I Run a Restaurant in a World of Natural Disasters

Chapter 16: Chapter 15: Orders Exploded

Leitel was extremely satisfied after finishing the bowl of noodles.

Since the temperature started rising yesterday, he hadn’t had a proper meal.

His body was hungry, but he just couldn’t muster an appetite.

This bowl of meat sauce noodles—wonderfully tangy, a fantastic appetizer, and served at just the right temperature—had come at the perfect time.

So satisfying!

He’d also eaten a large portion of salad, so he’d have a good explanation for the wife when he got back.

Perfect!

One by one, the men all cleaned their plates. Connie’s noodle portions were a perfect size—not too much, not too little. It left you feeling about eighty percent full, which was just right.

The remaining room in their stomachs was perfect for slowly enjoying the rest of the salad, punctuated by sips of refreshing lemon-mint water.

Tsk, it seemed the thirty-odd degree room temperature wasn’t so unbearable anymore.

"So, worth the trip, right?" Leitel grinned.

"It’s certainly good," the gray-haired old man said with a nod. "Although the flavor is a bit lacking compared to what you get in Central City, it’s still a rare treat."

"Mm, I’d give both dishes an 8.5. A four-star recommendation," said the old man with the cane.

"I agree," the heftiest of the middle-aged men chimed in. "I think we should share this in the group chat and let everyone have a taste. But I ate so fast I forgot to take a picture."

"I took some." A thin old man in a brown jacket, who hadn’t said much until now, held up his phone and bared his teeth in a grin.

"Alright, I’ll leave the recommendation to you, then," Leitel said. "Post it in the group. Don’t forget the address and the shop’s name."

"Sure, leave it to me. I’m very satisfied with this meal. You’ve got my vote for this month’s Restaurant Scout of the Month!" the thin old man grinned.

Leitel suppressed his smile and feigned a serious expression. "What’s the hurry? We’ll talk about it when the time comes. We should head back. It’ll be a hassle if anyone finds out we snuck out to eat."

"Alright, I’ll go pay." The portly middle-aged man heard this, stood up, and walked to the front of the stall.

Seeing how satisfied the men were with her food, Connie breathed a sigh of relief. She felt a bit more confident as she stated the price.

"...The salads are 20 each, the meat sauce noodles are 50 each, and the lemonade is free. That’s 350 original coins in total. I’ll give you a discount, so 320 is fine."

This time the salads were small, individual portions, so she had adjusted the price accordingly. Running a stall in the shelter usually meant selling things a little cheaper than normal, but Connie was still very satisfied. Over three hundred was as much as half a day’s earnings on a normal day.

"Here’s 400. Keep the change." The portly man took out four crisp new bills and handed them to Connie, as casually as if he were handing over a stack of scrap paper.

Connie stared at the bills in her hand, stunned.

"That’s a tip!" Ning He watched from the side, her eyes gleaming. She rubbed her hands together. "Um, the three of us get to share that, right?"

As she spoke, Ning He scorned herself.

’So pathetic!’

’But every little bit helps,’ she thought. She was short on cash right now and couldn’t afford to be proud.

Connie snapped back to her senses and snorted lightly.

"Don’t worry, I won’t take your share. We’ll split it later."

After Leitel and his friends left, the entire dining area fell quiet again.

The Three Rings Restaurant across the way served a few scattered customers, but here in the Fourth Ring, almost no stalls had opened besides Connie’s noodle house.

Meanwhile, in other areas of the shelter, a communication group called "Beiluo City Food Sharing" was buzzing with activity. All its members were extremely interested in the latest message they’d received.

"New restaurant discovered. Specialties: Tomato Meat Sauce Noodles, Five-Color Salad."

"The meat sauce noodles are tangy, savory, and delicious. Richly aromatic and a great appetizer. Recommendation index: four stars. In hot weather, five stars."

"The five-color vegetable salad has a dressing I’ve never tasted before. Full of flavor, incredible texture. A must-eat!"

There were also two accompanying pictures.

The meat sauce noodles were rich in color, and the salad was a vibrant tapestry of hues.

They looked incredibly appetizing.

"Shop name: Jinji Meat Sauce Noodle House. Address: Central Dining Area 8. Anyone nearby should go give it a try."

The message quickly sparked a discussion in the group.

"Dining Area 8, isn’t that the one closest to me? I was there the day before yesterday, how did I not see it?"

"If the admin is recommending it, it can’t be bad. I’ve decided to go check it out right now."

"I’m going too, let’s team up."

"Count me in."

"Me too!"

"Alright, let’s all head out and meet at the entrance to the dining area."

"Okay, let’s go!"

The group members were all passionate about food and willing to spend money on it, so it wasn’t long before a group had arranged to go together.

A crowd of about twenty people appeared imposingly at the entrance. The staff at the Three Rings Restaurant were overjoyed. Just as they were bracing themselves for the rush, they saw the crowd walk right past them without stopping, heading for the other side.

’What’s going on?!’

The crowd stopped at that little noodle stall from before, placed their orders, and, not minding the simple setup, found seats at the nearby plastic tables and chairs to wait quietly.

No matter how tumultuous the emotions of the Three Rings Restaurant staff were, Ning He was busy helping Connie serve the customers, practically spinning in circles.

Although they had prepared a few salads in advance, it was nowhere near enough.

They took out the basket of prepped vegetables. Ning He was in charge of pre-processing, Ah Huai handled the cutting and final checks, and Connie assembled the dishes. The three of them worked like an assembly line, serving the salads in batches of five as soon as they were ready. Luckily, they had made plenty of the time-consuming mayonnaise ahead of time, so the customers didn’t have to wait too long.

With the salads to tide the customers over, the three of them could breathe a small sigh of relief and start boiling the noodles.

Connie was in charge of boiling the noodles, which took only a minute per serving. Ning He would take them, rinse them in cool water, let them drain, and then pass them to Ah Huai to put in the food containers and ladle on the meat sauce.

Even though they coordinated well and worked quickly, the last customer still had to wait nearly twenty minutes for their noodles. However, all the customers were very polite. No one rushed them or showed any dissatisfaction. They simply took their noodles and began to savor them earnestly.

Ning He sat on a small stool, observing the customers.

’Judging by their clothes, they should all be residents of the Third Ring. Why did they all suddenly rush to our stall?’

’Ning He believed their noodles were good enough that word would spread once people tried them, but this was way too fast.’

’And looking at this crowd... they take pictures before eating, and as soon as they finish, they pull out their phones and start typing furiously, as if writing something. They don’t look like regular diners at all.’

One woman even had a small camera set up in front of her.

Ning He slapped her forehead.

’Don’t tell me this is a professional restaurant-reviewing team?’

Ning He found Connie and whispered her suspicion in her ear.

"Then... what should we do?" It was Connie’s first time encountering a situation like this. She was partly thrilled, partly flustered.

In an era of food scarcity, humanity’s passion and pursuit of fine cuisine only grew stronger.

Almost every safe city had these kinds of "restaurant-scouting bloggers" who shared their culinary finds online.

Ning He, however, was used to seeing this sort of thing. She patted Connie’s shoulder.

"It’s fine. I’m guessing we’re going to have a lot more customers coming. We just need to start prepping in advance and make sure we maintain our speed and quality."

Connie nodded, her heart easing. At that moment, her attitude toward Ning He had changed dramatically, though she herself hadn’t even noticed.

This batch of customers finished eating, paid, and left, every one of them looking satisfied. It was the first time Connie’s hand had gone soft from taking in so much money.

Even after giving a ten-percent discount, she had taken in 1,200 original coins.

After seeing the customers off, the three of them immediately took out their last half-basket of vegetables and flour and began processing them.

But upon inspection, they realized their stock was surprisingly low. There was only enough for about fifty servings of noodles. There was even less for salad, only about twenty-odd servings’ worth. They did, however, still have a huge bowl of mayonnaise.

The noodle house’s business was usually average, so stocking five days’ worth of ingredients was their limit. This was all they had.

Ning He thought it was a pity.

’If we could sell more, maybe Connie would be in a good mood and give me a bigger cut?’

Just as Ning He was sighing to herself, the woman from the neighboring clay pot stall suddenly came over to Connie with a basket, whispering something to her.

Ning He couldn’t hear clearly, but she saw that Connie looked a bit surprised and also somewhat hesitant.

She said something to the woman, who nodded and returned to her own stall with her basket.

"What’s up?" Ning He leaned in and asked.

"She’s afraid she won’t be able to sell her clay pot dishes, so she wants to sell her ingredients to us at half price," Connie explained.

Ning He’s eyes lit up.

"Isn’t that perfect? We were just worrying about not having enough ingredients!"

But Connie was a little hesitant.

"Can we sell this much? In the past, we always ended up selling leftovers to the restaurant across the way at a low price. After all, their food truck has its own refrigerator, so they don’t have to worry about waste."

"That was then, this is now. You saw for yourself how popular our two dishes are. We definitely won’t have trouble selling them, and we might even make a huge profit! But if you’re not sure, we can just wait and see how the next wave of customers goes."

Hearing Ning He put it that way, Connie also felt it was an opportunity.

"Then let’s wait and see before we decide."

The words had barely left her mouth when an excited voice rang out from nearby.

"Jinji Meat Sauce Noodle House, this is the place! Everyone, come on over, this is the one they recommended!"

Ning He looked up. ’Whoa, how did another huge crowd get here?’

’Looks like we’re about to be swamped with orders!’

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