Create happiness after the crisis. Prepare yourself with a happy box.

Klong Saen Suk is not only famous for its delicious taste and excellent atmosphere in the Amata City area, where the restaurant is located. There is also an interesting story behind the happiness of the meal, which is the seriousness in learning every molecule of the restaurant business. It comes from the passion for food of Khun Klong - Pairat and Khun Pick - Supamas Kongwiwatthanakun. This opportunity will invite you to reveal the story behind the Klong Saen Suk and the preparation after the COVID-19 situation, which Khun Pick said will definitely have something new. - Open the box of happiness - Running a good restaurant isn't easy...but you can learn. - Cost reduction idea by separating waste - A menu of happiness and a return after COVID-19 - Delicious as always, but with additional cleanliness measures.

Open the box of happiness Pick's intention is to make this restaurant a destination for those who love to eat delicious food and a place for people in this area to spend quality time with their families and relax from work. In addition, seeing the potential of the area from the expanding city, he saw an opportunity in the restaurant business. Most of the restaurants are located in Chonburi or Bangsaen and Ang Sila. If there is a restaurant in this area, customers will not have to fight traffic jams and waste time traveling to welcome guests and friends of those who work in Amata City.

For the concept of the shop, Khun Pick has done research and set the target thoroughly in order to manage and respond to the target group as much as possible. It is also a good starting point for a business that focuses on the needs of the target group. “The concept of the San Suk Box shop came from research that the customer group would be men. So the target group was set to support executives, engineers, and upper-level factory workers in Amata Nakorn. Therefore, it is decorated with Art Deco with the strength of steel and the shine of glass. If Art Deco is a man, Art Nouveau would be a woman. The lines of steel are graceful,” Khun Pick talked about the idea of ​​the Happiness Box. “I also researched the population of Amata Nakorn and found out that there are about 180,000 people. If we only consider executives, 20% would be about 36,000 people. If you ask who else is in Amata Nakorn, there are villages as well. There are a lot of people who can be our customers. So I started to see the total number of our customers.”

Running a good restaurant isn't easy...but you can learn. After deciding to open a happy box shop, even though I had experience in business, when I had to cross over to the food business, it was like opening a new door with many things to learn.

“It’s new for us, so it’s difficult in every way. We used to manage other businesses, managing over 100 people in a factory, but when it comes to running a restaurant, it’s a completely different story. There are many nitty-gritty details. The management of people, the operations in the kitchen, the front of the house, the back of the house are all different, which requires us to go into all the details ourselves. If you ask me, passion alone is not enough, you also need to have knowledge.”

When it came time to open a restaurant, Khun Kong gained more knowledge by “learning to cook” according to the standard principles. Khun Pick went to study “restaurant management”. When they started taking the first course, Khun Kong Saensuk started construction at the same time. They immediately encountered their first test when the shop design had to be modified in a new way based on the original construction project. “We brought in an architect who designed houses to design restaurants, but it couldn’t continue. The functions were all wrong. The proportions weren’t right. We had to redesign everything, starting from what we were going to sell and what percentage of it would be Thai food. Then we knew how to design the kitchen to suit the usage.” “I just found out when I was studying that A good kitchen is not a big kitchen. A good kitchen is a single chef who is there and can do everything. The chef had to turn from the stove to the counter and pick up the food and put it in the pan right away. There was no time wasted and no tiring walking. We just understood. In the end, we had to disassemble the model. But it was good that there was very little to break.”

Cost reduction idea by separating waste The concept of waste reduction is another thing that Pick learned and helped improve the restaurant’s management. “We have to take out 10-12 bags of trash a day because the menu at the restaurant requires a lot of coconuts. And everything from tissue paper, leftover fresh food, to dried food, we throw everything away. So when it’s heavy, we can’t put a lot in the bag, and it will tear. We were shocked that we just bought it, why is it already used up? We sat down and thought that we spent tens of thousands of baht on black bags a year, so we started separating the trash. When we really started to do it seriously, we threw out no more than 2 bags of trash a day. And when we separated the trash, we realized that it also helped us check the stock. Before, we threw it all away together. The dipping sauce cups were missing, the spoons were missing, the forks were missing, they were all gone with the leftover food.”

“Cost reduction is like a by-product of reducing waste. We know where to waste. For example, with the pineapple fried rice menu, there was a time when there was a lot of pineapple left over, so we made it into another menu, which was beneficial and provided another source of income for the restaurant.”

Reducing waste is not just about recycling, separating waste, or managing waste to prevent pollution, but also about creating the least amount of waste. If restaurants can reduce waste, that means costs will also decrease.

A menu of happiness and a return after COVID-19 When asked about the changes after the COVID-19 situation passed, Khun Pick's answer was very impressive because Khun Pick thought that there must be something new added to make customers feel that they have come back again and that we have more than before.

“Now we are trying out many things, such as another brand called Madam Pick, which has a menu that is more affordable and not available in the shop. Even our menu book is prepared. If this situation passes, customers will see many things from here again.” In addition, Khun Pick also shared about how to deal with new customer behaviors after the COVID-19 situation has passed. “The service must be good. Normally, we care about this already. But after the COVID-19 situation has passed, people will change their behavior, stay at home more, and order delivery more because they are used to doing that. We are a restaurant with a storefront. We still provide service at the storefront as our main focus. We have to adjust to a new experience that customers cannot find at home. That is, the service must be very impressive. When you come to eat, you will have impressive service throughout the entire meal. Delivery service may not be able to provide this kind of service. The restaurant has to give more than it can.”

When it comes to the menu of the San Suk box, for the signature dish here that is always ready to welcome customers, we recommend that you try the taste of Pasta Mixed Fish Roes with Marinated Seaweed. When eating, you will find the texture that has both the chewiness of three types of eggs: shrimp eggs, cod eggs, and flying fish eggs mixed with seaweed. While the noodles are boiled slightly undercooked to make them chewy and have a hint of spiciness from dried chili. In addition, the Thai menu includes Pineapple Baked Rice, Sai Rang Kai Hong, Kaeng Kua Bai Cha Phlu Pu Khanom Jeen, Hor Mok Talay Maphrao On, Khao Maew, which is rice mixed with mackerel that uses butterfly pea water to cook the rice to make it colorful and fragrant. As for Western food, there will be steaks that use premium meat imported from abroad, including Saga Gyu (Kuroge Wagyu) from Japan, tenderloin from Australia, and US Prime from the United States.

Pasta Mix Fish Roes with Marinated Seaweed / Pineapple Fried Rice

Cat rice / Crab curry with betel leaves and rice vermicelli

Still as delicious as ever, with additional cleanliness measures Of course, when the shop reopens, the new system must be set: cleanliness measures. The Happy Box shop has issued strict new regulations and announced them to customers via the shop's Facebook Fan Page to ask for cooperation and adjust expectations before receiving the service. - Before receiving the service, everyone's temperature will be checked. - Before receiving the service in the shop, please wash your hands with the alcohol provided by the shop at the entrance. - The shop arranges tables with a distance of 1.5 meters between tables. - Please wear a mask while waiting for food. - The shop does not serve alcoholic beverages in the shop, except for take-away during the time specified by law. - After stopping the service for every period, the shop will turn off the air conditioner and open the door to let the air circulate, clean the tables, seats, and contact surfaces with disinfectant and spray food-grade disinfectant every time. - Every touch point such as doorknobs, door handles, etc. is cleaned every hour. - Every time after customers use the service, the shop cleans the tables and chairs with disinfectant every time. - The shop opens for service during specific hours. The coffee shop opens from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM, and the restaurant opens from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM and 5:00 PM to 7:30 PM.

And with the distance between tables of 1.5 meters, the number of seats is reduced. The shop has informed customers to call to reserve a table in advance. And even though the San Suk box shop has returned to providing service at the shop, delivery is still available.