Gu Shengli is interviewed after he wins the bid at Longtanhu park temple fair. [Mirror Evening News]
Gu Shengli, the famous Inner Mongolian "barbecue kebab king", dwarfed the competition again by offering a 234,000-yuan bid for a food stall on Sunday's auction, held by Longtanhu Park for its upcoming temple fair.
For the 2010 Ditan Temple Fair's top bidder with 300,000 yuan last month, this was his first time to attend the bidding in Longtan Temple Fair, in south Beijing's most popular outdoor event during the Spring Festival. Once again, he grabbed the top location out of the 107 food stalls on auction.
Ma Xijun, another barbecue seller who has held the title of Longtan Temple Fair's top bidder over the past four years, withdrew at the last,minute after the bidding hit 230,000 yuan.
The maximum price Ma offered last year was 155,000 yuan.
Gu has now invested 534,000 yuan for two kebab stalls in the two fairs. Although it isn't certain he can turn a profit in just eight days under such unpredictable weather, he remains confident of success.
In fact, Gu plans to take in sales revenue of one million yuan on one particular day alone.
Earlier this year, Gu's stall in 2009 Ditan Spring Festival Temple Fair brought in a profit of more than 300,000 yuan from selling 12,000 kebabs with 1.1 million visitors over the 8-day period.
"The success could happen again," he told METRO yesterday.
Besides the popular 10-yuan Arabian-flavor kebabs in both fairs, his "secret weapon" next year is 10,000 "Gift Bags of Do-It-Yourself Kebabs" to be sold on the very day of Chinese New Year.
By selling them at 100 yuan each, the dream of his million yuan sales revenue is not just a fantasy, he said.
"There will be uncooked kebabs in the bag, and a small refined oven as well, so that the visitors can not only eat the kebabs by coming to my stall but also enjoy the fun of doing barbecue themselves at home," he said.
Because the first day of the Spring Festival coincides with Valentine's Day next year, Gu will definitely not miss the chance to make more.
The barbecue master is ready to sell roses along with barbecue kebabs on that day, making sure all his visitors can contribute to his booming business.
Temple fairs, featuring a cultural outdoor celebration with different forms of folk arts and performances, are usually held from the first day to the seventh day of the lunar calendar's first month.
Next year's temple fairs in Ditan and Longtan will run from Feb 13 to 20.
