At 11 a.m., the "Taxi Canteen" located at Hecheng Road, Yinzhou District has the first wave of dining peak, with more than 100 people dining in the restaurant less than 200 square meters. The canteen has three floors, and the dining area has 20 tables.
Unlike many large canteens, guests serve meals by themselves, and some guests can even pay by themselves rather than asking for bills.
From entering to leaving, the average time for each guest is 15 minutes, and the maximum will not exceed 20 minutes.
Sun Yihui, the canteen owner, is 51 years old. For the past 26 years, Sun Yihui has been doing taxi-related work. He had been a taxi driver for 17 years and then has been running a "taxi canteen" mainly serving taxi drivers for 9 years.
"To earn money by running a taxi is to 'race' against time. When business is not well, many drivers would eat bread to save time." In 2014, he took out all his savings and opened the canteen for taxi drivers.
In line with the principle of small profits and quick sales, the price of dishes in the canteen is 20% to 30% cheaper than that in the surrounding areas. The price of vegetable dishes has been 5 yuan for the first eight years.
"The price of the dishes here is cheap and the quantity is sufficient. Sometimes, after seeing off the guests at the airport, I will consciously drive in this direction," the taxi driver Dai Guangjian said. Since the opening of the canteen, he has been coming to have lunch almost every day.
Sun Yihui said that he wants to work for a few more years. If one day his body cannot support him anymore, he hopes that there will be other partners who can take over and keep the large cafeteria open forever, so that the drivers can always have a hot meal to eat.