred yuan, saying that it would be used as my travel expenses back to my hometown. I couldn't refuse, so I had to accept it. After arriving at my uncle's house, when Master said goodbye to me, he told me to remember to look for him in the store when I came to Zhenjiang in the future. I nodded and agreed.

Now many years have passed, and I have never seen my master and my wife again. Later, I worked in many other professions, including working as a plumber and electrician on a construction site, and in the secondhand book and magazine business. I worked as a beverage agent and a machine operator, but I never worked in the pastry industry again.

Although many years have passed, my foundation for making steamed buns is still there. I usually steam steamed buns or make dumplings at home, and I can still make them quickly and well, unlike outsiders. Sold the same.

Written at the back: It’s really hard to run a breakfast shop. You have to get up early every day. The peak period is from 7 to 8:30. You sell breakfast in the morning and prepare for the next day in the afternoon. of ingredients. As long as the business is open, you basically have to work from early to late, and you will be busy all year long, no matter it is windy or rainy, every day! Except for the Chinese New Year, you can take a rest for about 20 days, and you will earn hard-earned money.

Nowadays, steamed buns no longer use starters but instead use yeast. Machines are even used for kneading dough and making buns. Steaming buns also uses electricity instead of stoves. Bean paste can also be made directly. Buying ready-made ones is indeed much less troublesome and labor-intensive than before!

No matter how depressed all walks of life are, everyone will still spend money to buy it at a breakfast shop when it’s time to have breakfast! Therefore, if you open a breakfast shop now, as long as the market is good, although it will be a bit harder, it will definitely be much better than working in a factory.