So without further due.
I sorta wished that my Mandarine was better, but I'm grateful that it was enough for me to hear out his stories and actually ask him the questions I've written down for him.
I'll list down the questions and answers correspondingly. Note that it may not be in total sequence with the real interview P:
1. So my first question was to ask who is he since we'd all like to know a bit more about the owner eh?
Before he opened up Neo Kee, he was a vending machine technician for 6 years. At that time, there was shop owner who he knew was going to close his shop soon, which was the original Moon Garden. He spotted an opportunity to open up his own restaurant since the location was kinda strategic to him. And thus, you have the Neo Kee you see today.
But before he went ahead for the said plan, he self-studied on how to make desserts by himself with several books for 6 months prior to the opening of his restaurant. His also gave some advice to people who want to self study with cookbooks. He said that if you wanted to try a dish, looking at just one cook book won't do since you'll always find that you're short of a few ingredients without fail. But after cross checking with a few, you'll start realizing that you can replace certain ingredients with other. So after that 6 months of intense training by making as many desserts as he could and asking people to try them as well as asking for their kind opinions he started the Neo Kee Dessert House with a sparkle of hope.
Currently, he's 35, married for 4 years, has a child and has Neo Kee up and running for 2 good years.
2. I also wanted to know what motivated him to start his business.
Well, that answer was answered above. He saw an opportunity and he seized it for himself, albeit the fact that his family has a a great history with the food industry. Nothing bad P: His mom opened a restaurant back in Sabah, and yes, he's a Sabahan Chinese. The restaurant his mom ran is no longer existent though. Maybe the building might still be around, but certainly not the real business due to his mom's retirement. His sister on the other hand is a head supervisor of a certain frozen food chain supplier. Like for instance, you see those head supervisors in the KFC or McD's who control the flow of food at specific business hours. But she does it within the factories for more a much bigger figure.That's pretty cool really if you ask me.
3. Then I moved along to asking him whether or not there was any particular reason why he named his restaurant Neo Kee and called it a dessert house.
Referring back to answer 1, he initially began a Dessert House selling vegetarian desserts. But after opening for about 6 months, he found that the flow of customers with the desserts weren't at a satisfactory level, nor was it enough to sustain the restaurant's operation. So he decided to switch it into a vegetarian a la carte and mixed rice to increase profit revenue. A smart move indeed since if it wasn't for that, I might not have been to the place in the first place P:
And if you wanted to know where the name Neo Kee came from, well, whaddya know, it's part of his name! :D Tommy Neo Kee Seng if I heard correctly, but it could be Kim too, not too sure, but I'll believe the sign board for now heh.
He mentioned by passing that the signboard was old and he was meaning to change it to Neo Kee Vegetarian Restaurant for some time now. Well, when we does, I'll be sure to check it out ^^
4. But of course, we all do wanna how when he first opened this business right? And why Sunway of all places?
Uh, refer back to question 1? Lol, almost all the answers are already there. But just for the question's sake, it's run for 2 years already. Exact date is unknown.
5. How come the premise is vegetarian?
A very interesting answer. His was born in a vegetarian family, is a vegetarian himself ever since he could remember, his wife is also a vegetarian and... man, is there anymore reason for him to not start a Vegetarian restaurant? Dude. Food industry too. Word. :D
Though, of all his family members (not from his marriage), only his brother isn't a vegetarian.
6. Influenced by Michelle's earlier interview proposition paper, I also asked him about his incomes and expenses whilst running the restaurant. Yes Michelle, I may have lost your paper, but I certainly never did lose the ideas you imposed in your questions.
Like earlier, desserts were never the biggest source of profit for his premise. So one could only imagine the profit margine he gets from his desserts. But his a la carte (menu, mixed rice, steamed bun) seems to be doing well enough. Although it may seem like his business flow is quite great from what the naked eyes can see, what we don't know is that the rental in the Sunway area is incredibly high according to him. He was also trying his best to be as considerate as he could with the pricing of his food in order to balance out the profit margine so that it would not burden the middle-income people like us students. Therefore, it might seem fine to us, but to him, it's a constant struggle to survive the financial situation.
But thanks to the an increased influx of incoming customers, he now has less worries on paying up the rents. So we can deduce from here that his business is maintaining a steady profit at the moment ^^
7. Like all people, everyone has a dream, and so I asked him what was his.
His dream when he began this restaurant was to open another branch within the next 5 years. He said that finding a location and setting up another store wasn't the biggest problem, since it was the manpower that was really hard to come by. By manpower, he means reliable workers he can fully trust and give responsibilities with. We can find a lot of manpower almost anywhere, provided we pay them right but good people are no doubt hard to come by no matter what kinda business you do. And once you do find one, and let that person go, there's a very high chance that you'll never get that same person to work under you ever again.
He had a cashier cum waiter before in his premise. Kim was his name. I talked to him a few times and he was a nice guy. Just that he led an unfulfilling life and wished to fill up all the loopholes in his life, which is currently what he's trying to do now. According to the updates I've received for him, he's trying to give another shot at college again and finish up his engineering course. All the best to him of course. But him leaving the premise sorta left the boss alone to handle everything. So which is why, you'll see the next question.
But when I asked him whether Kim was a good worker, he told me that he was no doubt a great worker, which then led me to asking him if Kim's character is the kinda traits you look at in your future potential workers. He laughed and said that he'd definitely take people who are better if any.
8. He's hiring workers. On the off chance that one of us do want to work there, what are the benefits of the job and how do we get the job?
The pay isn't fixed according to him. He takes part-time workers too, but preferably no since he mentioned that part-timers are very difficult to deal with in accordance to their own personal schedule, in which I find quite true ever since my experience working at Lunchbox. I filled up for a lot of people pretty much almost every time, since I had no classes on the specific given times. Though, that never meant that I had much time to spare working since I had to do my share of assignments back at home. So if there's anyone he'd want to hire, he'd gladly take any full-timers out there.
The more you can do and the better you can perform, the higher he'll pay you. But for whatever's worth, average for waiters working in any diners for that matter range from 3.50 to 5 normally. If you're lucky, you might actually get 7 an hour. In which I did before at Lunchbox. But it was only one day and it isn't my time to shine here, it's Neo Kee's ^^
As for some additional info, according to my previous talk with Kim, lunch and dinner is provided for you.
9. And since everyone is loathing the recession, I thought maybe I could ask him what was his opinion about the current economical climate.
He says that he agrees with the mass majority of people that living in the big city under the current economical climate is rather difficult. By big city, he means the KL and PJ areas. To him, back in Sabah, everything was so much easier. Living life there was pretty simple and content.
In Selangor, the rents are high, the food isn't cheap, the prices of food and organic ingredients are slowly increasing as well. Him being married and having one child doesn't make it any easier since according to him, feeding another mouth bears a huge cost. But he was never unhappy for the birth of his child mind you. It's just that expenses is a thorn in every middlemen's heart you see.
10. Last but not least, I asked him whether he had any form of message to be told to the mass audience out there (through our blog).
I did mention organic in question 9 didn't I? Well, his message to y'all was "in Neo Kee, we serve Vegetarian Food. We use all organic materials and we believe that having a vegetarian diet can help you stay healthy. So if you feel like having a heart healthy meal, try us out. Our doors are open daily from 10am-9pm"
Ok, actually I made that time up. I'm not sure. It's just a rough estimate. I'm not too sure if he opens during the weekends. Maybe I'll go check it the next time I pay him another visit. P:
Also, from this interview, I realized that my Sandisk MP3's recording system was incredibly awesome since through the whole interview, the mp3 was actually placed on the table about easily one long metal ruler length away from me. And it still managed to capture such great audio clarity.
I was thinking about getting myself a camera to take pictures and record videos, but come to think of it, interviewing with a vidoe is quite difficult to be done alone. Even if I have a stand. So.. maybe not? I guess I'll just look for Marcus or something XD
Alright, this is me signing out. I hope the 10 questions I presented had given you relevant and interesting info for you to digest. Comments and suggestions for new interview questions or improvements that can be made for future interviews are always welcome.
Have a nice day people!
'Til Michelle posts some pictures ^^
OC
No comments:
Post a Comment