Despite of its reduced operations, the reopened Yongheyuan retains all its special snacks, which are the favorites of local people, including shredded chicken and dried tofu, crab-shell-yellow sesame buns, small steamed buns and dumplings.

Furthermore, the prices of some snacks have decreased since most consumers in the new area where the restaurant is located are ordinary residents. Yongheyuan opened at 9:30am every day before the renewal, while now it opens at 7 am for the added breakfast sales.

The skills of cooking traditional snacks are being streamlined and passed down.

Yongheyuan, one of the first “China’s Time-honored Brands” approved by the Ministry of Commerce, had its snack making skills included in the list of “Nanjing Intangible Cultural Heritage” in 2012.

Although it was temporarily moved out from the core scenic area of the Confucius Temple, Yongheyuan, as its spokesman said during an interview, would seize this opportunity to improve its skills of making traditional snacks to promote its inheritance.

“Both our own efforts and the government’s support helped Yongheyuan to resume its operation after only a few months. And the key to the business of time-honored shops is in their continuous operation.”

According to the spokesman, Yongheyuan would lose its technical staff if it had been unable to reopen as soon as possible, and the reopening of Yongheyuan marks the time-honored shops’ protection and inheritance of food culture and skills of cookingtraditional snacks.