The bread cart on Doan Van Bo street has been operating for 17 years, and is crowded with customers every day. But until now, the landlady and her husband still live in the rented house, generously repaying what life has given them.
Revenue decreased by half compared to before the Covid-19 epidemic
20:00, Cau Cong market (Doan Van Bo street, District 4, Ho Chi Minh City) is still bustling with people. At this time, small traders in the market are still working, and free workers are busy returning home.
At this time, the bread cart of Ms. Le Thuy Lieu (44 years old) was at “rush hour”. Customers come to buy continuously. Ms. Lieu and her two employees always make bread. Soon, the ingredients ran out within half an hour of selling, so Ms. Lieu had to go inside to get more goods to serve customers.
Ms. Lieu said that the bread cart is always open for sale from 3:00 p.m., but the most crowded time is in the evening. Because that is the time when freelance workers get off work and go to the store to buy bread for dinner instead of rice. The bread truck opens late at night and doesn’t close until 1am the next morning.
Ms. Lieu’s bread shop has a variety of fillings such as pha lau, pork rolls, eggs, meat… she and her husband prepare to cook every day.
Thanks to that, “real meat”, “real eggs”, the price is reasonable, most eaters gradually become regular customers for many years.
Each loaf of bread costs 18,000-25,000 VND, depending on the type of filling. The price of each loaf can be reduced or increased depending on the needs of diners. But whenever she sees anyone in difficulty, or sees elderly workers still struggling to make a living, Ms. Lieu silently gives them cakes or takes a little more filling.
It is known that Ms. Lieu’s bread shop sells 300-400 loaves/day. This sales, according to the female owner, has decreased by half compared to the time before Covid-19.
“Selling food like this is very difficult. My husband and I have to get up early to get new goods, because we don’t use ingredients that stay overnight. The pre-processing stage is also prepared by us, we work hard until it’s time to sell and then pack up the goods, then we don’t lie down until 5am, it’s been a repeating cycle for the past 17 years”, Ms. Lieu said.
According to the owner of the bread cart, this job is difficult because the seller must carefully select and process ingredients and clean them. Business food, issues related to the health of diners are the most important. That attitude brings prestige to the 17-year-old bakery.
“We named the cart “Mr. Map’s bread” Because in the past my husband was very fat, people often called him that. But he worked too much so now he’s skinny again, no longer fat”, Ms. Lieu said, laughing.
There is no surplus because of believing and helping people
Ms. Lieu confided that this bread cart is the passion of her husband, Mr. Luu Van An (56 years old). Previously, Ms. Lieu from Vinh Long went to Ho Chi Minh City to start a business and then met Mr. An.
Faced with the choice of a husband with a 13-year age difference, Ms. Lieu nodded because she liked the gentleness and sincerity of the middle-aged man. After the wedding, she laughed and said, the couple was quite “tough”, with an age difference, but he really loved his wife, even though they argued back and forth, the couple was there for each other no matter what.
At that time, Mr. An worked as a security guard, with a salary of only 600,000 VND/month. When his wife became pregnant, he was afraid that he wouldn’t have money to take care of the soon-to-be-born child, so Mr. An worked part-time, helping out at a restaurant to increase his income.
After 1 year, because of his passion for cooking, he decided to quit his job, use the 8 million VND he had saved to rent a house, and open a bread cart. That was also when their first daughter was 1 year old.
“We only have that one daughter, so we are determined to do everything for her. That day, the family was very difficult, selling only a few dozen loaves of bread a day, enough money to feed our children milk, and my husband and I had to make ends meet,” Ms. Lieu recalled.
Gradually, their bread shop became familiar to workers in the Cau Cong market area. From a few dozen loaves, every day they sell 600-800 loaves of bread, generating “huge” revenue.
The couple who owned the wheeled cart laughed and said that they had also gone through days when there were no customers and had to eat bread in addition to rice.
Loving their daughter, she and her husband always work hard to earn money to send their child to school. The bakery is only absent from Mr. An when he takes his daughter to school, and recently, when he takes her to work.
Telling a happy story while still busy, Ms. Lieu suddenly stopped and shyly admitted that she and her husband had been living in the house they rented to sell bread for the past 17 years. Your daughter recently came to stay at home with her parents-in-law.
“It’s embarrassing to say it, but until now we still haven’t been able to buy a house. For many years, I don’t know why the money I made went nowhere, there was no leftover”, Ms. Lieu laughed.
The bread shop owner shared that she and her husband have “hobbies” help family members. Whenever she saw anyone in her family having difficulty or a friend coming to borrow money, she generously gave it without asking for it back.
“Seeing people like that, maybe I didn’t help them. Consider God giving me a bowl of rice to raise my children to go to college, I return the blessings and take care of my family members. Now my husband and I don’t have enough money to buy a house of our own, but we still have the strength to work, just save up and one day we will be satisfied”, Ms. Lieu thought.
Ms. Ha Thu, a small trader doing business at the market, said that Ms. Lieu and her husband are still renting a house, which is also the place where they have sold bread for many years.
“Ms. Lieu rarely goes out, so the bakery is rarely without her and her husband. Lieu and his wife are very gentle, both are only interested in doing business, do not like to play or gamble at all and are very worried about their family and relatives”, Ms. Thu said.
($1~24,000 VND)
Photo,Video: Internet (Vinlove.net)