Chapter 178
Chapter 178
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 178
Chapter Title: The Price Problem
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Interior, service, taste of the food, cleanliness.
If there's no issue with any of those aspects, it's time to go back to the most primal element.
Namely, price.
‘Business is ultimately about buying and selling goods, after all.’
Everything else—store concept, promotion, and so on—is secondary.
The taste of the food matters, of course, but even more important is how much it costs. Customer satisfaction ultimately hinges on whether it's worth the price.
“Boss, they're asking about the prices.”
“Uh...”
Park Man-soo hesitated for a moment before speaking up.
“The Bulgogi Aglio Olio is around sixteen thousand won, and the Bacon Carbonara is nineteen thousand...”
“What?”
There was no need to hear the rest. The prices of just those two dishes were enough to leave anyone stunned.
“Boss, what's the food cost percentage on this? I can't wrap my head around what you're using to justify charging that much.”
“The Bulgogi Aglio Olio has beef in it, and we only use the good stuff, so the price ends up a bit high.”
“So what's the food cost percentage?”
Knowing the food cost percentage was essential to see how much markup was padded onto the price. And in my view, any boss worth their salt should at least know the food cost for their own menu items.
“......”
But Park Man-soo had no response. I could tell without him saying it.
“You haven't calculated it, have you?”
“......Yeah, honestly, no.”
“Then how did you set the prices? Just on a hunch? Roughly?”
“When I did the market research, I went around eating at other places a lot. I have confidence in the food quality, and I pride myself on using only the best ingredients, so I factored all that in when setting the prices.”
He said a lot, but it all boiled down to setting them arbitrarily on his own whim.
I let out a deep sigh inwardly. I had a pretty good read on what kind of boss Park Man-soo was.
‘Great at cooking, but zero talent for business.’
I knew it was hard to master both cooking and business. But shouldn't you at least have the basics down?
It was a problem if your cooking skills were lacking and the food tasted off, but it was just as big an issue if you had no business sense and botched something as fundamental as pricing.
“No wonder there are no customers...”
Even if this was the only Western restaurant in the village. If the prices were too high, people usually lost interest.
They'd only come very occasionally, in unavoidable circumstances.
“If this were Gangnam or Seongsu in Seoul, you could get away with these prices. Because the rent there is insanely expensive, and that all gets baked into the food costs.”
So people might think it's pricey, but they wouldn't turn away.
“Boss, when you did your market research, you only went to famous pasta places in Seoul, right? Places packed with people.”
“Yeah, that's right.”
“You can't use those as a reference. You can take notes on the taste, sure. But not the prices, okay? The environments are completely different.”
Selling at prices from the heart of Gangnam in this remote village? No wonder it wasn't selling.
“Those places have tons of young people and foot traffic. But what about here?”
“......Not many young folks. Foot traffic's the same.”
“You knew that and still did it. Plus, the rent here probably isn't that bad, right? I haven't checked myself, but it's not Gangnam levels.”
“Yeah, correct.”
“So why set the prices the same?”
Park Man-soo clamped his mouth shut at my question.
The answer was simple.
‘He never even thought about it.’
A classic mistake for bosses who take pride in their food but lack basic business sense.
They think from their own perspective, not the customer's.
"This is decent enough," they rationalize. Underestimating customers' price resistance in the process.
In other words, they push the price they want to sell at, not the price customers want to pay.
“Boss, do you know how to calculate costs? Have you ever done it?”
“No, never.”
If you don't know, learn. That's what these tools are for.
“Come down here. I'll walk you through calculating food cost percentages from the ground up.”
***
Park Man-soo shuffled over to stand in front of me, looking downright bashful despite his burly, bandit-like appearance.
At least he seemed willing to learn, which was a relief. Plenty of people would've gotten defensive with a "Who are you to tell me?" attitude, but Park Man-soo was downright humble by comparison.
“Alright, boss. First, list out every ingredient that goes into one serving of Bulgogi Aglio Olio. Don't miss even the small stuff, and be specific about quantities.”
“Got it.”
Park Man-soo began filling a blank sheet of paper from top to bottom.
Beef 200g, pasta noodles 150g, one big spoonful of olive oil, 3 cloves of garlic, half an onion, a handful of mushrooms, soy sauce, sugar, pepper.
“You don't know the exact amounts for soy sauce, sugar, and pepper?”
“Yeah, I just adjust to taste each time...”
“Hmm. For now, let's call the three combined about 100 won. But it's better to quantify your recipes. You might get sick or be too busy to taste properly.”
Park Man-soo nodded that he understood.
“Now calculate the ingredient costs by weight. Say the beef for bulgogi is 10,000 won per kg. Then 200g is 2,000 won. Like that.”
“Okay.”
I watched him diligently crunch the numbers and chimed in.
“It's not just ingredients, either. This plate has to cover rent, electricity, gas bills, too.”
“What? Even that?”
“Of course.”
Electricity doesn't grow on trees.
“You take your monthly utilities, divide by roughly how many plates you sell, and you get the per-plate cost. How many plates do you sell here a month?”
“Uh... I don't really...”
“You don't know?”
“No, I haven't kept exact track.”
This is driving me crazy.
“Fine. You probably haven't sold many anyway, so it won't matter much now.”
Sales would pick up after the broadcast, changing the food cost percentages again.
“Then do you know the maximum turnover this place could handle? How many plates per day?”
“......?”
Park Man-soo just blinked at me. He clearly had no idea what turnover even meant.
Good lord. What guts did he have to open a place like this?
“......If you don't know, I'll just tell you.”
I swallowed a sigh and said it plain.
“In this neighborhood, pasta can't go over 10,000 won per plate.”
“Huh?”
“That's probably the sweet spot, too. Like 9,900 or 9,800 won.”
I hadn't crunched the exact numbers, but experience told me so.
“Right now, you need to build a loyal local base. Sure, the broadcast might draw a flash crowd from outsiders. But long-term, it's the locals who need to keep coming.”
“Yeeeah...”
“But over 10,000 won feels burdensome—they won't come easily. This place needs low barriers to entry. Anyone thinking, 'Hmm, craving pasta today,' should pick here without a second thought.”
That's how you stabilize revenue.
“But 10,000 won is kinda...”
Park Man-soo glanced at me cautiously before speaking up.
“There are other costs for this dish besides ingredients.”
“Like what?”
Did I miss something? As I tilted my head in confusion, Park Man-soo scribbled something at the bottom of the paper.
Then he showed it to me... Good grief. I nearly burst out laughing right there.
[Time spent mastering the skills to make this taste: 6,000 won per plate]
That's what he'd written.
So he was factoring in the time he'd spent learning his craft into the price of each dish?
I was so flabbergasted by this unheard-of accounting method that I was speechless. Park Man-soo added by way of explanation.
“I spent a long time learning to cook. I didn't want to brag, but I studied abroad in Italy and learned there, too.”
“......”
“To others, it might just be a plate of pasta, but doesn't it take effort and time from me to make it taste this good?”
My head started throbbing.
“Boss, you can't include that in the cost... The 10,000 won I mentioned earlier already factors in labor.”
“It feels too cheap. Especially for pasta.”
What was this now?
“Why especially pasta?”
My voice was thick with exhaustion as I asked, and Park Man-soo replied with unmistakable pride.
“It's a high-end dish.”
“......”
I was too stunned to speak. I fixed him with a cold stare.
Park Man-soo finally seemed to realize he'd upset me.
“I-I mean, it's not like it has to be that way... Just my opinion.”
He hesitated, then added more.
“Actually... I ran a Western place somewhere else before, and business was great there.”
“Did you sell for sixteen thousand, nineteen thousand there too?”
“No. Back then, 10,100 won was the most expensive item. I even sold some for 8,900 won.”
What? So he already knew the right answers?
And yet he had business experience but didn't even know how to calculate costs? That was shocking.
“Business was booming back then.”
Of course—because the prices were reasonable!
But Park Man-soo's thinking differed from mine. He muttered regretfully.
“If I'd charged sixteen thousand back then, I could've made way more...”
I could only gape in disbelief.