Founder story: Ray of Pebbles Courtyard

A meal at Wudaoying fixture Pebbles is as much about the ambience as about the food. So when eating out wasn’t an option, how does one pivot? We chatted to chef/owner Ray about the whirlwind of a year, and his palpable enthusiasm for Mexican cuisine and spirits.

Q: Sum up the first half of 2022 in four words

A: Adapting to the challenges

Q: What keeps you going in the kitchen when there’s less or no bustle of dine-in customers？

A: I tends to keep myself busy, I’ve actually been out of the kitchen for a while now, working on importing more premium agave spirits into China. 

Q: As a less delivery-focused restaurant, how did you make everything more delivery friendly during covid?

A: I have designed a DIY taco set and drinks kits to suit for delivery. For example the DIY tacos, we separate the tortillas, fillings and sauces, so people can assemble at home, to avoid tortillas get soggy or fall apart during transportation. 

For drinks, we separated the ice and the drinks so it doesn’t dilute. As well as other little details like informing our guests on which dishes aren’t great for delivery and push those dishes that sits well in a box on the back of the bike.

Q: Any advice for budding chef-owners? 

I think all the owners/chef owners I know in Beijing have been in the game for a while now, we all have to adapt to the changes. This is definitely not a great time to come in (f&b industry) right now.

Q: We love to see more of taco crawl, pop-ups and similar events when everything returns to normal again. Any plans to collaborate with more local businesses in 2022?

A: The taco crawl’s original idea was to do a taco festival with all the Mexican vendors in town (planned for summer 2020, we all know what happened in 2020)... so I did a taco crawl instead with a smaller group and brought everyone to the vendors, and it was very successful! first ever taco crawl in Beijing, everyone had a blast. But it was a lot of planning and work on my side, I did not have a team to help me, so let’s see if we could do it again this summer.

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