Billing for your restaurant in Mizoram
From the stew pot to the parcel at the door, every plate is on a bill and every bill is on your phone.
A pork rate that moves, a pot nobody counted and two queues at one door
The pork on the plate and the sickness among the pigs
African swine fever cost Mizoram Rs 336.49 crore in 2024 and Rs 896.69 crore since 2021, with thousands of pigs dying or culled. A restaurant that cooks pork lives with that in every order. The rate of the meat you bought last month is not the rate you pay this month, and the price of the plate on the board does not move at the same speed. You cannot say whether a pork dish still makes money until the month is over.
The bai pot finished at one on some days and half warm at three on others
The bai is cooked once in the morning and sold plate by plate. Some days the pot is finished at one, and the lunch crowd is told there is no more. Other days it is half warm at three, and half of it goes cold. The helper says it was a busy day, the cook says it was slow, and nobody has counted the plates, so the next pot is sized by feel.
The bill is written, and then the table asks for one more dish
Your helper writes the bill at the table. A moment later the table asks for one more dish, a bowl of bai or a plate of rice, and the written sum is wrong. At closing the slips are in three places, the cash box holds one number and the slips another, and the day's number is whichever you add up last.
A bazaar town's lunch crowd and a border town's snack trade
A restaurant feeds the people around it, and who they are depends on the district. Two of them.
- Aizawl's main market held 1,073 traders and sellers in 2019, which is a lot of people looking for lunch near their stalls.
- At Champhai, the Zokhawthar trade centre handles essentials, soft drinks, bread, edibles and electronic gadgets for the border trade with Myanmar, so a town snack shop sees the traders who pass through.
Tools for a kitchen that cooks one big pot and sells it plate by plate
Orders to suppliers
The order to the meat seller for the weekend, written beside his page from last week, so a change in the pork rate shows against the rate you paid before.
Godown stock
The pork kept in the back freezer, counted apart from what is on the kitchen shelf, so the cook asks for what is really there.
Bills on your phone
The bowl of bai, the rice under it and the side dish are lines of one total, read out at the table before the bowl is cleared.
Plates counted out of the pot, the weekend's meat order and the pork dish that stopped paying
How many plates a week's pork gave, read beside the pot
Bill every plate of bai as it leaves. At closing you see how many plates the pot gave. On the meat seller's page you see the kilos of pork you bought for it. Put the two side by side, and you know what a kilo of pork gives in plates, and how big to make the next pot.
A short week of pork shows on the order page before the weekend
African swine fever has taken many pigs in Mizoram, and some weeks the meat seller cannot bring what you ask. Keep his page, with each order and what actually came. On Thursday you see the kilos that fell short and can ask a second seller, not on Saturday with the tables full.
The pork dish that stopped paying, seen at the month's end and not on the rent day
Put each pork dish on the bills as its own item, and keep the freezer's kilos in the stock. If a dish no longer pays at the price on the board, you see it in the second week of the month, and you can change the plate, the portion or the price while there is still pork in the freezer.
Questions Mizoram restaurant owners ask about pots, pork and parcels
Pork is short this month and I sell more chicken. Can I see the swing from one to the other?
Yes. Keep the pork dishes and the chicken dishes as separate items. The month's sales then show how many plates of each went, and you can read the swing without adding bills.
Box orders wait at the door while the table customers eat. Can my sales show the boxes apart from the plates at the table?
Yes. Sell the box of rice and bai as an item of its own, apart from the plate at the table. The man at the door pays for his box and goes, and the table's bill is not touched while the table eats.
A family wants bai and rice for fifty on the day of a locality feast. Can I make one bill for it?
Yes. Make one bill with the quantities and put it on that family's page. It goes to them on WhatsApp, and if they pay after the feast the bill waits on the page.
Bai, vawksa rep and arsa buhchiar on an Aizawl table
Incredible India says Aizawl's food mixes traditional Mizo cooking with influences from neighbouring states and countries. Bai, a meat and vegetable stew served over rice, is a must-try dish.
Vawksa rep, which is roasted and smoked pork with bamboo shoot, and arsa buhchiar, a chicken and rice porridge, are Mizo dishes that Incredible India lists for visitors to Aizawl.