The great restaurant “Tor-Charm Boat Noodles”; reaching franchise level one bowl at a time
From one noodle bowl to another, with a taste to die for the “Tor-Charm Boat Noodles” made its way towards becoming a well-known franchise. Loving to cook boat noodles is a starting point of a well-known franchise that is still running well and keeping up the standard of ingredients and taste, becoming a memorable place that people keeps coming back to order more. Besides the fantastic noodles they make, the restaurant also does not stop developing a variety of dishes, from boat noodles to interesting dry egg noodles, dry soup and other dishes like pork with lemon spicy sweet sauce and barbecue meatballs. It is worth coming here since we can have all of these delicious dishes. After hearing its reputation, we decided to visit Tor-Charm Boat Noodles Victoria garden branch on Phetchakasem 69 road to interview Mr.Yoi, their brand manager.
From dishes to franchise
The Tor-Charm boat noodle restaurant was founded in Ayutthaya in 1998. At that moment, it was a small boat noodle shop with only 7 tables. As time goes by, it started to have good sales, leading to more seats and more customers. After 7 years of operation, in 2005, the restaurant got a chance to open a booth at Kae Jon festival at Muang Thong Thani.
It was at that time that the restaurant was given the name “Tor-Charm boat noodle restaurant”, deriving from the name “Mr.Tor”, the founder of the restaurant. Also, it was named Tor-Charm because of the good meaning behind it, “one dish is never enough, gotta need more.”
The restaurant unexpectedly gained so many positive feedbacks from the festival that it became very well-known. There are some people who ask for the recipe, and some even requested to make it into a franchise. This made the brand manager ask a franchise specialist for a suggestion in running a franchise.
As a result, they decided to do it, and now they have reached 63 branches in Thailand and planned to expand the franchise into Hong Kong, Macau, and China in the upcoming future.
A (not so) secret recipe from a restaurant to franchise
To maintain the iconic taste that has never failed to amaze people and often inspire them to order more and more, the restaurant has to control the quality of ingredients and keep up the standard of each noodle dish’s taste consistently.
The restaurant put great emphasis on making the noodles so delicious by itself that any extra seasoning is not required; customers just have to drop the noodles into their mouth with their chopsticks, allowing them to suddenly feel the rich, full-flavored ingredients in each bowl.
Mr.Yoi, the franchise and brand manager of the Tor-Charm restaurant, revealed to us about the decision of opening the boat noodle restaurant and how the constant improvement in their recipe helps them to thrive.
“We had been doing another food business before opening a boat noodle restaurant. But, one day, when we decided to cook ourselves a bowl of noodle, it came out delicious.
However, the problem is that the consistency of the taste is not the same every day. Therefore, we must find a solution. Finally, we found out that if we make a soup that can transform into the condense liquid then mix it with pork bone soup and herbs, it will bring out the full-flavored taste and deliciousness that is the same in every dish without adding seasoning.
Whoever make the noodles, the taste can still be the same. We developed this part to be our strong selling point”. Moreover, to keep the consistency of the taste in every dish, the ingredients in each dish also play an important role.
Mr.Yoi stressed that selecting a good quality ingredients even in a high price is worth to invest for.
“Our selected seasoning products must have good quality and guarantee by an official seal of approval, not just regular market-grade products you see everywhere that are chosen to cut cost. Instead, we invest in more expensive ingredients in order to cook a higher-quality bowl of noodles. The quality of the ingredients, like the sauce and chilies, is extremely important to us.
We have tried other brands, tested to find the difference however we found out that using just a small amount of AJI-NO-MOTO® can provide better quality comparing to others. For this reason, we chose to add AJI-NO-MOTO® as a part of our famous noodle soup and our pork with lime spicy sweet sauce that require sour and spicy taste with a little bit of sweetness.
We use fresh lime and chili, focus on well-blended and rich taste, and add AJI-NO-MOTO® to enhance better taste. With great ingredients, the food turns out amazingly appetizing and delicious, hitting customers with great sensation immediately after just one bite.”
The must-try dishes
The best-selling dish is boat noodles with rice vermicelli. The next hit dish is pork with lime spicy sweet sauce because our restaurant uses fresh, clean, and authentic ingredients that help create impressive taste.
Apart from these 2 dishes, there are also other interesting dishes such as dry egg noodles and dry Kao Lao (a bowl of only noodle toppings) which come from our traditional recipes.
Last but not least, we also add barbecue meatballs provided with our original sauce. We bet your mouth is watering right now!
Deliciousness is not enough because customers and restaurant image are also important.
A good restaurant cannot serve only deliciousness but it has to create awareness of restaurant image that can attract more customers as well.
Mr. Yoi also pays attention to the front restaurant’s decoration including other branches under franchise to be in the same image.
Although, the restaurant’s customers are the group of people who loves boat noodles, we choose to be a restaurant that people can sit and eat comfortably with good service instead of opening as a street food stall. All genders, kids, seniors, officers and family, everyone can eat.
For the restaurant image, starting from the selection of vivid colors like orange color to support the overall image. Mr.Yoi gives a reason why choosing orange is to attract customers’ eye contact to the restaurant.
“The orange color has an impact on food appetizing. If you go to the market, you will notice that the merchants do not use the white light.
They use the orange light because when the light reflects on vegetables or food, you could see that the vegetables
look fresh green and the food looks delicious.
If the light is on pork, the pork will be fresh red. This is the influence of colors that enhances more appetizing. The orange color is a remarkable tone which can catch the eyes.
When people drive through the restaurant, they have to go back and ask because they feel interested in. Therefore, our branches under franchise use the same color, no matter how they design, there is always oak wood with the orange wall because it is our strong point.
Suggestion to new business owners who love restaurant business
From 10-year experience of Tor-Charm boat noodle restaurant, its success can be guaranteed by 63 branches under franchise all over Thailand.
We cannot deny that this restaurant succeeds among restaurant franchise business becoming the business exemplar for people who dream of opening their own restaurants or people who are in the process of opening
their restaurants.
Mr.Yoi has shared his interesting 10-year experience in restaurant business to suggest people who would like to start their own business.
Firstly, you have to prepare and get yourself ready, be patient, and always be open-minded to learn new things.
Secondly, you must devote your time to the restaurant. If normally you wake up at 6 or 7 am, you have to wake up earlier to prepare all ingredients.
Thirdly, you must have strong determination and a great service mind as well as willing to follow the franchise’s rules. The next thing is about the location.
No matter what kind of business it is, there is always a risk to open a new branch in a new area. Therefore, if we see that the location is bad, we will not allow to open the new branch there. We also do not allow franchisees to let their employees manage everything by themselves. This is why we have to select franchisees through our interview process.
Here is Tor-Charm restaurant business path. From a small noodle shop with less than 10 tables till now there are 63 branches under franchise.
This proved that the restaurant is verified in all aspects, especially constant deliciousness from the selected ingredients. The
owner has never ignored the franchisees. He always sends his people right there to take care of all branches in order to keep the same standard.
This is the success sent from dishes to dishes and passed to the restaurant that people remembers.
