Billing for your restaurant in Arunachal Pradesh
A table's bill in seconds, a regular's month on one page and the kitchen's stock in front of you.
Why an eating house in Arunachal is full one week and quiet the next
Smoked meat taken down from the rack by the piece, not by the plate
A kitchen that cooks with dried and smoked meat takes a piece from the rack, cuts it and cooks it for the day's plates. How many plates a piece gives depends on the cut and the cook. At the month's end the rack is lighter than the sales explain, and you cannot say whether it was a generous cook or a wrong rate.
A visitor who wants the bill in his office's name
An officer on a visit takes lunch for himself and his team and asks for the bill in his office's name, with the tax shown. You write the name and the tax by hand on a pad, and the pad has no place for the tax. The visitor leaves, and the bill is the one thing he came back to the counter for.
Tea and snacks all day for the people waiting for a vehicle to fill
Nobody leaves the stand until the vehicle is full, and a full vehicle can take half a day. The traveller sits with a cup, then a snack, then another cup for the friend beside him. The driver stays longest, and his cups run on the book. The stand is busy in a slow trickle all day, not in one rush.
Tools for a kitchen of steel pots and a counter of waiting tables
Bills on your phone
Twenty bills for twenty plates from one group's order, each sent to its own phone before the vehicle leaves.
Credit book (khata)
A page for the school hostel's warden, who sends a boy for tea and a snack each evening, with every evening a dated line settled once a month.
Daily reports
Each day's plates and cups, so you can read which day the vehicle stand was full and which day the thalis sold best.
Godown stock
The store room's dried meat and rice counted apart from the kitchen shelf, so what hangs in the store is never taken for what is in the pot.
From the first rice of the morning to the last table of the night
Rice and oil ordered week by week for the spring visitors
Before the visitors come, send your supplier an order for the coming weeks' rice and oil, and note each sack that arrives. Last spring's days show which weeks ran short and which left sacks unopened, so this spring's orders follow those weeks and not a guess for the whole season.
Packed rice for a long ride, ordered the night before and paid at dawn
A traveller orders packed rice and curry for a long ride on the vehicle, the night before, and pays at dawn when he collects it. Write the order on his page when he asks and make the bill when he pays. The packs are ready at the first light, and nobody is turned away for want of a record.
Bamboo shoots soaked at night, counted as portions by morning
Dried bamboo shoots are soaked the night before. Set the portions you expect from the soaked lot on the stock by hand, and let each plate take one off. By afternoon you know how many portions are left, and whether the soaking was too much or too little for the day.
Thalis, tables and monthly regulars: what restaurant owners ask
Do I have to type every person's plate for a group of twenty?
Enter the group's order once, then make a bill for each person with that person's plates. You do not have to retype the dish names, because each dish is an item you added once.
Can I count the dried meat on the rack apart from the fresh meat in the kitchen?
Yes. Keep the dried meat as its own item by the kilo and the fresh meat as another. Each has its own stock, so what hangs on the rack is never mistaken for what is in the pot.
Two travellers waiting for the same vehicle share a snack and each takes tea. Can I give each his own bill?
Yes. Put the snack on one bill and a cup of tea on each, as the two of them agree. Each traveller gets his own bill on WhatsApp before the vehicle is called.
Can I read which plate sold most on the coldest day?
Yes. Open that day's sales and read each plate's count. Put the cold days next to the warm days and you see which plate the weather sells.
Smoked meat, bamboo shoots and the March to May visitors
Arunachali cooking leans heavily towards non-vegetarian dishes made with locally sourced meats, and meat and bamboo shoots are often dried, smoked or fermented to preserve them. A kitchen that cooks this way holds stock for weeks, not days, and its owner has to count what is hanging in the store as well as what is on the stove. A kitchen that cooks for a quarter of its year's visitors in three months plans its rice, oil and meat by weeks, not by months.
March to May is Arunachal's peak tourist season, bringing around 32 percent of the year's total tourist arrivals, according to an Arunachal Times article on the 2020 lockdown. A third of a year's visitors in three months is a pattern a restaurant can plan for, if the earlier seasons were written down.