Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Take one failing family restaurant and one very determined daughter.
My mum's Chinese restaurant is dying and I have three months to save it.
I'm Rumela Dasgupta and you're listening to The Food Chain from the BBC World Service. Today we're following the story of Lisa and her mum Sophie. Lisa's put her acting career on hold to try and rescue her mum's 30-year-old restaurant in Edinburgh. A video Lisa posted about her attempts to turn the business around has been viewed more than 15 million times.
But can she turn clicks into paying customers?
We have no customers coming in and our menu is outdated with over 200 dishes.
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Chapter 2: How did Lisa He decide to help her family's restaurant?
And my mum not being on the internet, she doesn't know about Google reviews or she doesn't know what to do when a delivery tablet breaks down. If a customer complains and doesn't want to pay the bill, she wouldn't really know what to do. Yeah, so a lot of tiny, tiny issues, which I think would have been OK 30 years ago, but in today's day and age, it's really not OK.
Lisa is keen to digitise the restaurant. At the moment, everything from orders to stock management is done on paper.
So we still manually take the orders with a pen and paper. And then once we've taken the order, we rip it off and fold the little paper here. And then we put it through this metal tube and then throw this thing down the tube to the kitchen.
It was quite fun to see that, actually. The little piece of paper that you rolled up into a little metal ring that then goes down a chute straight to the kitchen.
The tube thing is fine, but sometimes the orders do get stuck as well, so we're left waiting. half an hour later saying, where's table nine's order? Where's it gone? And that's when you have to stick a stick down the chute. Yes, exactly, exactly. And also sometimes the order got lost a month ago and then suddenly today the order comes down.
So suddenly so much food has come up and no one's ordered it.
Where did the idea come from to go on social media to promote this restaurant?
So I kind of planned to maybe document the journey for one to three months and eventually maybe some local people will see the video and And some people will come in. But what actually happened is just that first video took off completely. And which was really unexpected. So I posted the video on a Sunday evening and Mondays were closed.
So when we opened on Tuesday morning, it was still kind of normal. It was just one customer and one influencer. We're like, okay. And then after half an hour, one hour, a few more came in. And then by the time it got to peak period, maybe 1 o'clock or 1.30, it was kind of almost full. But by Wednesday, it was completely packed and we didn't have enough space for people coming in.
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Chapter 3: What challenges are Lisa and Sophie facing with their restaurant?
So it It does get a bit difficult to balance the balance sheets at the end of the day. We're still sort of going through the financials to see if this is going to be sustainable long term. Because we're really busy and we're really tired, but it seems like, to be honest, we're not sure where the money's going.
Sophie Lee and her daughter Lisa, and we'll be back with them later in the programme. One family who knows exactly what they're going through is the Mahns from Sydney. Last year, Baljinder Mahns' restaurant was on the brink of collapse until his son Bhav stepped in to help. It all began, you've guessed it, with the viral video.
Can a bot business graduate with a full-time job and no restaurant experience help save my parents' shop? Let's find out. This is episode one of Saving My Parents' Business. Okay. So in terms of the memories of the restaurant, I feel like there's so many because my parents have owned the restaurant pretty much my whole life. I would say it's a mixed bag.
It's like, it's a good positive memory because we used to get a lot of food from the restaurant, but it was a huge toll on my parents. Like my mom was always at the restaurant. My dad was always at the restaurant as well. And they were working so hard. It's kind of been like their whole life. It's been everything, especially to my dad.
I feel like it's his sense of purpose comes from the restaurant, but business was going really well until essentially COVID hit. Baljinderji, what happened?
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Chapter 4: What insights does restaurant expert David Hopkins provide?
Tell me about how the business started suffering. Business started going down and down. It just got back to earth.
And then two year ago, then I got sick. I got stuck. I went to hospital and then the business gone almost dead. Nothing, nothing was coming.
It was terrible because they were making a loss on the restaurant. At the same time, interest rates skyrocketed, inflation skyrocketed. So all their expenses had jumped up significantly. So they had a lot of debts that they were slowly building up. but they weren't making enough money to get approved for a loan. So it felt like we were at rock bottom.
So it was actually my mom that went up to me saying, like, I don't even know what to do anymore. It feels like we're just being tested in every front. I think that's when I was like, I need to do whatever it takes to kind of help them in that situation. Wow. So you actually were about to sell the business. What happened? I put a business for sale, I think, for six or seven months.
Couldn't sell it. Nobody wanted it. At that point, my dad was back to working seven days a week already. And then we just had a chat. And then we were just like, if we have to keep the restaurant, then we're going to make the restaurant busy. And so I went onto my laptop. I started typing up a full plan of what we're going to do.
My dad seemed very confused by it, but my mom was like, yes, let's try to do everything. I initially went straight to social media because I'd seen so many other businesses. And as someone part of like that TikTok generation, like whenever I want to go somewhere, I kind of look on social media to find food that's interesting. Yeah, that's where the idea sparked.
I was just like, all it takes is one video that has to perform well and it could change my parents' business forever. But how did you find the whole idea of being on video that millions of people could see? First, when he asked me, I refused. I said, I don't want to go to social media because I'm a very shy person.
I said, you can make the video for your mom and I don't want to get involved with this one. I don't want to make video.
He said, no, you're the main chef. Mom doesn't do cooking. You're the one. You have to do it. But I don't know nothing about social media. So that's the main reason because I didn't know that social media can do these things. Now I realize.
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Chapter 5: What strategies can help modernize a failing restaurant?
I looked at your pricing online, and I would say I do not like the pricing approach you've taken. So when I look at your menu, I see a lot of 11 pounds 20, 1080. There's some 50s in there. I would make all of those 95 cents, and you'll be shocked how much money just doing that will make you. And the guests will not see a difference between 1080 and 1095.
True. There you are. That's a good tip, Lisa.
Yeah, definitely. A quick fix. I love that.
To start with. So Lisa, what do you think now having spoken to David?
Um... A few things really surprised me in terms of how over-portioning 10% can result in such a major loss for an entire year. Because when you think of 10%, it seems like nothing. It's like, yeah, just give a 10% extra meat, vegetable. It's not going to hurt. So that's information that definitely surprised me.
And in terms of the pricing thing, it's another thing that's made me realise maybe sometimes I should listen to my mum a bit more because that was our original pricing and then I raised it. And I have recently received an advice from another fellow restaurant owner who says, remember to listen to your mum.
Thank you, Lisa. Very nice to meet you. I'm going to keep following to see how you're progressing.
David Hopkins of Canada-based restaurant consultancy, The 15 Group. Long hours, constant stress, tight margins. Everyone we've heard from today has told us how hard it is to run a restaurant. So is there a moment when maybe the best option is just to walk away?
So I spent five years working evenings and weekends, never really had much time for family or socialising. It's really not a good quality of life.
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Chapter 6: How did social media impact the restaurant's visibility?
I wasn't eating properly. I wasn't drinking enough water. I wasn't taking enough breaks. I was on my feet for hours and hours on end. And I just became really depressed and sad. So since I've been off work, I've just been trying to focus on fixing myself, basically. I've been going to the gym a lot.
I've loved having time to cook for my husband and sit and eat together, which has been such a novelty. My life is so much better without it. Any advice for Lisa and her mum's restaurant? Go and look at other modern Chinese restaurants and go and see what the experience is like. and take some inspiration from that. And also the costing of the menu is so important.
It's something that I got wrong initially and learned how to do kind of once I was already in the thick of it. But yeah, so important to make sure that you are taking a profit. Or there's no business, basically, is there?
Carly Bond there with her advice to Lisa. Back at the China Star, the lunch service is over. Lisa and Sophie are finally able to sit down and take a breath. What do you think, Mum? You're 70. We'll keep it till you're 90. A hundred?
Yeah, definitely. I'm very healthy, yes. The other day you were complaining you don't want to do this anymore. That's okay, yeah. I like working. So you've given yourself, what do you think, six months time? Well, I said three months initially, but I think I was very naive when I said that. I do think it will take me a minimum of six months, so...
although I'm not sure how I feel about that because I really miss my life in London too. I do hope to get my mum retired even though she wants to keep working. I want to bring her to London, show her how other restaurants are doing now, the more modern fusion concepts, maybe take her to a fine dining meal which she's never been to.
Yeah, I'd love to just get her to enjoy life outside the restaurant once in a while. You've got a good kid there, mom.
Yes, yes, I've got a good adoptor.
Thanks to Sophie Lee and her daughter Lisa He for inviting us to their small family restaurant and to everyone in today's programme. Do you run a restaurant? If so, do tell us about it. Our email address is thefoodchain at bbc.co.uk. From me, Ramela Dasgupta, producers Lexi O'Connor and Beatrice Pickup, and the editor Sarah Wadeson, thanks for listening and join us again next week.
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