actually I would have thought running a steamboat business is
quite profitable & easy. Most of the ingredients are raw &
patrons got to cook themselves. You just need to flood the counter
with cheap, purchase in bulk stuff & most low-end to medium
type of stalls have small, limpy shrimps or flower crabs - which
are easily available cheaply in market.
there is almost no sliced fish (which is quite ex and require
processing - eg: slicing), fishball, meat ball, veg, tomatos, etc
etc are all cheap. Then, to draw the patrons, you just need to
provide fried chicken wings, and some other fried stuff like
nuggets. And there you have it, you can afford to charge ppl 15
bucks. And your costs is like most, half of it?
The law of averages will apply, most ppl go steamboat will almost
never eat the equivalent value of food, so in a way, the propietor
earns.
Which is why, there seems a flood of steamboat stalls mushrooming -
almost all are run by PRC and all claim to be Authentic Chongqing
Steamboat , duh...
