Opening finally came, everyone was excited, anxious, and nervous. The moment of truth is finally here. How would the feedback be like?  I had taken a week off from work to help out. Up to this point, we had not done any marketing or promotion even though we had discussed about sending out flyers. The only thing we had was the large red banner with “Grand Opening” hanging off the roof. But still we had hope for a line outside!! Wishful thinking.  Our very first customer actually walked a few mins after we officially turned on the Open sign at 11am that day.  It turned out, he was the Frontier Telecom technician working on the hub by the street. Since our menu is a little unique with it’s naming, I was designated as the spoke-person for our shop. The first order was, you guess it. BBQ Pulled Pork sandwich with homemade BBQ sauce by yours truly! It had homemade coleslaw and fried crispy onion on it.  We later took the onion out.  This sandwich had about 6-8 ounces of pulled pork and it was messing to eat!

It was my duty to walk out to the front and welcome customers and go over the menu. Good thing, my graduate course works had me doing presentations for the entirety of the program and talking about what’s the sandwiches and fried wonton and describing the ingredients and the making processes came naturally to me. For example, introducing the Kimcheese Shortrib Sandwich – I would present it this way “Tender shredded short ribs on a bed of kimchi and 2 slices of wheat berry toast with 2 kind of melted cheese – Provolone and Ghost Pepper Jack Cheese. Top with our house sweet mayo sauce”.  How about our Beef Lover Sandwich? Here the sale pitch – “Slices of Roast beef on bed of house spring salad with promegranate blueberrry vinegrette on ciabatta with Ghost Pepper Jack Cheese with our house dynamite sauce which has a hint of spicyness with a little sweetness to balance off the saltiness from the masago”.  There were 3 menu board, one for Fried Wonton, one for Sandwiches, and the other for Boba Teas.  It took about 5 minutes to go over the presentation, a little longer if the crowd is more enthusiastic. Mr H’s son told me a few weeks later after observing my presentations that it makes him hungry listening to my descriptions and he saws some customers licking their lips. For what’s worth. I relished those moments, it gave me a chance to hone my public speaking skills.