Highlights of this issue
1. The impact of the homecoming tide on hot pot restaurants
2. Different hot pot people's views on the tide of homecoming
Issue 1285
Text | Zhang Dong
Business in big cities is booming, and it is difficult to recruit people
The nights in Beijing seem to be longer than in other cities.
Boss Wang, who runs a chain of hot pot restaurants, is running the hall without leaving the ground and sweating; The chef laid out the dishes in an orderly manner in the back kitchen, and the waiter carried a stainless steel kettle, running before and after to fill the water for the guests, and the whole hall was full of people and extremely lively.
This hot pot restaurant of nearly 300 square meters, plus the owner, is only 4 people.
"I offered 3 times the salary to recruit people, and offered 4 times the salary to retain people, but I still can't," Boss Wang frowned, "After the fifteenth day of the lunar month, the waiters and cooks left one after another, and they couldn't keep it. ”
◎Image source network
The crops hope for rain, the ants hope for the sun, and each has its own suffering.
Because of the epidemic, many people have been stranded in a foreign land for many years without returning, and Liu Chef, who works as a chef at a hot pot restaurant in Shanghai, has not returned to his hometown in Sichuan for three years.
But this year, as soon as he entered the month of La Yue, Liu Kitchen's homesick DNA began to become extremely unstable, staying up until the thirteenth day of La Yue, although the business in the store was better every day, but after thinking for a long time, Liu Kitchen still plucked up the courage to ask the boss for leave, asking to go home early for the New Year, "If the boss agrees, I am happy to deduct my salary, if I do not agree, I will resign directly and leave with the roll." Anyway, I made up my mind to leave early. ”
Many migrant workers have the same idea as Liu Kitchen, the epidemic has been suppressed for too long, it is like an arrow in the heart, it doesn't matter if the money is not money, the main thing is that the emotions have arrived, and it is difficult to end without going home.
The train stations of major cities are also crowded, people carrying large bags of luggage, stretching their necks to look at the train schedule, anxious faces, with great expectation.
◎Homecoming tide
The annual Spring Festival population migration shakes the world, and they can't understand why Chinese have to go home on the last day of the old calendar year after all the hardships? The idea of just eating a Chinese New Year's Eve meal made them feel incredible.
A nation that focuses on contracts is doomed to fail to understand a nation that focuses on human feelings.
According to the preliminary analysis of the Ministry of Transport, the total passenger flow during this year's Spring Festival was about 2.095 billion, an increase of 99.5% over the same period last year and recovered to 70.3% of the same period in 2019. From the perspective of passenger flow, it is estimated that the flow of family visits accounts for about 55% of the passenger flow of the Spring Festival, the flow of migrant workers accounts for about 24%, and the tourism and business travel trips account for about 10% respectively.
In the first Spring Festival after Yangkang, in addition to returning to their hometowns, many people will also go to other places to celebrate the New Year and "go home in reverse".
◎Image source network Chinese New Year's Eve rice
At Zhengzhou Railway Station, Aunt Liu, an old Zhengzhou native, had a box of fast food noodles at her feet, a gift box of spicy soup, and she happily told the hot pot restaurant that she was going to Guangzhou for the New Year, a month ago, in a video call with her son and daughter-in-law, the three set a travel date, and she was also impatient to hug her newborn granddaughter.
Xiao Liu, who was also waiting in the waiting hall, a second-year student at a university in Zhengzhou, and his hometown of Kaifeng, said that he would not go home for the New Year this year, and he would go skiing with his classmates, "I like snow, but Henan has had less snow in the past two years... I'm ready to go home after fifteen. ”
The boom in business has put many hot pot restaurants in big cities in a state of confusion, and the large number of reservations for Chinese New Year's Eve meals has made hot pot owners love and fear.
A practitioner engaged in "tableware cleaning and distribution" told Hotpot Restaurant that basically, on the 28th day of the lunar month every year, ordinary hotpot restaurants have no business, "This year seems to have some exceptions, it is difficult to judge." ”
◎Illustration: Early New Year
Of course, not all formats are so crazy, some stores are closed before entering the moon, I don't know if the personnel are not strong, or the boss is not short of money.
The sinking market ushered in explosive growth
Hot pot restaurants in big cities are frantically "bursting", and hot pot restaurants in the sinking market have also ushered in explosive growth.
A large number of migrant workers returned to their hometowns early, making the sinking market of Yangkang full of vitality and vitality.
The owner of a Chongqing hot pot in a county town in Henan told Hotpot Restaurant that since the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, business has been getting better day by day, many young people have returned from other places, and friends and family dinners have increased. ”
◎ Illustration: Family dinner eating hot pot
According to the owner of a fish hot pot maker in Xinxiang, Henan Province, the turnover has more than doubled compared with the same period last year, which may be due to "the liberalization of society and the return of customer consumer confidence." ”
Xiao Li is a waiter in a mutton restaurant, and before La Yue arrived, she and a few fellow villagers returned to a county in her hometown in Henan from the Shenzhen umbrella factory where she worked.
Xiao Li introduced that from 9:30 a.m. to clean up, help the back kitchen wash and cut vegetables, busy until 11 o'clock, the store began to be crowded, sometimes several tables at once, because I have not been a waiter, "I am often busy." ”
This mutton restaurant is less than 200 square meters, two people operate, the man is in the back kitchen, the woman is at the front desk cashier, plus Xiao Li, a total of 5 people.
Similar husband and wife shops, there are many in the county, can not support, can not starve, encounter the peak season, earn some, if it is the off-season, tighten the belt, tight, can also take care of the family old and small eating and drinking pocket flowers.
Therefore, in winter, the two of them rushed to the store desperately, and the customers ate until the early hours of the morning, and the two of them stayed with them, and when the sky was not dawn, they had to go to the vegetable market to buy vegetables, so hard, but they just survived a few processing money.
◎Image source network
Owners of county-level markets generally reported that this year's peak season came early and long, and some stores even made money back from the lockdown.
A boss who opened a restaurant in a township told Hotpot Restaurant that after letting go, there were more red and white things than before, and he often took the waiter to "go to the countryside to pack the table", and people no longer worry about a few pieces or dozens of dollars, as long as the meal is delicious, they will say hello and book in advance.
Shopping malls that complement community stores are equally popular.
Xiao Chinese New Year's Eve that night, the hot pot restaurant saw a business trip to a county town in Henan, visited the local shopping mall in the evening, on the catering floor, found that many shops had a long queue, friends gathered mostly, in a Sichuan hot pot restaurant of more than 400 square meters, the waiter said that in the past few days, it can turn over two or three times every night.
Inside the mall, at 9 o'clock at night, the lights are still bright, and many people do not wear masks, riding the escalator, strolling layer by layer; Even if you live in the countryside, you are not in a hurry to go home, and now the traffic between the county and the countryside is convenient, and the road to and from the county is smooth.
◎ Photo note: See the hot pot meal
Of course, the sinking market is not blooming everywhere, and some shops with unbeautiful environments, dimly lit, small spaces, and average tastes have somewhat deserted business.
The sudden release, just like the sudden lockdown, made people confused, until they saw the silver of the white flowers, people believed that this was not a dream.
Write at the end
During the homecoming wave, Hotpot Restaurant interviewed many hotpot owners, basically, they are full of endless imagination and yearning for 2023 and beyond.
As the New Year gets closer and closer, the New Year is coming.
Winter is coming to an end, and spring is not far away.