Chapter 232
Saturday.
Luke rested backwards.
Slept until ten in the morning.
Got up, drank a pot of green tea, and it was almost eleven o’clock.
Drove out for dinner.
Luke drove to ‘Shabu Shabu World’, a relatively well-known chain of hot pot restaurants in the neighborhood.
The reason Luke came to this hot pot restaurant was that he was craving for hot pot, something that could easily catch fire if eaten two days in a row, but would be missed if not eaten for a week.
Another reason, Luke wanted to examine the store to see if the franchise had any head start.
Luke now had more than eight hundred thousand dollars in cash, there was enough principal to use for business, as long as the business was stable, it could also be a long-term channel of liquidity.
Of course, it was still just an immature idea, and he knew that doing business, especially cross-business was not an easy task.
It would lose money if it was not good.
Therefore, he wouldn’t invest easily until he had thought it through.
This Shabu Shabu World was also a Szechuan hotpot, specializing in butter hotpot, with four sides of duck blood, bean skin, tripe, and quail eggs on its own.
Choose your own seasoning, an oil dish for the south and a sesame sauce for the north.
A variety of shabu-shabu dishes are available, including lamb, beef, tripe, seafood, and seasonal vegetables.
In addition, there are specialties such as crispy pork and other specialties.
Because of the idea of opening a franchise, Luke observed the restaurant very carefully, taking into account the flow of customers, staff, dishes, decoration and other aspects.
The overall feeling of the meal was not bad.
Luke’s favorites were the shabu shabu tripe and the little crispy pork.
Luke also approached the owner of the restaurant to talk about franchising, and the other party said something about franchising, such as the franchise fee, site selection, decoration, chef and other corresponding rules.
Franchise fee every year.
Site selection two stores can not be too close to each other.
Decoration has a unified style.
Chef, experienced chef will be stationed in the store to guide, fried materials have a unified distribution of the parent company.
Luke roughly calculated that the cost of the early stage is mainly from three aspects, franchise fee, rent and decoration.
And want to open a hot pot franchise, the upfront investment may be nearly three hundred thousand dollars.
Another big expense is employee payroll, which is no less than $40,000 per month.
With eight hundred thousand dollars in his pocket, Luke had more than enough to invest in a hot pot franchise.
But he faced a lot of problems.
The first is that he has no experience.
Secondly, how long will it take to make a normal profit.
A hot pot to eat down, belly comfort, but the heart is more and more bottomless.
He wanted to invest in hot pot business, one because he likes to eat hot pot.
Another, compared to other types of food and drink, hot pot is relatively simple.
One of the most surprising things about this hotpot restaurant for Luke, there was a thoughtful deodorizer in the store, allowing customers to quickly remove the smell of hotpot from their bodies.
After some comprehensive consideration, Luke gave this investment program a B.
After eating, Luke went straight to the next investment project.
The car wash.
Los Angeles was so large that almost every household had a car, and most families had more than two cars.
The car wash industry was naturally essential.
There are two main types, the first is manual car wash.
Compared with China, the United States has a higher cost of labor, artificial car wash is about fifty U.S. dollars, and this is still the cost after the card.
This kind of walk belongs to the high-end route, if done well is also very earning money.
But Luke is now engaged in the side business, not the main business, there is not much energy to manage people.
Therefore, he preferred the self-service car wash.
His car happened to be dirty as well, so he came to experience a self-service car wash.
Soon, Luke drove to a self-service car wash, there is a row of car wash single room on both sides separated by a wall, and there are car wash tools on the wall of each single room.
Before you wash your car, you have to go to the center area to change your change for car wash coins, which are also all self-service.
One dollar can be exchanged for one car wash coin, and one car wash coin can be used for one hundred seconds.
In addition to the spray gun for the car wash, there were also vacuum cleaners and towels for an additional fee.
Luke gave his car a quick wash and spent about ten dollars.
The experience felt pretty good, or at least a lot more affordable than a manual car wash.
Luke washed the car, but also waited outside for a while, one after another vehicles into the car wash, but not too much.
This kind of business is the most important is the flow of customers, and the location has a lot to do with.
Luke roughly calculated that a car wash cubicle that washed cars twenty-four hours a day would earn about $800.
Of course, that’s almost impossible; $100 a day would be a lot of revenue.
With ten car wash cubicles, that’s $1,000 a day, or $30,000 a month.
Rough math is still good, but customer traffic is key.
And as Luke’s experience shows, system reserves can be realized by increasing traffic to self-service car washes.
The biggest consideration is the investment in the premise.
Ten single car wash booths cover a lot of space, and the investment in the premise requires quite a bit of capital.
The biggest concern is that the site selection will go wrong and it will be over without customers.
All things considered, this investment can be rated A.
Feel better than investing in a hot pot store.
The third project to examine, antique stores.
Although the United States does not have a long history, but the Americans like to collect, and the collection of strange and weird things, only you can not think of, no they can not collect.
Antique stores are also the easiest of the three items to realize the sleuth system.
In addition, Luke had another purpose for going to the antique store, which was to choose a birthday gift for his grandfather.
As a tourist city, Los Angeles had quite a few antique stores, and it was up to one’s luck and skill to buy the real thing.
Luke came to a street that specialized in selling antiques.
Unlike the valuable and high artifacts in China, the antique stores in Los Angeles sell old objects with a sense of history and art, pots and pans, furniture ornaments, jewelry and clothes, books and photos, oil paintings and sculptures, garden tools, and so on.
Luke had the illusion of entering a second-hand furniture market.
Luke just turned around and dismissed the idea of opening an antique store.
The water in this industry was too deep for him to play as an amateur, and even if he had the system reserve to realize it, it would still be a loss-making business.
After dispelling this idea, he started to choose a birthday gift for Robert.
Luke went around a few stores and spotted an old vinyl record player at an antique store called ‘Time’.
A Ford Mustang record player, which from the looks of it matched the styling of the Mustang, and the overall color was red, which was cool.
Luke thought that Robert would love the record player, it was very dated.
Seeing that Luke kept staring at the record player, the boss came over and asked, “Sir, you have a great eye, this is the first commemorative edition record player released by Ford in the millennium, it is very collectible.
If you like it, you can try it out.”
Luke swept a glance at the owner, a fat white guy in his forties now, walking between the narrow curio store shelves, Luke was worried he would knock over the collection, “It’s over twenty years old, can you still listen to it?”
“A vintage car from decades ago can run on the road, let alone a record player.”
The fat boss opened a black box next to him, took a vinyl record out of it and put it on the red Mustang record player.
A burst of music followed, Luke didn’t know who sang it, but the song was nice and different.
After listening for a while, Luke asked, “How much?”
“One thousand dollars.”
Luke didn’t say anything and just walked away, it was over the budget he had given Robert.
He was rich, but not stupid.
“Hey man, don’t rush off, we can keep talking if you like.”
Luke opened the bidding, “Two hundred dollars.”
Fat Boss: “At least 800 dollars.”
“I’m not interested in this, I’m giving it to someone, it’s out of budget, I’ll have to choose another gift.”
“Who are you planning to give it to?”
“My grandfather.”
“This is a perfect gift, I’m sure your grandfather will love it, 700 dollars and you can have it to go.”
“Two hundred and fifty dollars.”
“Six hundred dollars, you really can’t go any lower.”
“Three hundred dollars.”
“500 dollars, you can have it.” The owner took another step back.
Luke looked at the red record player, styled on the outside to resemble a Mustang, and knowing Robert as he did, the older man would have liked it.
He looked again at the black box next to it, which contained several vinyl records.
“I’ll give you four hundred dollars, but in addition to the phonograph, I want the vinyl records next to it.”
“There are four vinyl records in this box, each one is a collector’s edition, and a lot of people would be willing to buy one for a hundred dollars, and I’d even lose money if I sold it to you at that price.”
“Five hundred dollars record player + vinyl, yes, I’ll take it, no forget it.
That’s the highest price I can offer.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re the best haggler I’ve ever seen, but for the sake of your filial piety to Grandpa ……
OK, I’ll sell it to you.
Five hundred dollars and the record player and vinyl are yours.
Man, you’re making a killing.”
Just listen to what the boss says.
People who buy things are shrewd again, can still be shrewd than people who sell things, almost on the line.
People do business is to make money, can’t not let people earn at all.
Besides, this gift is really suitable for Robert.
Returning home at night.
Luke lay on the recliner listening to the vinyl records played on the record player.
This kind of thing has long been gone in the country, but it is still more popular in Los Angeles, many people are good at this, listening to an atmosphere.
Luke listened to the music as he thought back to the three projects of the day.
The more he thought about it, the more discouraged he became, and he felt that he might not be business material.
Making money was possible, but losing money was more likely.
It wasn’t like he was short of money now, and he had saved more than a million dollars as a cop, so why fool around with other businesses.
Some things are good, but not necessarily for you.
His honey and my arsenic.
After listening to a song, Luke walked over to get ready for a new vinyl record.
Luke opened the black box, which was made of wood with a moisture resistant surface.
Luke took a new vinyl record out of it and put it on the phonograph.
Luke took out the rest of the vinyl and examined it, the title of the song and the name of the artist were printed in the center of the record.
Since he was going to give it to Robert as a gift, shouldn’t it be wrapped.
The lining on the top of this black box was a little broken and Luke wanted to put a new lining on it.
Just as he was studying the black record box, he realized that there was something awkward about this record box.
The record box was nearly ten centimeters high, but the space that actually held the records was a bit narrower, ordinary people might not notice it, but Luke’s observation power was far beyond normal, and he felt that there was something wrong with this design.
It was likely that there was a mezzanine.
Luke studied it for a while longer, becoming more and more certain of his suspicions.
He unwrapped the bottom of the black record box, and indeed found that there was still a sandwich in the record box, and opened it to see that it was an oil-sealed paper bag, with excellent moisture-proof measures.
Luke smiled, since it was in the compartment, it must be something good.
I did not expect to find an unexpected discovery.
Opening the bag, there was also a vinyl record inside, with the title of the record and the band it belonged to printed in the center.
The name of the record, That’ll Be The Day/In Spite of Anger.
The band, the quarrymen.
Luke was dumbfounded, thinking it was some kind of precious record, but it turned out that he had never heard of the band, not to mention the songs.
What’s the point of hiding a record from an unknown band?