Image source @ Visual China
Text | Meal Alliance study, author | Tan Wu Yu
This Spring Festival, do you have KTV in your entertainment options?
Mentioning KTV, Yan Ming in 96 was very interested, "Now who still goes to KTV to consume, there are so many places where entertainment can be enjoyed in the New Year, playing a script is not fragrant." ”
Earlier, the topic of "China's existing KTV companies are less than half of what it was seven years ago" once swept the screen, evoking people's memories of the boom in karaoke. Around 2005, singing at KTV was the most fashionable way to party. However, in 2015, the cash cabinet Chaoyang store closed, and the fate of the traditional KTV format was also rewritten, and in 2016, the number of KTV stores in the country fell from 120,000 at its peak to more than 50,000.
In 2020, affected by the new crown epidemic, the turnover of karaoke business has fallen off a cliff, and the overall passenger flow has dropped by 70%-80%. During the worst period of the epidemic, KTV was in a depressed state with its doors closed. Xiaoxue remembers that last year, she and her friends suddenly wanted to sing K after eating, opened the list of KTV merchants commented on by the public, and called them one by one, all of which did not resume business. They stood by the teeth of the road, feeling extremely discouraged.
The traditional mass-selling KTV has entered a downward trend, and there are reasons for the transformation of entertainment consumption. The mobile Internet provides a rich video and audio leisure path, and the online K song software represented by the national K song and singing bar has seized the minds of a large number of K song lovers. At the same time, mini KTV that conforms to the needs of fragmented entertainment appears in the corners of major supermarkets and consumption places.
But the public's demand for offline Singing K has obviously not dissipated. Merchants who keenly capture the "high-density integrated consumption" psychology of customers bundle eating, singing, leisure and entertainment content, and this new model of catering format first became popular in the county and expanded to large cities. About four or five years ago, the "fire bar" that played the mix and match to the extreme was popular in Lanzhou, Xi'an, Dalian, Shenyang and other northern cities, easily realizing "eating hot pot and singing songs, skewering and barley".
At present, the catering + K song model is also gradually popular in first- and second-tier cities, becoming an excellent place for birthday parties and company team building. The chain hot pot has also opened a hot pot tavern in Sanlitun, with KTV boxes, band performances on weekends, and a scene mode of meal + wine + singing K, which has attracted many young men and women to punch in.
Every weekend, several K-song restaurants in Beijing are often full of private rooms, and in the brightly lit and high-tech space, each private room not only emits cheerful songs, but also wafts the aroma of meals. The restaurant alliance research explored the store and found that hot pot is the most common dish in K song restaurants, and barbecue, Sichuan cuisine, grilled fish, and Cantonese cuisine can also be "seamlessly" integrated with KTV.
During the epidemic, there are many K-song restaurant entrants. During the epidemic, Lei Ge, who has been a soldier for eight years, saw the decline of mass-selling KTV and decided to open a restaurant where he could sing. There are also KTV venues that have begun to transform catering, and Tongledi KTV laid out music hot pot restaurants last year, trying to differentiate several stores in the same business district to avoid "left pocket into right pocket out".
Pan Yi worked in cash cabinet for 20 years, and the hot pot music restaurant he founded has become a trendy place for Internet celebrities to run for three months. "The essence of KTV is to meet the offline party scene. Now the post-90s and post-00s prefer to have independent space, and their entertainment choices are more diversified, so physical KTV has a downward cycle. He did not forget to add, "But I think the character of the Chinese people still likes indoor gatherings, right?" ”
However, in the confined small space to eat K song, consumer evaluation is not consistent, some people think that "one-stop to solve all needs, continue the stall without transfer, feel very convenient", and some people complain, eat and sing in the house, for a long time feel hot, taste big, exhaust function needs to be strengthened.
Catering circle insider Whale Dian believes that the core competitiveness of K song restaurants lies in cost performance and decision-making costs, "the combination of catering and KTV, to some extent, is actually to reduce the cost of customers eating and entertainment, and there is no need to worry about where to entertain after eating, to some extent, this is also a set menu service." However, many practitioners said that although there are many value-added experiences, the level of dishes in the restaurant is the first after all, and it cannot be overshadowed by "singing".
01 Eating hot pot and singing
At five o'clock on Monday night, Rego, wearing a black flying jacket, went straight to the restaurant front desk, picked up the iPad recipe and ordered — a few TikTok bloggers would come over to eat and take pictures, and he had to arrange the dishes for the guests first. One of the box's song machines malfunctioned, and the maintenance staff discussed the problem with Rego, and he waved his hand: "I don't understand this, you are professional, just pay you to get it." ”
Lei Ge's YueTA Music Restaurant is located in a more remote community, the upper and lower three floors cover an area of more than 1,000 square meters, the first floor hall has a stage area, there are resident singers performing on weekends, and a total of 12 theme boxes on the second to third floors can be eaten with K songs, and the main dishes are flower glue chicken hot pot and Cantonese hot stir-fry.
There is no subway station nearby, the commercial atmosphere is relatively cold, and when it opened more than seven months ago, almost no one was optimistic. At the beginning, a wave of people were invited to visit the store, and a while ago, an Internet celebrity blogger came to visit the store twice, saw the singing and laughter in the fully booked private room, and couldn't help but showdown with Lei Ge: "Honestly, when I first came to you, looking at this geographical location, I think it will be yellow in three months, I didn't expect to be really dried up by you!" ”
The location of the restaurant is not ideal, Lei Ge is very clear in his heart, but he has his own considerations: first of all, the rent of the non-commercial circle is low, the nearby highway will be opened after two or three years, the traffic will be more convenient, and the advantages of this location will come out. Through the preliminary inspection, he noticed that the surrounding film and television industrial park and cultural industry park, the film and television cultural workers in the two parks added up to 50,000 or 60,000 people, are potential customers of music restaurants.
Rego is a veteran who usually loves to sing and has a magnetic voice suitable for singing love songs. In 2020, witnessing the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic on many industries, a bold judgment arose in his heart: "Entertainment venues such as mass-selling KTV must be unconditionally shut down in the event of major events, and if the epidemic can be completely eliminated in three to five years at the earliest, the consumption frequency of the KTV industry will gradually decline, so it will not be able to sustain it." He thought, but people always want to spend on entertainment, it is better to combine catering with KTV to fill the market demand.
During the epidemic period, entertainment venues have been shut down in response to epidemic prevention requirements, and turnover has been hit hard, and some KTV industry personnel have begun to think about how to increase the frequency of customer consumption and seek new growth points. KTV brand Tongledi increased the number of stores serving Chinese barbecue at the end of 2020, and opened a music hot pot restaurant half a year later, laying out the K song + catering model. Li Kai, head of Tongledi, said, "The meal period is a gap in KTV consumption, and there are very few guests who come to sing at the meal point, and we also want to fill the vacancy of the meal point." In addition, in addition to bagged snacks, guests can also eat freshly cooked dishes in the store, which is also conducive to upgrading the grade of the venue. ”
Transformation of catering, why choose the hot pot category? Li Kai said that the urban consumer group of barbecue and hot pot is relatively large, and there are already barbecue stores in the same building, so it is better to integrate into hot pot.
The multi-scene business model of "meal + singing" has a long history, and the early cash cabinet KTV also knocked on the door of the market through a rich and attractive buffet. As one of the first waiters at the cash cabinet in the 1990s, Pan Yi worked at the cash cabinet for 20 years, witnessing the parabola of the veteran KTV from glory to decline. He believes that the essence of KTV is to party socialize, although the KTV industry is in a downward cycle, but with the character of the Chinese people, parties are always indispensable in life.
The K-song restaurant he wants to make is not a simple karaoke environment upgrade, but an extension of the party time, providing a "meeting room" for guests who need to entertain friends. Create a more comfortable space in the environment and atmosphere, allowing them to eat, sing and relax in the relatively private private rooms.
If you want to land the concept of "living room", you can't help but have a large enough space. Pan Yi's restaurant V-Hot Music Hotpot, positioning Sichuan-style hot pot + KTV, opened in an e-sports shopping center, 2000 square meters of venue with 29 private rooms, the smallest 30 square meters, the largest more than 80 square meters. Each box is divided into three functional areas: dining area, reception area and entertainment area, with song pointing equipment and lighting and sound.
In terms of the overall spatial layout, Pan Yishe went to the traditional lobby, and after entering the restaurant, he only saw rows of boxes: "Your living room definitely only wants familiar people to visit it, so you need to create a strong sense of privacy." ”
02 Have the strength to fight for the value
Xiao Chen, who likes to taste the early adopters, has punched in several K-song theme restaurants, and she concluded that most of these dining spaces take the "Segpunk" style, geometric light doors, mirror glass, blue-purple-orange neon strips change and flicker, making people feel as if they are in a bar and nightclub scene. One of the experiences she never forgot was to sing with her boyfriend in a glass tent where she could make shabu-shabu, and when she looked up, she could see a bright starry sky lamp, which was very romantic.
Rego spent 2 million yuan to renovate the restaurant, and put a lot of thought into it. His requirement for environmental elements is that young people be willing to take pictures here and send circles of friends. With his previous experience in opening a renovation company, he showed all the highlights of the interior design he knew: a tempered glass panel and an abyss mirror composed of LED lights at the entrance of the restaurant, which set off the sense of avant-garde; the lobby had a flowing golden corrugated roof, the walls were made of micro-cement technology, and the same lighting arch of cartier's conference was also applied to the environment.
Considering that the banquet environment needs to be comfortable and graded, Pan And his team designed the restaurant as a simple and luxurious style, and the sofas and coffee tables in the box are leather surfaces, mainly gray, brown and log tones.
However, judging from the feedback from diners on the public reviews, the biggest attraction of the eating + singing form to guests is "cost-effective" and "convenient and convenient". Usually only the money for the dish, consumers can sing for free for 2-3 hours in a well-equipped audio space, eating and entertainment in one, without the need for a transition.
Pan Yijia launched a 298 yuan four-person meal on the group purchase platform, the set meal includes a pot bottom, crispy belly, lamb rolls, small county liver and other eight dishes of staple food, as well as 3 hours of private room singing service. According to the number of people, the multi-person party package of The Rego family is divided into several price points such as 2188 and 2788, and the meals include flower glue chicken hot pot, hot stir-fried cold vegetable skewers, plus 3 hours of KTV singing. If the meal time exceeds 3 hours, you can pay another hour of room time fee to sing unlimited.
However, eating and singing in a confined space for more than a few hours is a big test for the ventilation of the room. After eating at the barbecue KTV shop, Xiaoting couldn't help but leave a comment, "The barbecue fusion K song feels quite novel, but the exhaust function in the house needs to be improved, the barbecue has smoke, plus the K song in the room, it feels like smoking second-hand smoke." Overall, it was a fresh experience. ”
Therefore, doing a good job of indoor exhaust is a hard lesson for every K-song restaurant. Each private room of Tongledi Music Hotpot is equipped with a custom-made marble roasted dining table with a smoke-free exhaust device, and later the fresh air equipment will be upgraded. Li Kai said: "There may be some hot pot restaurants that feel that they have to smoke to have the atmosphere of shabu-shabu, but we don't think so. Or want to provide guests with a more comfortable dining and entertainment environment. ”
Rego is equipped with advanced air conditioning and fresh air system in the box to ensure that the indoor air is good. He revealed that from the perspective of decoration, the sound insulation effect should be very good, the normal wall partition is 15 cm, the KTV private room decoration should leave 40 cm wall, which does four soundproofs, a sound insulation cotton, a sound insulation board, and then a sound insulation cotton, a sound insulation board, in order to ensure that the singing between the private rooms is not disturbed.
Pan Yi said that audio and ventilation equipment accounted for 15% of the upfront input cost, and the larger investment in the design of the box was the air conditioning system, and the three mouths of fresh air, exhaust air and air conditioning were aired out, so there was almost no customer feedback that there was a great hot pot taste in the room. After the end, in addition to the disinfection of the whole site, the restaurant cleaning will also have one more deodorization step, use a special spray to remove the odor for about an hour, and then open the wind equipment, as far as possible to eliminate the hot pot smell left indoors.
In addition, compared with ordinary restaurants, K Ge Restaurant has an important task of equipment maintenance. Pan Yi said that the microphone time over time may change the tone and loosen, so it needs to be checked by someone every day, and the lights, sound and air conditioning also need to be checked frequently. Tongledi store is also equipped with specialized technical personnel, and all equipment in the store is checked in detail two or three times a day to ensure a better consumer experience.
03 Value-added experience is the key to locking customers
On weekends, Rego's restaurant is almost exclusively reserved for birthday guests, and 10 of the 12 private rooms are holding birthday parties. In the shop, a girl received so many birthday gifts that she had to pull home in a gold cup car, making him sigh, "This is the charm of birthdays." ”
Rego is happy to serve the birthday customers in all aspects, so that guests can leave better memories, such as free box decoration, customized birthday star theme posters, and dress suggestions for the protagonist and guests. He thinks it's worth it: "I may have 100 yuan more for the layout cost of a room, but customer satisfaction is not something that can be bought for 100 yuan." ”
In order to help the guests take a party photo with a large film effect, Rego learned mobile phone photography skills with the photographer. At the same time, the store prepares a series of surprises for birthday stars: women send bird's nest, men send sea cucumbers, and singers who have published albums are invited to the private room to send songs to help entertain. When he met a guest who invited him to sing a song, he also responded to everything, and once one night all aspects rotated, singing until his voice was hoarse.
In The cognition of Lei Ge, since the positioning of music restaurants, it is best to have musicians as endorsements, and sing a song to each box on important holidays, so that consumers can feel the charm of music restaurants. After he recruited the store manager, he would add a condition: singing should be good. Generously sending blessing songs will make guests feel that they are worth the money.
On the other hand, Rego also has a "selfish heart" in business. He found that birthday people are not stingy in spending, 2-3 times higher than usual, so that the restaurant profits are higher and the flow of water increases. At present, the Lei Ge family focuses on the birthday party scene to the outside world, and the turnover has doubled. Some guests have three consecutive games in the same room, and each time they celebrate birthdays with different people.
Compared with the private room, the hall area weekday attendance rate is not high, individual customers come less, Lei Ge will be the hall mainly used in the reception company team building, "50 people at least 20,000 yuan for meals, and then add alcohol to more than 30,000 yuan." If I can receive ten team buildings a month and earn 200,000-300,000 yuan, the profit of my hall will come out. ”
Pan Yi has been deeply involved in the KTV industry for many years, but he is still a novice in entering the catering industry. In his view, "Catering is the essence, service is the foundation." He hired the back kitchen team of the well-known chain hot pot brand to sit in, and the outfield operation continued the service spirit learned in the cash cabinet.
Since its opening a few months ago, there have been many customers who come to V-Hot Music Hot Pot for family gatherings, and the waiter's independent service attitude towards customers is a place that Pan always feels needs to be strengthened. From KTV practitioners to catering, Pan found that many of the needs of guests were not taken into account before. For example, eating hot pot should be accompanied by small ingredients, but a seasoning of the nine palace grid is far from satisfying the difference in guests' tastes. In addition, in the face of different scenes such as a group of children singing in the private room and a group of adults eating, how the waiter should face and present the service that adults and children are satisfied with is also a problem that he and the team are thinking about.
The operation of Tongledi Music Hot Pot Restaurant has just started, Li Kai goes to the store every day, there are currently 13 waiters in the store, and each waiter is responsible for 3-4 private rooms. Li Kai mentioned that the two waiters of the ordinary restaurant standing in the hall can take care of the needs of all the guests, but the private room is different, "the guest closes the door and can't see the consumption situation inside, which requires the clerk to have a stronger sense of service." He asked the waiter to carry the kettle into the room every 10-20 minutes to understand the needs of the guests. Some guests have not paid attention to the wine after several rounds, the fire boiler is dry, and some desktop garbage is too much, if you pay attention to the room situation during the consumption process, you will avoid these situations.
For Li Kai, the booking of private rooms is a great learning, cross-Chinese New Year's Eve day, he stood at the front desk at two o'clock in the afternoon to do overall planning work, but still because the guests at the table in the room were overtime, they were counted by the next batch of guests. "Our hot pot set generally contains three hours of singing K, the time should be well connected, if the appointment is not appropriate, it is easy to break the file, the appointment is too full, and the guests can not enter the room on time and will complain." This is related to the increase or decrease of revenue of 10,000-20,000. In this regard, the practice in the store is to ask guests to pay a deposit to lock the room on holidays. If there is a waiting situation, try your best to do a good job of comforting the guests, provide subsidies and preferential treatment to the guests, and retain the guests by sending a dish in a delayed manner.
Speaking of the essence of the K song theme restaurant, Pan Yi said that the K song restaurant should closely focus on the core needs of the party, whether it is K song + catering, or bar + catering, the most important thing is how to use dishes, services, on-demand sounds and other factors to meet people's party needs, so that guests can focus on leisure and entertainment time in this restaurant.
Lei Ge admitted that although it has distinct musical attributes, since it is a restaurant, it is necessary to make the dish to the extreme: "The dish is the first, and secondly, we just provide the guests with a free singing environment." In this regard, his philosophy is "professional people do professional things", the head chef is dug up from the high-end Cantonese cuisine Xinrong Ji, and the manager also has many years of background in senior clubs.
Lei Ge currently works 16-18 hours a day, and his entrepreneurial passion is full of passion, "To be honest, my own family's business, I don't care who gives you a heart." He revealed that the next direction is to open three or four stores around the core area and continue to strengthen the concept of birthday-themed parties.
Conclusion: Nowadays, more and more restaurant companies have begun to explore the multi-scene model, and K Song Restaurant has integrated the singing scene on the basis of traditional catering, which not only meets the needs of dining, but also meets the needs of entertainment, killing two birds with one stone, providing convenience for consumers. In the ever-changing market environment, entrepreneurs who constantly gain insight into consumer needs, have the courage to break the boundaries of business models, and innovate and integrate can seize opportunities in innovation and find new profitable growth points.