At the beginning of the 21st century, the buffet was once popular all over the country, and the "top Internet celebrity" of that year has now lost the love of diners and has become a "little star of the 18th line". According to statistics, as of 2022, there are 13,802 buffet restaurants in operation in the mainland. In a short period of time, more than 20,000 closed their doors.
In the process of closing domestic stores one after another, diners are becoming less tolerant of buffets. When many people mention buffets, the first thing that comes to mind is the Golden Leopard buffet.
In October 2003, Golden Leopard International Business Group opened an international compound buffet restaurant, which led to the rise of domestic buffets. Therefore, Shanghai Golden Leopard Buffet was once regarded as the "leader" in the industry, known by many people, and it is also the most profitable restaurant in the industry. But now diners' attitude towards the leopard is not the same, and they are even very disgusted, and even when mentioning it, they shake their heads to indicate that their stomachs are uncomfortable.
Looking at the comments on the Internet, and then remembering that when I ate a buffet, I would indeed encounter a situation where some of the food was not fresh, and it was not difficult to know that the customers were very dissatisfied. Food safety issues cannot be ignored, and good health is what people want. The cafeteria cannot control the freshness of the food, which is tantamount to self-destructing signs.
In addition, as a service industry, customers need not only to satisfy their appetites, but also to enjoy in-store services. The buffet does require customers to take the food by themselves, but the restaurant will carry out the "mess" to the end.
While the service attitude of the leopard is poor, in order to reduce the consumption of food, it simply does not put the food out. Is this kind of restaurant really a "buffet"? Is the buffet really eaten up?
Anyone who has eaten a buffet knows that you can take as much as you eat. In order to recoup the cost of eating, many people will control their diet and cleanse their intestines in the first two days of eating a buffet. I often go in hungry and help each other out. The cost of food and the cost of hiring staff have led to the establishment of restrictions on "unscrupulous" stores.
Set a meal time, and the timer starts the moment diners enter the restaurant. Meals vary in length between restaurants, from two and a half hours to three hours. If a customer eats in the store for more than the specified time, the fee will be increased. If the guests are not satisfied, the number of visits will naturally decrease.
In the past two years, the epidemic has been rampant in China, and people have been isolated at home and unable to go to offline stores. As a result, cafeterias are operating poorly, and many cafeterias have no choice but to close when they can't make ends meet. The cafeteria, which is still supporting, has also begun to play tricks after the epidemic is over.
When people eat the buffet, they find that the food tastes wrong. The label clearly marked beef, mutton and other meats, and after testing, it was found that it was marinated with chicken and duck meat and various spices, most of which were "technology and hard work". Another important reason why customers who have been deceived have lost their trust in the store and the reputation of the store has been damaged by it, and the times have changed.
Ordinary people have just been lifted out of poverty, and most of them have savings. People's demand for food has also changed to "eat well and eat well". The Golden Leopard buffet has launched a promotion: unlimited Häagen-Dazs ice cream, fresh seafood, various cakes, etc., are all stimulating people to go to consume.
The expensive cost satisfies the vanity of some people, and in the era when the per capita income is less than 2,000 yuan, it is a very face-saving thing to go to the money leopard cafeteria for dinner. Even when getting married, the leopard will be the first choice for banquet guests.
The rapid development of the economy has gradually swelled people's wallets, and the requirements for food have changed to "eat well and eat well", and some cafeterias can not meet the needs of customers. People buy their own fresh ingredients to ensure food hygiene and their own safety. You can go to a restaurant that specializes in a certain cuisine, and the taste is more authentic. When you get married, you will choose a hotel where you can hold your wedding ceremony. With a variety of options, cafeterias face huge competition.
With the progress of the times, there are more and more routines in cafeterias. When diners enter the restaurant, they fall into a special "trap". First of all, there are a variety of small cakes, which are extremely high in calories, and only two or three can make an adult feel full.
When eating, you will find that many dishes have a strong taste, salty, spicy, and very greasy. At this time, guests who need to drink water will find that most of them are carbonated drinks when they head to the beverage area. The gas in it is enough to make it impossible for guests to eat other food. In the end, it all achieves one goal: the customer simply can't get it back.
Businessmen have endless methods, but they have forgotten the importance of honest management. Blindly borrowing foreign business philosophy, but failing to conform to the domestic economic development, change their own business mode, and eventually lead to being eliminated by the torrent of the times. The birthplace of cafeterias in China is another reason for this huge difference.
Buffets were once very popular in China, but they were not invented in China. It first originated in Europe, where pirates who lived at sea for a long time were less educated and knew little about dining etiquette. Therefore, when they eat, they do not pay attention to elegant manners, but to eat heartily.
Whenever it is time to eat, they will inform the food preparer in advance, put all the food and wine on the long table, and they will take their favorite food. The European aristocracy of the time thought that pirates' eating methods were barbaric and vulgar. But over time, they noticed the advantages of this way of dining. People can choose their favorite food as much as they want, and eat as much as they want, which is very convenient.
After that, the buffet developed among the European aristocracy, attracting the attention of some business-minded people. After observation, they found that the popularity of this buffet was very high, reducing the pre-meal service and reducing the cost of hiring service personnel. The way customers pick up their own food enhances customers' desire to try.
The merchants first set up a breakfast experiment, and after a period of operation, they found that this business model could be extended to Chinese food and dinner. At that time, the common people were very curious when they saw this form of dining, and they often came to try it.
After a period of development, they took advantage of various festivals to create sales gimmicks. For example, Valentine's Day buffets, wedding buffets, and more. It also innovated the form of cooking, which was originally made by the chef in the back kitchen and then brought to the table for diners to choose from.
Evolved into a chef made on the spot, guests will intuitively understand the freshness of the ingredients, so that guests can eat with confidence. After that, the customers bring the ingredients to the restaurant and the chef processes them.
During the Republic of China, many Western restaurants were opened in China, and Chinese only knew about foreign buffets. After the founding of New China, with the unremitting efforts of the Chinese people, the economy began to recover. Taiwanese Yuan Changping saw the opportunity and spent tens of millions of dollars to open an 8,000-square-meter Golden Leopard buffet restaurant in Shanghai, China. Since then, a wave of "self-help" has begun.
As the "leader", the Golden Leopard Buffet is a microcosm of the development of many cafeterias. In 2017, the Golden Leopard Buffet Restaurant suffered its biggest crisis, and several stores in Beijing were all closed in just half a month, which also became the beginning of the decline of the buffet.
The founder of the Golden Leopard is Taiwanese Yuan Changping, who used the contacts and funds established in the "Xingxing" hotel in Taiwan to establish the first Golden Leopard KTV. Later, he chose to enter the mainland and use resources to open the first cafeteria in Shanghai.
At this time, people feel very interesting about this form of buffet eating. When they learned that there was an unlimited supply of lobster, abalone, foie gras and other foods, the leopard was warmly welcomed by the people. After that, the development was more like opening a "plug-in" unimpeded.
Yuan Changping once made a bold statement that he wanted the money leopard to open more than 50 stores across the country and successfully go public. But he forgot the importance of food safety and credibility. In 2013, CCTV exposed the "fake shark fin" incident in the Golden Leopard cafeteria.
Even though the leopard quickly issued a statement that it would no longer sell any food such as shark fin. But the credibility was damaged and the image collapsed, and the income plummeted. Yuan Changping sold the painstaking money leopard to An Baishen for 1.5 billion.
Ke'an Baishen is not good at management, and he adopts a single-point model to increase operating costs. As a result, in just two years, the money leopard has suffered hundreds of millions of losses. Subsequently, it announced that the transformation had failed, and chose to sell the Hong Kong-listed group at a low price.
After Carnival International took over, it wanted to make a transformation. But there are many similar cafeterias in the market, and the Golden Leopard has lost its competitiveness. In desperation, many branches were closed one after another. Subsequently, there were problems such as arrears of employees' salaries, suppliers coming to collect debts, and the city where the branch is located, and the money recharged by customers cannot be returned.
The Golden Leopard Buffet Restaurant completely lost the hearts of diners, and in 2017, the last Golden Leopard Buffet Restaurant in Beijing closed. The money leopard, which was once a "smash hit", ended miserably.
After the "Money Leopard" left the public eye, other cafeterias began to release big tricks and do all kinds of publicity, but unfortunately the next "top Internet celebrity" never appeared. In 2020, there will be a large number of store closures in China. Until now, there are still many cafeterias that are about to close down due to poor management.
If you want to go on for a long time in the food industry, you have a foothold. The most important thing is to operate with integrity and conform to the development of the times. Like the original Golden Leopard Cafeteria, there is no "technology and ruthlessness", treating every customer sincerely, and having fewer routines, it will naturally gain the love of guests.