Chapter 10
We are currently seeking a buyer for our French duck restaurant.
Oliva has found an American BBQ company that is interested in purchasing, and he has asked me to communicate with their Chinese assistant. He wants me to use polite language when discussing the use of the landlord’s license for business and how to cooperate with FDA inspections.
Unfortunately, I struggled to find the right words during the explanation, but we must carry on as usual. The restaurant is still open every day, and we are sitting on fire everyday cause no revenue means we need pay from our pocket for all the cost.This is painful.
We were thrilled to hear that Oliva’s wife is pregnant. Oliva is excited about running the business and we have just sent out flyers for our Christmas set menu.
However, we were shocked when our landlord served us with an official notice of termination without any prior warning or explanation. After questioning the landlord further, he mentioned that he had found a new tenant willing to pay triple what we do. Despite having a legal lease agreement in place, it seems like they want us out.
The landlord started examining our daily income in an attempt to pressure us into leaving immediately. He tried to blame our untable tiny business.This situation has left Oliva feeling disappointed as we don’t have the budget for a lawyer.
Since the landlord doesn’t speak English and often treats me like his son’s age, my plan moving forward is for Oliva to visit him regularly after operating hours and I push landlords wife friendly in reason we never delay any payment and its an internation stuff especially Oliva
s wife will give delivery soon.In order to try and resolve this issue amicably.
I will discreetly inform the landlord’s wife that Oliva’s wife is expecting soon. We have always been prompt with our rent payments and we don’t want to make a big deal out of this to avoid embarrassing the Chinese community. Let’s stick to the compensation clause and move forward.
Landlord`s wife is a nice Chinese lady with sympathy. We are lucky.
After several rounds of this game, the landlord gave up and Oliva called me to let me know that we will receive 880k as compensation, which is close to a Million RMB. My goodness, what a lovely landlord we have! I told it to all my friends surround.No one can believe it.The Spanish neighbor warns me again to stop surfing in restaurant business.He is about to be right.
Oliva received the compensation and immediately paid me my share. I appreciate it. Then we need to start organizing the team and selling inventory. The first buyer was a picky rich French kid who walked in and left within 5 minutes without buying anything. Oliva told me that this kind of rich buyer is like this.
We compared prices from different buyers, all offering low prices. In the end, I pay for the most of our inventory including second hand aircon. I have a good memory there which is silly.Oliva asked me to clean out opened whiskey bottles, so I gave them away to constructors and threw away some inside the sink, including expensive half bottles which upset Oliva again.
I have to admit that I wasn’t a good partner in cooperation because I didn’t fully trust Oliva in the last part. The most foolish thing I did during our cooperation was not attend the farewell party for our French manager, Mr. Gregoire. I didn’t even make time because I thought of myself as a small, insignificant partner. However, I was wrong because at that moment, I represented China. It has nothing to do with the percentage of shares.
Years later, Landlord Lee called me back with a super polite tone to ask for my advice on his son’s restaurant business. I’m so happy to hear from him and we are cool in a different way.