Chapter 233 - 203: Publicity

Chapter 233: Chapter 203: Publicity

"No matter how eager you are, you can’t rush it like this. If the equipment and renovations still reek, and the formaldehyde hasn’t had time to air out, the guests are going to have a terrible experience."

Chen Jun was against rushing the opening just for the sake of opening.

If the first impression was bad, they’d be torching their own reputation right out of the gate, and clawing it back afterward would be an uphill battle.

"Relax. Wang Tao runs a tight ship — you get what you pay for. He would’ve already taken care of all that. Just think about how the small pond and the guesthouse turned out."

Chen Yuan popped a piece of meat into his mouth, looking completely at ease.

Hearing that, Chen Jun and the others gradually nodded. They had both seen those two buildings firsthand — no smell whatsoever, passed every inspection with flying colors, ready to use straight away.

Besides, when it came to Chen Yuan, they trusted him. He wasn’t the type to shoot himself in the foot.

"Oh, right — Yuan, take a look at this."

When she heard Chen Yuan mention the upcoming opening day, Tang Ying suddenly remembered something. She set down her chopsticks, went inside, and came back out with a notebook, handing it to Chen Yuan.

"Breakfast?"

Chen Yuan took it and looked. At the top was a title — it was a breakfast menu. He scanned down the page, and there was quite a variety, easily over ten items.

Just the porridge options alone were several kinds — century egg and lean pork congee, pumpkin porridge, plain white rice porridge, you name it.

Then there was milk and eggs, soy milk and fried dough sticks, steamed buns, plain mantou, and flower rolls, all paired with some simple vegetable sides — like smashed cucumber — to go along with the porridge and noodles.

"You’re all making this yourselves?"

Chen Yuan put the menu down and looked over at Tang Ying and Lin Cuiju.

"Li talked it over with us. She figured that if guests are staying overnight, they’ll need breakfast, so we put our heads together and came up with all this."

Tang Ying nodded.

"No, I mean — handling breakfast on top of everything else, can you actually manage that?"

That was what Chen Yuan was worried about.

Chen Li was handling all the hiring — that included the children’s playground and the food and beverage side. Anyone Liang Chunping and Zhang Hui needed to recruit separately would also go through Chen Li.

Breakfast was definitely something they’d need to offer, he just hadn’t expected it to fall on Tang Ying and the others to handle themselves.

"Li’s thinking was that now that Old Pond has a parking lot, shuttling guests back and forth is a lot easier. We won’t need to handle that in the mornings anymore, so we’d have the time to do breakfast instead."

"And honestly, we’re already up cooking in the morning anyway — a little more or a little less makes no real difference. Li’s set the breakfast hours from seven-thirty to nine, so the timing works out perfectly."

Tang Ying didn’t see it as a problem at all.

Back when the fishing pond kept them on their toes, these women were already showing up at six-thirty every morning to shuttle guests. Now that the parking lot at Old Pond had cut that workload in half, they had no reason to be running around the pond anymore.

Handling breakfast wouldn’t clash at all.

Still.

"Isn’t it going to wear everyone out though?"

That was Chen Yuan’s real concern.

The staff were already incredibly dedicated as it was — not only did they show up for both the morning and evening shifts at the fishing pond to help with guest arrivals and departures, but the cooking aunties were right there alongside everyone else too.

Piling breakfast prep on top of all that first thing in the morning — the workload would be absolutely maxed out.

He’d hate for someone to end up collapsing from exhaustion one of these days.

"That won’t happen. For one thing, we’re off the hook for shuttling guests in the morning. And when you factor in the breakfast service hours, it’s not really that different from our usual workload."

"Plus the guesthouse isn’t exactly large-scale yet. There won’t be that many overnight guests — it’ll basically be the same as getting up to cook breakfast for you all at home."

"And down the line, once the guesthouse scales up and we’ve got more guests staying over, we can always adjust then. It’s not too late to cross that bridge when we come to it."

Tang Ying finished her food, tore off a paper napkin, and wiped her mouth.

Chen Yuan scraped the last of his rice clean, knocked back the final swallow of beer, and sat there turning the breakfast arrangements over in his head.

His sister’s plan was actually pretty sensible. Right now there was just the one two-story guesthouse with only five rooms, and ideally it’d be best to have no more than two groups staying at a time.

After all, a guesthouse wasn’t a hotel — the whole point was that homey, intimate feel. It only made sense for one floor to house guests who came together, which meant the numbers would stay manageable.

As for what came later, they could deal with it once the guesthouse expanded. For now, there was no point in spreading the workforce thin.

"Here’s what we’ll do — going forward, the kitchen staff won’t be responsible for daytime check-ins or seeing off the night fishing crowd. Once dinner’s done, they clock out."

Chen Yuan said, cigarette dangling from his lips.

Staff enthusiasm was one thing, but you couldn’t just run them into the ground. The workload had to be manageable. Sure, everyone got one day off a week, but if you’re up before five in the morning and on your feet until the night fishing session wraps, you’re barely getting five hours of sleep.

If anything came up during the day and they couldn’t rest, they’d be absolutely wrecked.

The same went for Liu Fang — he’d reshuffle the schedule at the small pond too when the time came.

"I think that makes sense. Cooking is no joke — it’s just as tiring as working the pond, if not more so. If you need to rest, you should rest."

Chen Jun was fully on board with the arrangement.

Chen Kingdom thought it sounded good too.

People who’ve never cooked don’t realize just how much it takes out of you. It wasn’t like working the pond, where shuttling guests was the busiest part — after that, doing the rounds was basically just a leisurely stroll.

"From now on, we’ll cover all three meals for staff. Breakfast will be after everyone’s checked in for the day."

Chen Yuan thought it over and decided to add breakfast as a new perk for the employees. Of course, anyone who wanted to eat earlier on their own was free to do so, but the fishing venue would cover it either way.

"That works."

Chen Jun had no objections. Breakfast wasn’t going to cost much, and as a staff benefit, it was something worth talking about.

They chatted a while longer before Chen Yuan said his goodbyes and headed off on his three-wheeler to Old Pond.

"Wow, what a difference."

He made his way up to the second floor, and the space that had been completely bare just that morning was already unrecognizable.

Equipment was being rolled out across the floor, renovations were keeping pace, and the whole place had suddenly transformed into a vibrant little world bursting with childhood wonder.

A lot of the attractions were already up and running.

A ball pit, a slide, a sand play area, rows of little tables and chairs covered in toys, puzzles, toy cars weaving along tracks — it was almost too much to take in at once.

And more was still coming in — bouncy castles, a climbing wall, and plenty of other attractions being set up. Once everything was done, there’d be well over twenty different things for kids to do. A child could spend the whole day there and never run out of fun.