My Co-renting Lady Boss
Chapter 132: Cold Drink Buffet

Chapter 132: Chapter 132: Cold Drink Buffet

"But her shop’s diet ice lollies are a big selling point, you know? The moment those young white-collar workers from the snack street come along, they head straight for her shop to buy diet ice lollies, causing other cold drinks to sell well too. We’ve got nothing that attractive."

Owner Lei shook his head and said.

"How can you say that? Price is our biggest advantage."

Chen Cang took over the conversation and said, "We should create a self-service buffet for cold drinks. It doesn’t cost much to make, and even those who can eat a lot won’t be able to eat much of something so cold. If we offer a flat rate, eat and order as much as you like, we can attract the crowd. Plus, we can introduce some new varieties. As long as we keep it up, we won’t worry about not having customers! After all, her shop across the street can’t accommodate many people eating inside!"

After a long thought, Owner Lei smacked his head and gritted his teeth, saying, "Alright, damn it, even if I don’t make a profit, I have to let off this steam and show who dares to challenge me!"

Two days later, the cold drinks shop hung up the sign for the self-service buffet, and they introduced a lot of new items inside the store. They even hired many attractive girls for promotion, standing outside distributing flyers. For a time, the entire snack street was swarmed with the eye-catching promoter girls from the cold drinks shop.

Sure enough, gimmicks succeeded in drawing attention. With various flashy slogans plus tempting prices, they really attracted a lot of customers. Many young white-collar workers bought an ice lolly from the Xia Family and then gathered directly at the cold drinks shop.

The business at the Xia Family’s cold drinks shop also declined a lot for a while, nearly only the diet ice lollies were selling. The sales of other items stagnated, and even the diet lollies’ sales dropped because, after all, the main purpose of these was for dieting, and many girls didn’t dare to eat them every day. Although there was high foot traffic in the snack street,

the returning customers were plenty. Those people now ate an ice lolly only once every three or four days, plus the advertising was inadequate, almost relying on the most outdated word-of-mouth, which, of course, couldn’t compete with the cold drinks shop that spent a lot of money on direct promotion.

But even so, the business of the Xia Family’s cold drinks shop wasn’t too bad. Just selling diet ice lollies was enough to earn the rent, living expenses, and Xia Wenjun’s medical costs.

On Friday after school, Tang Ming and Zhou Dafu went to snack street together. Now that he had the consent of Liu Mengting and Li Xiaoli, it was much easier for Tang Ming to come to snack street to help Xia Wei’er and her daughter.

When they reached Xia’s cold drinks shop, Tang Ming realized something was off. Why were everyone buying a diet ice lolly then immediately running over to the cold drink shop diagonally opposite? And looking at the sign outside, it was written all too temptingly: Bikini-clad waitresses, self-service cold drink buffet, various desserts and sweets, all at incredibly low prices—too tempting for the average person to resist.

Forget those people, even foodies like Tang Ming and the chubby guy, when they saw that sign, were quite tempted.

"I thought this shop would have closed down by now. I didn’t expect it to still be open. It really is as hard to kill as a cockroach."

Tang Ming knew that the dirty trick of putting laxatives in the diet ice lollies last time was done by the cold drinks shop across the street, so he didn’t have a good impression of the place.

"Ming, which shop should we eat at?"

The chubby guy actually wanted to experience the cold drinks shop because of the sign but didn’t want to say it out loud because of his relationship with Xia Wei’er and her mother.

Tang Ming laughed and pointed at the cold drinks shop ahead, saying, "Let’s go, let’s have the self-service cold drink buffet."

"Sure."

The chubby guy nodded happily.

"What kind of people are they!"

Xia Wei’er, watching Tang Ming and the chubby guy leave, stomped her feet in frustration, "Don’t they have ice lollies at my place?"

"I think Tang is afraid of imposing on us. Every time we don’t charge him, and he eats a lot, so he probably feels embarrassed?"

Wei’er’s mother defended Tang Ming.

"I originally thought about getting rid of all this surplus ice cream before it expired by feeding it all to that glutton Tang Ming, but then he left, which really pisses me off!"

Xia Wei’er, fuming, turned around to go organize the freezer.

Tang Ming and his friend walked into the glass doors of the cold beverage shop.

Tang Ming had fairly good self-control, but the chubby one was already flushed and overheated.

The bikini-clad waitresses greeted Tang Ming and the chubby one, showing them to a seat, then asked what they wanted. When they heard it was a cold beverage buffet, they told them to pay at the cashier first before they could go to the buffet area and eat as much as they liked.

After entering, Tang Ming noticed that although there were bikini-clad waitresses, they only bent over and acted coquettishly towards single men or groups of men, whereas customers accompanied by women only got their orders taken.

"No wonder the business is doing so well, it’s almost like a nightclub."

Tang Ming chuckled, while the chubby one had already paid and came over with a tray.

"Bro Ming, the buffet’s not bad – there are drinks you can have as much as you want. You’ve got to show them what you’re made of, don’t hold back."

The chubby one said jokingly with a laugh.

Tang Ming laughed and said, "I just hope they have enough here, afraid it won’t be enough for me to eat..."

The two guys entered the buffet area and didn’t come back out; they found a table and sat down. The chubby one could only eat so much because, after all, it was all cold food and too much of it made his mouth too cold to bear, but Tang Ming didn’t have a problem at all. He continued to eat and drink as he pleased.

"Bro Ming, want more drink? I’ll go get another pitcher for you."

The chubby one asked quietly, pointing at the empty cola cup.

"Of course, don’t be shy, just bring me four or five pitchers."

Tang Ming waved his hand and said.

"Oh."

The chubby one now understood that Tang Ming was aiming to eat the cold beverage shop out of house and home.

Indeed, after eating for a full hour, Tang Ming alone had finished off all the cold beverages in the buffet area, and the containers for the drinks were also completely drained. Not only were the bikini-clad waitresses startled, but even the hall manager was taken aback.

After belching a few times, Tang Ming asked the chubby one to call over the manager in charge.

The hall manager had already noticed Tang Ming; he was the slender man discussing business with Boss Lei, although young, he was one of Boss Lei’s trusted aides. He had come up with plenty of shrewd ideas for the business, which often did have an effect.

Under the watchful eyes of many customers in the shop, the slender man approached Tang Ming with a beaming smile and said, "Don’t worry, sir. Even though you’ve eaten a lot, our shop has a rule that you can eat as much as you want with the buffet. We won’t charge you a penny more."

At this, the onlooking customers around them all nodded in approval, admiring the business for its conduct— they neither tried to drive someone away for eating too much nor charged them extra money. It seemed that they truly intended to run a good operation.