Chapter 163: The Most Attractive Food Delivery in History!
Chapter 163: The Most Attractive Food Delivery in History!
Everyone looked puzzled, especially Lin Canrong, his eyes full of confusion.
Others might not know much about the food situation at Moyu Internet Café, but he knew it all too well.
There was basically nothing to do!
From clock-in to clock-out every day, the number of dishes he actually cooked rarely exceeded ten.
Which made sense, really—who would come to a place as classy and stylish as Moyu Internet Café just to eat some homestyle cooking?
The pretty girl at the next table might order a fancy-looking cocktail, sip it slowly while gazing out the window, and snap a photo to flex on social media.
Now imagine the guy at the next table chomping down on a plate of stir-fried tomato and egg?
Yeah... no.
If someone did order food, the smell of it would fill the whole coffee area—he’d probably get mentally killed a hundred times over by people’s glares.
So at the beginning, no one ordered food at all. Chef Lin’s daily job was just standing around in the kitchen—bored out of his mind.
Later, things improved a little.
Pei Qian, in order to ensure basic employee welfare, had the café start providing lunch for all its staff. So every day at noon, Chef Lin would finally get busy for a while.
But even then, it was pretty chill—because the café also hired two more chefs.
Compared to a typical restaurant, the workload here was practically a vacation.
As of now, the food side of Moyu Internet Café was more of an optional feature than anything essential.
Not only was it unprofitable, it barely brought in any revenue at all.
It was even starting to resemble a Tengda employee cafeteria.
And now they wanted to expand this?
Chef Lin couldn’t understand how that could possibly go anywhere.
The three of them stared at Pei Qian, eagerly awaiting his "brilliant insight."
Pei Qian cleared his throat and said seriously, “There’s an old saying: 'Food and sex are part of human nature.' Food is an industry closely tied to people’s daily lives—it will never go out of style. So far, the meals offered at Moyu Internet Café, thanks to their nutritional value and comforting flavors, have already gained quite a bit of love.”
“That’s why we need to take this strength a step further—so that even people who can’t come to the café in person can still enjoy the same delicious food right at home!”
Ma Yang’s initial enthusiasm slowly faded as a look of confusion settled on his face. He stared at Pei Qian. “Brother Qian, so… what you’re saying is… you want Moyu Internet Café to start doing delivery?”
“Why make it sound so complicated? Just say we’re adding a food delivery service…”
Hmm? Not bad—this kid’s got a knack for reading between the lines. Yes, it was just food delivery…
But not your average food delivery!
Pei Qian’s face turned stern. “Old Ma, your attitude is all wrong.”
“Take singing, for example—when you sing, it sounds like you're trying to kill someone. But when Chen Lei sings, it's heavenly. How can you compare the two?”
“Any task, taken to the extreme, becomes the foundation of a great industry!”
“Just imagine—in the future, our food delivery empire will expand beyond Jingzhou, reaching cities all over the country, profoundly transforming people’s lifestyles. How could you reduce that to something as simple as ‘just delivery’?”
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. What we need now is to take that crucial first step!”
As Pei Qian spoke, the expressions of Ma Yang, Zhang Yuan, and Lin Canrong shifted—from indifference, to realization, and finally to sincere admiration.
Lin Canrong couldn't help but feel deeply moved.
This... is what true vision looks like!
President Pei was able to take something as simple as food delivery and envision an entire future business empire—one that would profoundly change people’s lifestyles once food delivery became widely adopted...
This was true foresight.
No wonder he was already a company president at such a young age. You could only call it… talent.
Ma Yang also dropped his earlier dismissiveness, his interest rekindled by Pei Qian’s speech.
“Brother Qian, then tell us—what should we do?”
“What about building a delivery website? Maybe partner with other businesses in Jingzhou to create an online delivery platform?”
Ma Yang and Zhang Yuan began tossing out ideas, one after another. Lin Canrong also chimed in with some additions.
Pei Qian, however, only smiled without saying a word.
Honestly, it wasn’t surprising that they would suggest something like this.
The year was 2010—a time when the PC internet era was winding down, and mobile internet was rapidly rising.
In Pei Qian’s memory, the number of people accessing the internet via mobile phones had surpassed desktop users by a ratio of 74.5% to 70.6%—and that happened two years later.
But in this world, the smartphone industry had developed faster than in his memory, so the mobile internet age had already arrived.
However, up to this point, food delivery services hadn’t yet been dominated by tech giants—because their attention was fixated on another booming trend: group buying.
Starting in spring 2010, Chinese entrepreneurs jumped on the hot Groupon-style group buying craze, launching what became known as the “Hundred-Group War” or even the “Thousand-Group War,” with nearly ten new group-buying startups emerging daily.
In such a heated market, food delivery had been somewhat overlooked. It wouldn’t become a hot topic for capital investment until a year or two later.
That said, many restaurants were already offering delivery—but only via phone calls. It was primitive: orders could be late, misdelivered, or just plain wrong. The system was full of flaws.
So, building a platform to aggregate these restaurants and let customers order online, with the platform taking a cut—that was an idea any rational person could come up with.
But Pei Qian obviously had no intention of doing that.
“You’re all being way too impatient.”
“Food has to be eaten bite by bite. The road has to be walked step by step. Right now, people haven’t even formed the habit of ordering food online. Moyu Internet Café doesn’t have a standalone food brand, no established reputation either. Even if we built the site, how would we promote it? How would we guarantee the results we want?”
“More importantly, the biggest challenge in this kind of industry isn’t just market share or user acquisition—it’s regulation. Food safety is a serious matter. If some dodgy little food stall partners with us and makes someone sick, we, as the platform, would still be held responsible!”
“You guys think making a platform sounds simple. But have you actually thought through all these problems?”
With just a few rhetorical questions, Pei Qian left Ma Yang and the others completely speechless.
Yeah… this idea really does seem a bit too far-fetched and impractical right now.
But… if we don’t do that, then what can we do?
Everyone turned to look at Pei Qian.
Pei Qian smiled slightly. “Simple—we take it one step at a time.”
“First, we build up our own food brand. Then, we develop a basic online ordering app—but it only allows customers to order our food.”
“Our chefs are top-notch, and we use fresh, clean ingredients. There will absolutely be no problems.”
“We directly target the high-end market, build a reputation, and then expand from Jingzhou to the rest of the country!”
The three looked at each other—it did seem like a much more practical plan!
But…
The plan sounded great on paper, yet something still felt a little off.
“So… what do we call our food brand?” Ma Yang asked.
Pei Qian gave a calm smile. “Moyu Delivery!”
Lin Canrong looked a little confused. “But, President Pei, there are already tons of restaurants doing delivery. Any halfway-popular place offers takeout now. While our food does taste good, it’s just regular home-style cooking. Compared to other restaurants, we don’t have any obvious advantages—not to mention we’re behind on things like marketing or pricing…”
As expected from a professional chef—he immediately spotted the core issue.
Pei Qian smiled again. “That’s exactly why we need to go the high-end route.”
“Most restaurants use plastic boxes and plastic bags for delivery. It’s unhygienic and ugly. That’s one of the main reasons people still prefer dining in over ordering out.”
“In truth, the food is the same—it’s just the packaging that changes.”
“This proves one thing: people are visual creatures. Appearance often matters more than taste.”
“So we’ll plate all our dishes using custom white porcelain tableware, have dedicated delivery staff hand-deliver each meal, and then collect the tableware afterward. Just that alone will be a dimensional-level blow to every other restaurant nearby!”
Pei Qian spoke with such confidence he nearly convinced himself.
Ma Yang was clearly moved—his eyes reignited with the flames of ambition.
But Lin Canrong glanced over at Zhang Yuan, and the two shared a look of mutual confusion.
They didn’t get it…
Could this actually work?
Was President Pei’s thinking simply too ahead of its time… or were they just too far behind?
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