Open 24 hours a day, scan the code to order food, take the dishes from the bottom of the pot... Last year, the new model of "unmanned hot pot restaurant" appeared in Chongqing, the "hot pot base camp", and quickly "went out of the circle".
In just half a year, the "unmanned hot pot restaurant" that was once on CCTV has ceased to be beautiful. In the past two days, the upstream news reporter visited and learned that the two "unmanned hot pot restaurants" that were previously laid out in Chongqing have now all closed their stores.
The "unmanned hot pot restaurant" on CCTV on fire is closed
At noon on February 11, the reporter saw in the chiba central block in Erlang that the sign of the "Hongjinhua" unmanned hot pot restaurant had been removed, and the original store had been reinstalled into a small noodle shop.
△ The former Jiro store has been refitted as a small noodle shop
The reporter learned that the "Hongjinhua" unmanned hot pot restaurant entered Chongqing last year. Unlike traditional hot pot restaurants, they are basically self-service 24 hours a day, and there will only be service personnel within a certain period of time.
On the group buying website, two stores in Jiangbei and Jiulongpo are showing that they are closed
The "unmanned hot pot restaurant" appeared in the "hot pot base camp" in Chongqing, which quickly aroused the attention of all parties, and even cCTV, attracting many citizens to experience.
△ Screenshot of CCTV report
"In the first month or two, the popularity was very strong." The owner of the printing shop next door said that often at noon, there are customers waiting for dinner at the entrance of the hot pot restaurant early, "the stools in the row are all sitting in front of our store." ”
The ordering process is cumbersome into the largest "slot point"
The reporter learned that the "unmanned hot pot restaurant" is divided into two areas: "self-selected" and "dining".
In the self-selection area, the intelligent vending counter places dishes, and scans with your mobile phone to open the counter. After the customer gets the dish he wants, the counter will automatically calculate the price according to the weight of the dish, select the dish and go directly to the dining area to sit down and open the shabu.
So, why is it that a hot pot restaurant with such a novel model has been closed for more than half a year?
An employee who used to work at the store said: "The system is cumbersome to operate. ”
According to reports, there were only two employees in the store at that time, who were older and struggled with understanding and operating systems. For example, each time in the system background to operate the inventory and other steps, time-consuming and laborious.
The employee also mentioned the experience issue. Taking the Jiangbei store as an example, although it is located in Guanyin Bridge and has a large flow of people, the customers are mostly the elderly around the store. Adding dishes to the dish needs to scan the code, for them, the sense of experience is greatly reduced.
Yang Hong, former CEO of the pastry business department of Baixiang Food Group and founder of Yuelai Brand Strategy Consulting, once went to experience it. According to his observation, in terms of consumption costs and sense of experience, unmanned hot pot restaurants have not failed to achieve "subversive innovation".
Yang Hong analyzed to the upstream reporter that due to the elimination of labor costs, the overall price of dishes was about 30% lower, and the unit price of customers was more than 20 yuan. However, the "track" of the same level of price is also crowded with large and small "competitors" such as pre-made dishes, fake dishes and even takeaways, etc., regardless of taste and preferences, he believes that unmanned self-service hot pot restaurants are not particularly dominant in the price.
In addition, the so-called "self-service" ordering process has largely "dissuaded" some repeat customers.
"First of all, like we eat hot pot normally, you have to order the bottom of the pot first, you have to scan the code for the first time; the dishes are placed in different freezers, and the meat dishes are selected, and you have to scan the code twice; you have to scan the third code when you choose vegetarian dishes; if you need wine and beverages, you have to continue to scan the code." Also, not all meat and vegetarian dishes are in the same freezer, so the number of times you actually scan the code will be more. ”
"Originally, it was for the convenience of experiencing 'no one', but I didn't expect that the process would be more cumbersome." Yang Hong said.
△ The ordering process of hot pot restaurants (Photo by Yang Hong, interviewee)
Hot pot is still inseparable from service
In recent years, unmanned and intelligent has become one of the directions for the upgrading and development of the catering industry. Especially for traditional hot pot restaurants, they are facing development resistance such as the increase in labor costs year by year and the increase in personnel mobility.
Therefore, the "no one" model is also regarded as a breakthrough by many hot pot practitioners. For example, Haidilao smashed 100 million yuan to build an "unmanned hot pot restaurant". Recently, there have also been sporadic tests in Chengdu and Heilongjiang.
However, in the industry's view, from the perspective of actual operation, "gimmicks are greater than substance", which has not yet achieved the expected effect.
A hot pot practitioner in Chongqing said that in terms of consumption habits, the social attributes of hot pot are strong, and people prefer a lively dining atmosphere; on the other hand, how to deeply integrate intelligent technology into the operation of hot pot shops to achieve the effect of cost reduction and efficiency increase, it remains to be further explored to find the right entry point.
He Yongzhi, president of the Chongqing Hot pot association, believes that high-profile brands may be more easily accepted to do "no one", and standardized products such as snack fast food are also more suitable for the "no one" model, "and the dinner hot pot still needs service".
Upstream journalist Guo Xinxin