On a working day in late April, a yard with 10 barbecue(烧烤) restaurants in Zibo was full of diners at about 5 p. m. Many of them were waiting for tables. Some even went inside the restaurants to get skewers(烤串) by themselves because ★ .
A 51-year-old native(本地的) man said,"In the past two months, we have seldom come to the yard for barbecue food because there are so many diners. We have to wait in line if we don't arrive early. Reading the license plates(车牌) of cars, we know that most of the diners are out-of-town visitors."
Huang Yang is also a native of Zibo. He works outside his hometown. He recently came back home for a visit and wanted to have some barbecue. But he couldn't find seats in four different restaurants."A barbecue restaurant owner told me to come on Monday.He wanted to serve(服务) out-of-town visitors first on weekends. Another restaurant owner told me that they ran out of meat. This is the first time I've heard something like this,"Huang told reporters.
Zibo does so well in barbecue that many officials(官员) from different cities show great interest in it. They have come to Zibo to study how Zibo's barbecue industry (产业)has become popular on the Internet.
