IF She hadn't opened the 26-square-metre restaurant with her husband on Huanghe Lu 17 years ago, Miao Fuzhen may have ended up in the same position as most of the other laid-off workers from a State-owned department store in the city.

However, her small but daring step has brought her a considerable fortune today. Now she has a chain of five restaurants, each more than 100 times the size of her first.

Her restaurant, Laitianhua, was one of the first four eateries to appear on Huanghe Lu, a road which has been turned into a renowned dining spot in the city.

Years of obscurity

Previously, both Miao and her husband were workers in a department store on Nanjing Lu.

Talking with Miao could easily make people believe that successful figures have something different about them when compared to ordinary people. For instance, when Miao was working as one of the salespersons for the department store, she always achieved the best performance.

"I have my secrets for selling even unpopular goods," she said. "I took the consumers' side to figure out their likes and dislikes."

In this way, when her colleagues were worrying about having zero sales revenue, she was selling out all her products every day. She was once selected as the city's "model worker", and her "secret" as a good salesperson has helped her a lot in her later career.

She earned 45 yuan a month in the 1980s, a figure comparable to that of most urban Chinese in that period.

Fortune maker

However, a small group of people had begun to think about ways to become rich. One of Miao's friends asked to rent her small house on Huanghe Lu in order to open a store, for payment of 800 yuan a month.

"It was an incredibly huge amount of money for us at that time but I thought if he could make a fortune here, why couldn't I do it myself?" Miao said.

She refused the request and decided to change her small house into a restaurant. So the family of four, Miao, her husband, their son and her mother-in-law, had to move into the 14-square-metre attic to make room for the restaurant. The young couple had to sleep on the floor and led that life for the following three years.

Opening the restaurant cost about 10,000 yuan, with almost 7,000 yuan borrowed from Miao's friends.

They designed and decorated the restaurant all by themselves. In order to buy cheaper materials, they rode around on tricycles for hours to compare prices and take back overpriced products.

In 1987, the restaurant, named Laitianhua, was finally opened. Only six tables were available, tightly arranged inside.

They couldn't afford to employ a chef, relying instead on a totally green cook named Xia Tianwu from Ningbo in Zhejiang Province.

Miao and Xia learnt to cook step by step themselves, with Miao providing the less well-cooked dishes - along with bottles of beer - to guests for free.

The number of diners increased quickly, perhaps less because the food was particularly delicious and more because of the warm atmosphere and the owner's hospitality.

"Still the 'secret' worked - I knew what my customers wanted," she said.

Ample fare

One of her staff said he had never met a restaurant owner before who scolded the chef for providing guests with inadequate portions.

"I often asked my chef to serve guests with ample quantities of each dish, beyond what consumers expected," Miao said.

Gradually, Xia was trained to be a good chef and has now risen to become the executive chef for Laitianhua. Some people visit the restaurant because of his famous culinary skills.

The tiny eatery earned about 500 yuan a day at the very beginning and only one year after it opened, Miao had paid off all her debts.

Five years later, the 26-square-metre eatery was developed into a space of 900 square metres and Laitianhua had become a major attraction for people visiting Huanghe Lu.

With the business developing steadily, Miao began to think about building up a chain around Shanghai.

Her husband was actually not interested in the restaurant business and all the important decisions were made by Miao alone. She explored many districts, grasping the consumption habits of people in various places and searching for the right places to open her restaurants. Four more stores were opened one by one, with each generating substantial profits.

Having become wealthy, Miao has remained economical in her daily life.

"I never dine expensively in my restaurants except when I have to treat my clients," she said.

Frugal life

Miao usually has meals with her staff - often a simple bowl of the most ordinary cai pao fan (rice soup with vegetables).

"I grew up in a poor family and I'm not used to extravagance. Some people cannot become rich because they don't know how to be thrifty," she said. Yet thrift doesn't mean she is mean to her employees.

During the SARS period when Miao's restaurants were heavily affected, Miao insisted on paying every staff member as usual, in contrast to many of her counterparts who stopped paying their workers' salaries when restaurants were forced to close.

"In fact, I was very anxious about the situation, but I pretended to be relaxed. I didn't want to communicate my worries to my employees and worsen their morale," she said.

Miao's five restaurants survived the catastrophe, but it taught her that it was time to diversify her business into other areas due to the risks of focusing entirely upon the restaurant business.

"I'm doing research now to find the right niche for my interests," Miao said.

Her enterprises have been applauded as trustworthy corporations that never cheat their customers.

Worthy of trust

As owner of a large enterprises, Miao has never even had an office of her own.

"I spent my time inspecting the five restaurants in turn. I have a mobile office. Every employee knows my cell phone number and they can report to me any complaints about their immediate boss," she said.

In this way, the management of Miao's company has maintained a reputation for honesty and fairness to keep its workforce united.

As the mother of an 18-year-old son, Miao understood the difficulties faced by middle-aged laid-off workers who were supporting their children's education, so she was willing to employ some of them.

Not many enterprises favoured such workers, in the age range from 40-50, because they were not usually as strong as younger ones.

But Miao employed them to wash dishes or to do simple jobs in the kitchen.

"I employ them so that they can support their children in gaining a good education. Then our country can be built better with more talented people. That's one small thing I can do for society," Miao said.