Report

Food and beverage businesses are popular and easy to grow. Though it may not be as easy as it

sounds, people would still frequent these restaurants or shops on a daily basis. Three restaurants

have come into our attention. Namely, JC Pancakes , Colisium 1921 and Yummy Yummy duck.

These businesses have been around for some time, and has been through the up’s and down’s of

the food and beverage market. Being almost a century old, Coliseum1921 has served customers

that are of both local and foreign background, whereby both types finding their served food

satisfying and magnificent with “signature” flavors. JC Pancakes has been around for quite some

time and their interest has recently peaked in a franchise direction. Opening initially in Citta

Mall, JC soon found that their business there would not be profitable, therefore shifting their

business towards Bandar Sunway’s tier 6 university campus, Taylors Lakeside. Yummy Yummy

duck set up shop in the year 1980, focusing their sales entirely on the market of duck meat. They

deal with the ups and downs of the food and beverage industry more than the other two

restaurants primarily due to the fact that they have only one focus, duck meat. However, the

pricing of their dishes aren’t as taxing as the others and is still considered to be cheap judging by

the location in which they had set up shop, Bandar Sunway.

The prices of these three restaurants are entirely different and each depends on their respective

environments. Based on an interview, non-regular customers find Coliseum1921 to be extremely

expansive and overpriced. The meals shouldn’t cost as much as they charge, with each dish

roughly priced at RM30 to RM 50. Coliseum does, however get a good amount of regulars that

frequent the shop, mainly elderlies.

JC Pancakes serves pancakes as their main dish, with several other side dishes and beverages to

go with. The variety of food served at this outlet is very limited, due to its small workforce and

size. The pricing, as stated by the manager, is as good as it gets for college students looking for

meals that are filling and at the same time, scrumptious. It may not seem like a bright idea, but

students would rather have complete meals ranging from RM 5-10 than to rather overspend and

eat at other places which charge dearly for meals. JC Pancakes makes their monthly revenue by

selling pancakes that varies in terms of content and fillings.

Yummy Yummy Duck, the restaurant in which duck lovers love to dine at. Only focusing on

ducks, this restaurant has filling meals. Yummy Yummy Duck has it all at a more than

reasonable price. A group of 5 can dine at this restaurant, having whole meals that not only taste

the best, but cost a lot cheaper than what most restaurants that serves ducks would charge. The

owner states that overpricing the meals will only chase customers away and that would be bad

for business, therefore, they raise and breed their own ducks, slaughter and clean them, cook and

sell them for a cheaper price. Varieties of duck meat grilled, roasted or prepared in various

different methods are served here. Leaving only a hint of home cooked food, Yummy Yummy

duck aims to have their customers feel welcomed whenever dining at their restaurant.

The ambience, however, are rather different between one another. Say for example, Yummy

Yummy Duck have a very simple white walls and tiles with very small amount of tables

prepared as if they weren’t planning to have a lot of customers. Some area of the restaurant

depict a Chinese atmosphere for example the back of the restaurant was filled with ancestral

decoration or the counter decorated with Maneki-Neko and Golden Horses to attract wealthy

luck or even walls hanged with Chinese paintings such as golden fishes with poetic Chinese

calligraphy written at the edge of the painting. Despite the simplicity in its decoration, they are

not the same as any Chinese restaurant in Malaysia. Yummy Yummy Duck does extremely well

in making sure the place is clean rather than dusty or bones of ducks on the floor. However, the

problem with Yummy Yummy Duck lies in its environment. Due to the fact that the shop does

not have an outstanding decoration, the entire place looks dull. In addition, the restaurant was

surrounded with mobile businesses thus making Yummy Yummy Duck looks terribly dull and

very less likely be chosen to eat since people tend to “judge a book by its cover” unconsciously.

Continuing to JC pancake, a small snack shop for the students to relax has a very comfortable

atmosphere. The Taylor’s lakeside made the experience in JC pancake different than any other

restaurant. The outside of the restaurant was extremely cooling and very comfortable. Sitting

there for an hour or so could make one unconsciously napping. The outside of JC pancake feels

secured as well. The only problem with JC pancake was the uncontrollable noise created from

students during peak business hours. Some students do not have the courtesy of respecting other

people and tends to laugh noisily or joke loudly which will break the ambience. Even though the

outside was cooling and relaxing depending on the clock, the inside is entirely different. The

lighting in the shop wasn’t strong enough to light up the entire room which therefore creates a

dark corner. There isn’t much room in the restaurant as well as the owner used a bar table and

chairs for the inside while the rest of the space used for the kitchen. Surprisingly, despite all the

cooking from the kitchen, the insides do not feel as hot as a steamboat restaurant which we

deduce from the heat-insulating wooden tiles. It feels rather dark and comfortable, as if designed

to make people relax there if the outside is too ridiculously noisy to tolerate.

As expected from a high class restaurant, Coliseum. The entire place was designed to look

ancient. As if the entire restaurant survived the British and Japanese colonization and then heard

all the Malaysian screaming “merdeka” seven times proudly. That is exactly how old it looks.

The table cloth, walls, table, chair, wooden floor looks as if they did not changed or renewed at

all. This ambience alone, along with the cooling environment due to the old air conditioner, can

already make this restaurant gaining a reputation of a high class restaurant. When sitting on the

dining table, the rectangular dining table reminds us of the Western design but when the menu

came, some of the food contrasts its western culture such as Hainanese Chicken Chop. The smell

of the Hainanese Chicken Chop is also another factor which makes this colonial restaurant

similar to that of Old Town White Coffee. Later during the interview, it was revealed that the

restaurant originally was designed to serve the British but the restaurant was filled with

Hainanese chef which is why some of the food was interpret in their own cultural way.

No matter how important the restaurant is, the most important part in sustaining the business is

the service. A bad service can tear down the best designed or cheapest restaurant at any time. To

be honest, all three restaurants have equally good services. However, the services provided by

three different restaurants are different from one another.

Coliseum focused neither on a specific age group nor ethnicity. It was a restaurant that served all,

and food that was meant for all. Ranging from full adult meals to kids meal, Coliseum catered

well tasting food to their customers without regard to whom or what they are, which is a

professional way of doing business especially when running a restaurant in Malaysia’s largest

metropolitan. The business had lasted for almost a century, which would bring one to presume

their goals and targets were long since achieved, and what came after was a profitable and

satisfying revenue.

JC Pancakes prioritized students as their customers. Why? Board games, magazines, newspapers

and even sticky memos to doodle on were provided to the customer when waiting for food. This

tactic can only be used within the vicinity of a university, and would prove much more

successful than a restaurant that targets multiple types of customers. The manager, when spoken

to, stated that this has proven much more profitable then when they had opened their store in

Citta Mall. JC Pancakes initially targeted multiple types of customers, in which resulted in a

breakeven after a few months of being in business. They then decided to target a specific type of

customer, students. The business now grows into a franchise type food and beverage outlet.

Yummy Yummy Duck had no targets of a specific type of customer. Their food served all that

came to dine. However, their business experiences a drought per annum. During this period,

they’d usually focus more on sales at a local market. During Chinese New Year, the sales of

ducks increase rapidly. Just as turkey is used for Thanksgiving, ducks become the focal delicacy

of the Chinese people of Malaysia.

In conclusion, the restaurants each had their particular traits and selling points. In certain

perspectives, one had a better impact than the other, and lacked where the other had strived. The

all round best pricing would be Yummy Yummy Duck. Most suitable ambience for an enjoyable

dining would be Coliseum1921, and the most customer-friendly service would be JC Pancakes.