Chapter 228 Earning Enough Face in Front of Relatives and Friends
The fifth month of the lunar calendar this year was undoubtedly the busiest month Thatchfield Village had seen in recent years.
Inspired by the thousands of yuan Deng Shirong's family had earned from lychees and watermelons, villagers who hadn't yet started their own orchards mobilized their entire families. Armed with hoes, shovels, hooks, and other tools, they worked tirelessly on their hilltops, drenched in sweat.
Those who had already cultivated orchards followed suit, building wooden houses in their orchards.
If before this, the villagers of Thatchfield hadn't paid much attention to the hilltops allocated to them by the production team, now every household regarded their hilltop as their most valuable asset.
After all, Deng Shirong's family was a living example. With an annual income of several thousand yuan, it was impossible to earn that much in the countryside unless you opened a factory or engaged in some other major business.
By late May, it was time to start harvesting the crops.
Thus, the villagers of Thatchfield were extremely busy throughout the month. However, unlike the past when they would mechanically complete tasks assigned by the production team, now they worked with a sense of hope and purpose. Their spirits were entirely different from before.
As the villagers worked, they inevitably talked about Deng Shirong.
Everyone in the village knew that Deng Shirong had taken his children to the county town to open a restaurant.
Especially a while back, when Deng Shirong returned to pick up his children during their vacation, the villagers learned that his restaurant was about to open.
Now, more than ten days later, the villagers were still curious about how the restaurant was doing after its grand opening.
The main reason for this curiosity was the lack of entertainment in the countryside at that time. With no television to watch, the villagers could only focus on everyday matters. As a result, Deng Shirong's venture into the restaurant business became a hot topic of discussion.
It was also during this bustling May that Bobai County welcomed its third census.
The census results revealed that the county's total population had reached 975,820, with 517,081 males and 458,739 females.
It was now 1982, and the population was on the verge of breaking the one million mark. No wonder Bobai County had become one of the top three most populous counties in the country.
Moreover, with nearly 60,000 more men than women, the gender ratio highlighted the traditional preference for sons over daughters in the region.
In the blink of an eye, it was already the fifteenth day of the sixth lunar month.
Tomorrow would mark the first time Suifeng Restaurant hosted a banquet for guests. Today, the restaurant was busier than ever. Not only did they have to serve the usual diners, but they also had to prepare in advance the more time-consuming dishes for tomorrow's banquet.
Chen Bangguo, the restaurant's buyer, was swamped. Whenever the chef informed him of missing ingredients, he rushed to the market to procure them immediately.
Bu Dashi, the kitchen helper, was also under immense pressure, working so hard that his clothes were perpetually soaked with sweat.
Although Deng Shirong was an excellent cook, he chose to stand back and observe without offering to help. He wanted to assess the restaurant's true capacity to handle such events.
If a master chef, a kitchen assistant, and Deng Yunzhen, a flexible staff member who could also help, weren't enough to manage the banquet, Deng Shirong would have to consider hiring another master chef or one or two more kitchen assistants.
This would, of course, significantly increase the restaurant's operating costs. Therefore, Deng Shirong needed to observe whether Master Chef Zhang Guofu could handle the pressure.
The high-end set meal, priced at 38 yuan per table, included 18 dishes and three soups: boiled chicken, boiled duck, boiled goose, meatballs, egg rolls, braised pork with brown sauce, stir-fried pork, stir-fried pork liver, sweet lotus root, glutinous rice, pork with celery and garlic, shredded pork with green pepper, stir-fried pork with bamboo shoots, fried egg with chopped green onion, bamboo shoot threads, wedge potato threads, peanut candy, green vegetables, lotus root stewed with pork bones, winter melon and pork ribs soup, and soybean pig's trotter soup.
Among these, dishes like meatballs, egg rolls, braised pork, sweet lotus root, and peanut candy had to be prepared today. The more time-consuming stews had to be cooked early the next morning. The rest of the dishes also needed to be prepped in advance to avoid chaos the following day.
Since Deng Shirong didn't intervene, Deng Yuntai took charge of the overall coordination.
Of course, even the young boss Deng Yuntai had to follow the instructions of Master Chef Zhang Guofu, as the chef was the core of any banquet.
Normally, the restaurant closed around seven in the evening, but today, they worked until nine.
...
The next day.
Suifeng Restaurant opened before dawn.
Except for the two waitresses, Zhang Wenjuan and Zhang Wenying, who could arrive later, all other employees came to work early.
Of course, Zhang Guangzong, the "security manager" who usually had little to do, was not included.
They started working before dawn and continued until around nine in the morning, finally completing all the necessary preparations.
Chengdong Village.
Wang family.
In the presence of relatives and friends, Wang Yong held his eldest grandson and performed the ancestral worship ritual. After offering some auspicious words and setting off firecrackers, all the ceremonies were completed.
Wang Yong handed his grandson to an elderly woman and then addressed the gathered relatives and friends with great enthusiasm: "Dear relatives and friends, it's almost time. Let's head to Suifeng Restaurant for the banquet!"
The relatives and friends were thrilled. They had expected an ordinary full-month banquet at home, but the surprise of dining at the largest restaurant in the county was beyond their expectations.
The anticipation had been building since they first heard the news.
After all, in this era, few could afford to dine at a restaurant, let alone the largest one in the county.
Wang Yong's daughter-in-law, in particular, was beaming with joy. When she had married the previous year, her father-in-law had invested all his money in opening a factory, resulting in a modest wedding.
But just over a year later, her father-in-law was hosting a lavish banquet for her son's full-month celebration at the county's largest restaurant. This earned her immense respect and admiration from her family and relatives, who now looked at her with newfound esteem.
Thus, led by Wang Yong, more than 150 people set out from Chengdong Village and headed to Suifeng Restaurant on West City Road.
Ten minutes later, Suifeng Restaurant, spanning over 1,000 square meters, came into view.
Before Suifeng Restaurant was built, the largest restaurant in the county was the state-owned restaurant, covering just over 200 square meters. To everyone, this had been a grand establishment.
But compared to Suifeng Restaurant, which was more than five times larger, the state-owned restaurant paled in comparison. The two were simply not in the same league.
(End of this chapter)