chapter 2

# You have to come in to taste it

If you walk from the Noksapyeong station to the Yongsan-GU office, you will find a little passage.

A narrow alley where a small car can barely pass.

Han’s Kitchen is in the middle.

There are eight tables. A nicely decorated interior. The menu is a house-fusion meal targeting the taste of young guests and foreigners. It seems flawless, but it doesn’t have a single guest.

“Sigh…

Lee Han-Gil, who owns the restaurant, inadvertently looks at the clock, sighs.

“Is this it for the lunch business…”

Thirteen people came to the room today. Since all the prices were at 6,500 won the daily sales are 34,500 won. 150,000 won for 10 more customers in the future. 4.5 million won in 30 days.

From here, the monthly rent, utility bills, and material expenses deducted, and it is 1.9 million won. After subtracting rent, administrative expenses, and living expenses, only 1.2

million won remains.

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“I thought I wasn’t good at mathematics…”

A strangely bitter smile came out of myself, who easily did mental calculation. There was no desire to earn big money.

A small but consistently visited shop. I wanted to open a store that will be liked for a long time.

However, the appearance of himself obsessed with the number of customers’ heads every day seemed far from being greedy.

“Should I find another job even now…’

It’s a common thought for a while, but I’ve always stopped thinking about it. He is thirty-two this year. There is a feeling of being behind in starting a new job.

On top of that, Han-Gil didn’t graduate from college.

During his high school years his father’s business declined, and Han-Gil enlisted at the same time. And as soon as I was discharged, I started working.

Courier, delivery, convenience store, even as a daily worker.

There’s not a job that I didn’t do. Then I accidentally began working as a kitchen helper.

When friends were looking for a drink and enjoying college life, Han-Gil would clean dishes all day. From the time my friends started accumulating specs, I had a frying pan.

Still, I had no regrets

Because it was fun.

While cooking, a feeling of pride and happiness that I had never felt before was filled with happiness. I worked at a restaurant during the day and studied food at night, Chinese, Japanese, Western, Korean.

I went around various restaurants and learned to cook there. It was about that time. How popular are cooking rooms across the country?

People were enthusiastic about gastronomy.

The chefs boasted celebrity-level popularity, and the people who went to large corporations also quit leaving and starting restaurants. Alley restaurants filled with personality were common.

It was an opportunity.

Han-Gil managed to get a store with the money he’d saved when he still had a miserable paycheck. The location wasn’t good, but I was confident. That confidence has dropped to the bottom over the past two years.

#

Ring!

The sound of the phone ringing has awakened my mind.

A phone call to the store.

-Is this the restaurant in Itaewon?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

-Are you the boss?”

A woman’s voice on the line.

It didn’t seem like a customer asking out of the blue.

“Excuse me, who are you?”

-Hello, boss. I’m Tasty-eun, a restaurant marketing company.

“Ah…”

I’ve seen it on the news.

A lot of people commit fraud against self-employed restaurant people. If you give them money, they will advertise it or promise to appear on the show.

“I’m sorry…-

-Listen, boss. Even the regulars are praising it for being delicious, but why isn’t the business working? Don’t you want to know?”

It was apparently a drug dealer, but Han-Gil couldn’t hang up.

That’s what he was most curious about. It is tasty and cheap.

But how come people don’t come?

-Boss, you’re not waiting’ on word of mouth, are you? The people who’ve only, cooked are so naive.

The woman’s voice was mixed with an unpleasant snort.

-Has anybody ever recommended you as a quality restaurant? What did you do at first? Let’s take out the smartphone and search first. And what if there are only 3 or 5 search results?

They ask me to go somewhere else after asking me if I don’t like this place. That’s the world these days. By the way, do you know how much store posts there are?”

“It’s 11.”

-Oh, you looked it up.”

I felt the other side was a bit embarrassed.

Of course, I did some research online when I counted the number of customers.

-So, boss, do you know how many posts there are when you’re looking for great restaurants in Itaewon?

There’s no way you’d know that.

-754,000 posts. How do I find 11 posts from these?

“I can’t afford to promote it.”

When I said that firmly, the call was likely to be prolonged, I heard a clear sigh.

-I’ll be honest with you, boss. It’s been 3 years since I was in charge of Seoul. What I do on a daily basis when I go to work is looking for the store. But I only called the boss today.

Do you know what this means?”

– Mr. President, promotion is not an option, it’s a requirement.

You did interior work, didn’t you? What’s more important than that is publicity. We’ll give you a discount of 4.5 million won for 20 blog experience groups.

-It’s 300,000 won per person, but it’s a special price.

I didn’t like it. I didn’t have that kind of money, and I don’t want to cheat.

“I’ll compete with taste.”

-Who said that? Let’s taste it when someone comes in.

And blogging experience groups don’t write promotional items for free. We invite influential guests. Where is a store that opens and doesn’t market blogs these days?

“Well, I’d like to leave it to a professional, even if I did.”

-What?

“I don’t think such an impolite person would promote my store well. Bye. I got a visitor.”

Drop!

I hung up, but the unpleasant feeling didn’t go away.

Han Gil searched ‘Itaewon restaurants’ on his smartphone.

After more than 20 minutes of scrolling, the name of “Hans Kitchen” was not found.