Thinking that selling broken rice in Saigon as well as pho in the North would be a popular dish for many people, this young man boldly invested. However, he received only a failure because Hanoians rarely eat broken rice.
25 years old, young man Tran Van The in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, after 3-4 years of working, has accumulated 200 million VND. As a person who does not like to work for a salary, The decided to open a methodical rice restaurant.
However, realizing that there were many broken rice restaurants in Saigon, The boldly flew to Hanoi to start a business, hoping to bring a familiar Saigon dish to Hanoi. “In Saigon, broken rice is everywhere on the sidewalks, big and small. From large scale restaurants to small casual eateries. Everyone in this city loves to eat broken rice. They all eat in the morning, lunch, afternoon, and evening because broken rice is easy to eat and reasonably priced. The broken rice shops are crowded. So I think, trading broken rice can help make money and be successful in Hanoi”, The recounted. 
Broken rice is a popular dish in Saigon Think is do. In early 2019, he decided to fly to Hanoi. Here, The met some close friends and asked them for advice, looking for a place to rent space to open a broken rice restaurant. After two weeks of searching, The rented a space of 50m2, including 2 floors, in Duy Tan street, Cau Giay, Hanoi. This is a beautiful, bustling place with a lot of office people. However, the rent is extremely expensive 20 million/month. Although the rent is expensive, he saw the potential because there were many offices and many office workers, so he still decided to do it. So rent the house for 1 year but have to pay 6 months in advance. Particularly, the rent for the premises has already expired 120 million VND. He spent 30 million to buy tables and chairs, cooking utensils, dishes and 5 million to buy ingredients such as grilled ribs, grilled meat, eggs, skin, egg rolls and other side dishes… Then hire 2 more service staff, salary 4.5 million/month/person. The total cost he initially spent was more than 160 million dong. Because the process to process broken rice is quite simple and few stages, when making the dish by yourself, The also finds that it saves a lot of time and the cost of hiring staff to serve. In addition, the side dishes of broken rice are also easy to prepare and relatively cheap. “The broken rice dish only has grilled ribs, eggs, skin, and egg rolls. Side foods need cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, sauerkraut, etc. All of these foods are rustic and can be bought easily at markets,” he said. With the remaining amount of about 40 million, The thought to reserve for the procurement of raw materials and pay staff in the first 2-3 months of business when there were not many customers. The strange thing is, although the restaurant is opened in such a method, it is not as satisfactory when it opens for sale. 
However, when coming to Hanoi, not everyone likes this dish, even though the price of a meal of broken rice in Saigon is only 35,000 VND. “In the first month, the shop had a loss. But I think the loss of the first month is normal because the customers are not familiar. Hopefully next month more guests will come. But the next month, I still have a loss. The next month will not be able to recover, “The said. The price of each plate of broken rice is very affordable, only 35,000 VND, but on many days, it can only sell about 50 servings. Deducting the money to buy raw materials, he only made a profit of about 500,000 VND all day. This amount is only enough to pay the salaries of 2 employees, electricity and water. 3 consecutive months of losses, too panic, The started to panic and find the reason why his broken rice restaurant has good food, enthusiastic service attitude is still not crowded. Turns out, Hanoi office people don’t like to eat broken rice often. They prefer to eat at familiar restaurants that they have tried. They also prefer popular dishes such as bun cha, bun dau, pho, and banh cuon on the sidewalk rather than sitting in beautiful restaurants. In addition, on sunny days, the temperature is up to 39 degrees Celsius, the number of visitors decreases. Sometimes it’s halved. Because it’s sunny, everyone is afraid to go out, so they bring home-cooked rice. Trying to maintain the shop until the end of the 5th month, The decided to close, accepting a loss of 200 million. “Any business person opening a restaurant wants to quickly recover capital and make a profit. But now I know, just relying on the basic advantages of the dish is not enough and will still lose face. The broken rice business in Hanoi is not suitable for the culinary needs of the people here. Meanwhile, the shops of pho, bun cha, and popular snacks with no brand or name but are always full of customers even though they are located in the alley,” he concluded. Having failed with a broken rice restaurant in Hanoi, The flew back to Saigon to continue working and saving money. After nearly 2 years, he continued to rent a space of 7 million / month to open a popular broken rice restaurant. “The failure in Hanoi taught me a great lesson. It is business, life or death, success or failure, the final decision is still the habits and preferences of the people there. Then comes the quality of the food and the issue of food safety and hygiene. Moreover, my mistake when I invested in opening a broken rice restaurant outside Hanoi was that I just opened the restaurant and asked for a big business. Therefore, I should learn from others, open a small shop, and then slowly see how it expands.”
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