On April 19, Jiumaojiu issued an operation announcement for the first quarter of this year, which mentioned that its light luxury Cantonese cuisine brand "Uncle Nawei is a chef" will cease operation this month.
1 dragged its feet
"Uncle Nawei is a Chef" was founded in 2018 and has only opened one store in Guangzhou from beginning to end. The name of the store is strange, long and difficult to remember, and people often don't know whether it is "that" or "that", and from a communication point of view, it is a failed store name. However, because it does not expand as a chain, only does a single store, and its positioning is in the middle and high-end, the negative impact of the name is not too obvious.
△ Picture self-dining book
"Uncle Nawei" focuses on light luxury Cantonese cuisine, the dishes and presentation are more exquisite, the store looks like a clothing store from the outside, and a few suits and shirts are displayed in the window;
The annual revenue of the store can be stable at more than 10 million, why should Jiumaojiu shut it down?
The main thing is that its contribution is getting smaller and less important.
The following table is the performance of "Uncle Nawei" in the last three years, which can be seen that in 2023, its revenue will be the lowest in three years, but the total revenue of the group will be the highest in three years, and it has achieved substantial growth. In other words, in the process of the group's revenue surge last year, "Uncle Nawei" not only failed to contribute, but also dragged its feet.
In addition, it is worth paying attention to its customer unit price, which is increasing year by year, and the main theme of consumption in the past three years is "consumption downgrade", and the key word is "cost performance", so its turnover rate has dropped from 2.5 in 2022 to 1.7 last year, which seems to be not difficult to understand. Compared with several other sub-brands, "Uncle Nawei" was also the only brand with a declining turnover rate last year.
2 Fine dining
"Uncle Nawei" is the second sub-brand that Jiumaojiu has abandoned since its listing.
In June 2022, Jiumaojiu announced that it would sell "2 egg pancakes". The brand was established in 2016, and Jiumaojiu had high hopes for it, planning to open 460 franchise stores in the three years from 2019 to 2021 in the prospectus, which is almost twice as much as Taier. However, contrary to expectations, as of the end of 2021, the number of stores with 2 eggs is: 8 directly operated stores and 17 franchised stores. The performance was so dismal that it was put on the shelves in the next few years.
△ Picture self-dining book
"Uncle Nawei" is now in a situation similar to "2 eggs", and naturally he can't escape the fate of shutting down. These two abandonments also reflect the courage of Jiumaojiu, once they find that they are not as expected, they will immediately find a way to dispose of them, without dragging their feet.
The abandonment of "Uncle Nawei" also added a new footnote to the dilemma faced by fine dining. Not long ago, two Michelin-starred restaurants in Beijing, TIAGO and Opera BOMBANA, suddenly closed their stores, sparking discussions about the "retreat" of fine dining.
In fact, it's almost inevitable. In an environment that pursues the ultimate in value for money, "bells and whistles" are bound to be unpopular, and the average average order value of fine dining last year was down from the previous year (by about 3%). It is necessary to have both a sense of ceremony and cost performance, which is the biggest demand of consumers for fine dining.
3 "Undertones"
Today (April 22), the former "ice cream assassin" Zhong Xuegao is on the hot search again. It is said that its founder had to take a green train to Beijing overnight because of the height limit, but even this did not crush his confidence, saying that "even if you sell sweet potatoes, you have to pay off your debts".
The founder's words and deeds deeply touched the friends who had dinner with him, and he was considered to be "the background color of China's private enterprises and the background color of China's economy".
Whether it is "background color" or not, I am afraid that his creditors have more say, and it is not easy to draw conclusions now. Because a few years ago, an accountant Jia also publicly promised that he would "fulfill his responsibilities to the end and repay all the arrears", and there were many celebrities at that time who praised him for his "responsibility". Unexpectedly, he turned around and went to the United States and has not returned, without caring about the faces of those celebrities.
Of course, Zhong Xuegao's founder's statement is still worth encouraging, and Zhong Xue's high-frequency hot searches also tell everyone a "truth": there is no cost performance, no one should pretend to be B.
It is necessary to have a sense of ceremony and cost-effectiveness, to have good service and delicious taste, to be good and cheap: to both want and want, this is the "background color" of consumers.
But as a business, there are trade-offs. For Jiumaojiu, which focuses on the two major categories of hot pot and sauerkraut fish, light luxury Cantonese cuisine that has nothing to do with the overall situation can be abandoned.