We set up a new restaurant!!!

Three I.S. students, together with Xiang, took part in international pop-up restaurant and international afternoon, which was organized by City of Kalajoki and Kalajoki Christian College last Sunday. They planned to sell Chinese dumplings in hotpot style. It wasn’t well planned and organized, but they were still eager to set up the small business. The ideas of taking part in this pop-up restaurant event in hurry were:

1. offering Chinese food experience to local people as authentic as possible;
2. experiencing restaurant business by set it up from scratch; and
3. seeing how much profit we can make so as to help with further planning, operation, pricing and marketing etc.

The net profit will go to their shared account for their Dublin trip in April 2020, if there is any. 

Xiang was excited and happy to see three lovely but tired face in front of Lukio! After a piece of biscuits without water, they quickly transformed into startup working mode (very Chinese Factory style). The restaurant was named after Xiang’s name. Alina and Taru started to design and make the signboard while Santeri was sent to shop for materials for hotpot. Dumplings preparation work had been done by Xiang in the early morning. 

Alina and Taru are making poster. Photo taken by Xiang

After making the signboard and collecting all the other needed supplies, they moved to Christian College and set up the booth in front of entrance. Alina and Taru were preparing the food ready for cooking. Santeri was assigned to sell, take the orders and run all kinds of errands at the same time. Xiang started to make dumplings. Taru soon joined the dumplings making production line.  It was quite amazing to see everything going smoothly, even though it was a bit cold when sun hid behind the big cloud and Santeri complained about his shoe ties occasionally. Aliz was also here helping her family with their Hungarian restaurant. Her constant pop-up to our restaurant booth brought us lots of happiness. 

Making food at the table. Photo provided by William

Happy faces. Photo provided by William

A glance of our menu on the poster! Photo provided by William

It was quite an enjoyable feeling to see local grannies, who are willing to try exotic food and young people, who brought their own containers for food. It also made us feel warm hearted when our own families and friends stopped-by and tried to support our “business”. Our next-stand Thai lady shared spring rolls to all of us and William bought us Ethiopian snack. 

After one and a half hours’ preparation and 3 hours’ hard working, we earned 20.55 euros. Xiang decided to give each helper 5 euros for lunch since she was too demanding during the work and didn’t take care of their wellbeing. She also bought the left-over food. In the end, only 10.15 euros will go into the bank account for Dublin trip. YEAH!!! 

It sounds like a joke but it’s a good experience, which was shared by everyone who participated. Whatever we experience, teaches us a lesson. More importantly, we learn our own lesson.