Chapter 1591 Underground City (1/2)

Li Du marveled as he tip-toed to check out the underground food city: ”This place is so huge, and there are so many people.”

”It's the largest air-raid shelter in Seattle right now,” Lu Guan laughed.

During World War II, a large air-raid shelter had been built below Pike Place. After the war, the shelter was reconstructed several times but no good projects came out of it.

Later, the government gave up its jurisdiction over this place, and gradually it became a gathering place for the homeless.

Even homeless people had to eat. Hence, some of the budget food trucks came over to provide cheap high-calorie food.

Seattle was originally a second-tier city. Later, it seized the opportunity of the Internet boom and gradually developed. Many Internet giants settled there. Hence, more and more young people came to find jobs and live there.

These people were the very first IT men. At that time, the internet had yet to be so popular and the salary for the industry was low. They had to think of all sorts of ways to save money.

They eventually found out about the budget food in the underground mall and came to buy food.

The homeless people came from all parts of America and even the world. There were people of all skin colors, Africans, Japanese, Chinese, Europeans, Middle Eastern people, South Americans, etc. There were multiple nationalities.

As they came from everywhere in the world, they brought over the delicacies from every country. The IT men, too, came from all areas of America and had an extensive list of foods they ate. However, regardless of what kind of food one wanted, one could find it there.

After some time, as the IT men started to make their pots of gold off the internet, they started to become more affluent and picky about what they ate.

After some subtle changes, the standards of the food stalls improved. The hawkers and chefs started to pay attention to sanitation and at the same time rolled out some comparatively more expensive food.

With that, more foodies were attracted to the place. The underground food city formed a positive cycle. More and more people came to eat there, the hawkers made more money. With that increased profit, they could improve the environment of the dining areas, increasing their attractiveness. Then even more people came to eat there…

Finally, a wonderful underground food city was formed. Food vendors and their followers had changed the traditional market, creating an independent food carnival night.

Now, not only were there food stalls in the underground food city, but there were also music performances.

That place used to be a gathering spot for homeless people. To date, it has become the grounds of homeless singers and artists. They were able to enjoy some benefits when eating at the food city, and some could even trade for food using their talents.

For example, the homeless singers were able to busk at particular stalls. As long as the hawker was happy with the performance, they would provide the singers with a meal.

The homeless artists would find a place to hang up their drawing board and create caricatures of the foodies to make money. While the foodies were waiting, they would browse and buy some snacks, beer or beverages to spend time.

As a result, all of that subtly helped the hawkers and stall owners to increase their profits. To thank them, the owners would treat them to food and drinks.

In fact, some of the shops even had a partnership with homeless artists. Some of the outstanding homeless singers would often perform at a few stalls. The owners of those stalls would pay them some money on top of providing food and beverages.

Li Du and his group were walking amongst the crowd, checking out the happenings casually. They found it all quite interesting.

Chinese food was very popular in the underground food city. That was because the preparation time was short and the food was high-calorie. Eating such meals in winter was very satisfying for most people.