Franchisees can't cut, fans don't pay, and the smash hit celebrity restaurants collectively go out of business

People of the Day

2024-05-12 14:35Posted on the official account of Beijing Daily People

The aura blessing of celebrity bosses is the first impression that these brands show to consumers. At that time, Huang Xiaoming frequently appeared in various branches in suits, surrounded by a group of people calling him "boss", and the store's Weibo would directly play the banner of "boss to inspect the store". Even the shouting while waiting for a seat emphasized his identity, "No. 405, Brother Xiaoming has invited you to dinner."

Including when the big LOGO visited the store, the first sentence when I came up was also "Brother Xiaoming's barbecue restaurant, how does it taste", and I didn't forget to mention a classic line after eating: "Thank you Brother Xiaoming for your arrangement, praise it!" But after the catering brand stalled something, the celebrity "bosses", "shopkeepers" and "store managers" quickly retreated and became invisible from store advertisements, official publicity and franchise materials, as if nothing had ever happened.

Text: Wang Xiao

Edited by Xin Ye

Operation|Xiaoyu

"The shops of those celebrities I visited back then were all yellow"

Not long ago, the top Internet celebrity logo of the former exploration store with tens of millions of fans started to eat and broadcast in front of the camera again.

It's just that after being criticized for showing off his wealth, what is now in front of him is not an afternoon tea of 3,700 yuan, nor a blue lobster that only comes out of a million, but the most common Northeast dipping pickles. While smearing egg sauce on the vegetable rolls, he concluded: "The hot pot barbecue restaurants of those celebrities I visited back then were all yellow. ”

In some slice videos, there is still a "legend" that exploded at the peak of the big LOGO - Huang Xiaoming invited him to eat barbecue, Zheng Kai helped him make hot pot, Chen He and he "collapsed" Sha Yi's hot pot restaurant, and he also went to the movie promotion site to celebrate Jackie Chan's birthday and send cakes...... At that time, he and a group of celebrities called each other brothers, pushed cups and changed lamps, and they were in the limelight; In just three or four years, whether it is the store traffic of the big LOGO or the catering business of the stars, they are all chicken feathers.

Huang Xiaoming took the big LOGO to roast Jiangnan barbecue, which was previously exposed to large-scale closures in Zhejiang and Beijing. Since the beginning of this year, the relevant companies have added two new pieces of information on the person subject to execution, with a total of more than 3.88 million yuan in the subject matter, and the legal representative Luo Yi has been restricted from high consumption.

Zheng Kai's investment and the Huofengxiang fresh hot pot on the platform have been caught in a storm such as plagiarism of store decoration and selling spoiled ingredients, and some franchisees have pulled banners to defend their rights, claiming that "Zheng Kai, the shopkeeper, cut leeks and fraud". According to the narrow door dining eye, Huo Fengxiang currently has 79 stores left in the country, which is far from more than 200 at its peak.

As for Chen He, he was one of the first stars to step into the river of catering. As early as 2015, he opened the first Xianhezhuang hot pot restaurant with the host Zhu Zhen and singer Ye Yiqian, and after further packaging in 2020, seven or eight hundred stores were opened in less than two years, but now, about ninety percent of the stores have closed.

In a recent video, Big Logo emphasized that although many people associate themselves with Chen He's hot pot restaurant, he has never actually visited Xianhezhuang. At that time, Chen He went with him to the spicy Sancheng hot pot restaurant on the Shayi platform, which once had to queue for four hours to eat after the opening of Chongqing, the city of hot pot, with a franchise fee of up to 700,000 yuan.

The Internet celebrities who visited the store during that period almost witnessed the savage growth of celebrities entering the catering industry. In addition to the above-mentioned catering brands, Big LOGO has also been to the Lighting Life Western Restaurant opened by Jia Nailiang and Lei Jiayin, the spicy hot pot restaurant founded by Du Haitao and Wu Xin, and the natural staycation milk tea shop that Guan Xiaotong is involved in.

▲The Internet celebrity big LOGO has visited many star restaurants in the store. Figure / Screenshot of Douyin

However, in the later operation, they were successively exposed to food safety problems and franchisee rights protection crises, and now they either have no store and end miserably, or they have closed stores on a large scale and are in a difficult situation. And the stars at the center of the storm have also begun to draw a line with the identity of the "boss".

In November 2021, more than a year after the opening of Huo Fengxiang's "world's first store" in Ningbo, the "shopkeeper" Zheng Kai's shareholding company announced its withdrawal; In June of the following year, when Xianhezhuang was deeply questioned about "cutting leeks", the founder Chen He quietly withdrew from the ranks of shareholders. Because both of them have joined the top variety show "Run, Brother", they were ridiculed by netizens: "It is worthy of being a running man, running is fast." ”

Also in 2022, the milk tea brand Natural Stay was sued by the franchisee due to a franchise contract dispute, and Guan Xiaotong also became one of the defendants. However, whether it was natural milk tea or Guan Xiaotong, they both said that Guan Xiaotong was not the subject of the contract and did not participate in the company's operation and management.

It's just that sharp-eyed netizens found that Guan Xiaotong was previously known as the "natural store manager" on the official website of Natural Stay Milk Tea, and Guan Xiaotong's father Guan Shao indirectly held 35% of the equity of Natural Stay Milk Tea Company through Tongmeng Xinyuan (Chengdu) Culture Media Co., Ltd.

▲ In March 2021, the "Natural Stay" milk tea shop near Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street in Shanghai. Photo / Visual China

The aura blessing of celebrity bosses is the first impression that these brands show to consumers. At the end of 2020, the first barbecue restaurant opened in Taikoo Li, Chengdu, and Huang Xiaoming's official title is "Brand Official". But in fact, at that time, Huang Xiaoming frequently wore suits and appeared in various branches, surrounded by a group of people calling him "boss", and the store's Weibo would directly play the banner of "boss to inspect the store". Even the shouting while waiting for a seat emphasized his identity, "No. 405, Brother Xiaoming has invited you to dinner."

Including when the big LOGO visited the store, the first sentence when I came up was also "Brother Xiaoming's barbecue restaurant, how does it taste", and I didn't forget to mention a classic line after eating: "Thank you Brother Xiaoming for your arrangement, praise it!" But after the catering brand stalled something, the celebrity "bosses", "shopkeepers" and "store managers" quickly retreated and became invisible from store advertisements, official publicity and franchise materials, as if nothing had ever happened.

Time has passed, and the big LOGO eating the pickles sighed: "I protect the detective, I don't protect him (not) yellow." You said that Huang Huang has nothing to do with me, we are just a shopkeeper. ”

▲ The big LOGO is no longer the top stream, and the star restaurants he has explored have also collectively ebbed. Figure / Screenshot of Douyin

Copy Chen He in batches

After falling from the top stream, the big LOGO started live broadcasts from time to time, telling fans about the past when they visited the store with celebrities.

According to his recollection, around 2020, there was a wind of celebrities opening restaurants, and Chen He's Xianhezhuang was opening stores everywhere. At that time, a company found him and said that Huang Xiaoming had opened a barbecue restaurant, and asked him to experience it, and he could also make a co-production with Huang Xiaoming. The traffic of the star is in front of him, and the big LOGO immediately agreed, but when he arrived at the scene, he found that there were 70 Internet celebrities with more than one million fans, all of whom wanted to be in the same frame as Huang Xiaoming.

Different from the intimacy of "Brother Xiaoming" in the store visit video, and snatching food from the other party's bowl, the big LOGO said that an Internet celebrity like him at that time "We don't know anyone at the level of Huang Xiaoming". At the scene, the time allocated to him and Huang Xiaoming to co-produce was only ten minutes, "When people come, I can't wait for a minute or a second, Kaka interactes, Kaka chats with him." In the end, a two-and-a-half-minute short video reached 2.558 million likes and nearly 100,000 comments, which became an instant hit.

After that, Du Haitao and Wu Xin opened a hot pot restaurant, Guan Xiaotong opened a milk tea shop, and Jia Nailiang and Lei Jiayin opened a Western restaurant.

In the entertainment industry, it is not new for celebrities to engage in side hustles and open restaurants. As early as the end of the last century, after the movie "See You or Leave" became popular, Feng Xiaogang and Ge You struck while the iron was hot and founded the tea restaurant of the same name. In 2009, Zhao Wei, who straddles the film and television and capital circles, opened a 1,000-square-meter Lefu restaurant in Sanlitun, Beijing. For a while, the celebrity was ridiculed that he was not opening a restaurant, but on the way to open a restaurant, Guo Degang opened Guo's cuisine, and Meng Fei took out Meng Fei's small noodles, all of which were busy realizing their personal influence.

But the gust of wind blowing on the short video platform in 2020 is different from the previous taste. The origin of everything has to be traced back to Chen He, who has a good relationship with many celebrities.

As early as 2015, Chen He, who became popular with "Love Apartment", established Fujian Xianhezhuang Catering Investment Management Co., Ltd. with the host Zhu Zhen and singer Ye Yiqian, and the first Xianhezhuang hot pot restaurant was located in Fuzhou. But for a long time, this hot pot was tepid, and not many people knew about it except for fans, and it was not until June 2017 that a second branch was opened.

▲ Xianhezhuang stores are full of Chen He's figure. Photo / Visual China

But around 2020, the gears of fate suddenly went crazy, and the signboard of Xianhezhuang opened all over the country overnight. In less than two years, it quickly expanded to more than 700 stores. Before the arrival of the franchise era of aiming at the scale of 10,000 stores, such a speed of opening stores was quite amazing, especially in the hot pot industry, where heavy investment and cautious opening were famous. As a comparison, by the first half of 2020, Haidilao had only nearly 1,000 stores, and Xiabu Xiabu had just over 1,000.

The more accurate feelings of consumers come from the short video platform, Chen He appears more and more frequently, and he brings clips of celebrities and Internet celebrities eating Xianhezhuang, everywhere. The development of the story is extremely similar: the celebrity Internet celebrity happened to meet Chen He who was eating hot pot in Xianhezhuang, sat down to "eat and drink", and shook a few more burdens. Chen He's job is also very simple, sometimes he doesn't even have to say his lines, just squint his eyes, raise his eyebrows, and laugh cheaply like Zeng Xiaoxian, the protagonist of "Love Apartment".

During that time, many users could see Chen He's face as long as they opened Douyin. This kind of large-scale exposure is easy to make people delusional - as if as long as you go to Xianhezhuang, you can meet the boss Chen He. This trick is not without effect, many cities are full of consumers waiting for seats outside the door of Xianhezhuang, open the food evaluation, all "will the boss appear in the store" and "can you see Chen He".

In fact, the vast majority of consumers did not know at the time that even if Chen He's related elements were all over the Xianhezhuang store, the owner of a single hot pot restaurant was not him, but a franchisee of the brand. Everyone came for Chen He's popularity, but there was someone else behind the trader.

▲ Chen He frequently appeared on the short video platform to promote Xianhezhuang. Figure / Screenshot of Douyin

In 2019, a man named Zhou Yang found Chen He and gave him the idea of opening up to join. In the planning of Zhou Yang, chairman of Sichuan Zhishan Brand Management Co., Ltd., Chen He does not need to directly manage the various branches of Xianhezhuang, but partners with himself to open a brand management company, and the specific franchise matters are taken care of by this company.

For celebrities, opening their own restaurants in the past was an asset-heavy entity business, and once it was not managed well, the loss became a big hole. But after Zhou Yang's integration, Xianhezhuang has become Chen He's financial project, even if the hot pot restaurant has problems in the future, he can easily quit.

This is not the first time Zhou Yang has done this. Before Xianhezhuang, his focus was on the brand "Tan Duck Blood Hot Pot", which also made short videos with celebrities from all walks of life, and went all the way from unknown restaurants to Internet celebrities, opening more than 500 branches in various places.

Zhou Yang is not satisfied with helping Chen He operate alone, but constantly looking for the next star and copying the story of Chen He and Xianhezhuang in batches. Behind the celebrity catering businesses such as Guan Xiaotong, Huang Xiaoming, and Sun Yizhou, who opened stores in 2020, there is the shadow of Sichuan Zhishan. The routine of getting out of the circle is the same: the celebrity "boss" frequently goes to the store to brush his face, and then finds Internet celebrity Vs to do publicity, and then quickly joins to expand and earn franchise fees.

▲ At its peak, the Zhishan brand laid out a lot of catering businesses, and now the official website shows that only Tan Yaxue is left. Photo / Sichuan Zhishan official

During that time, the film and television industry was stagnant due to the epidemic, and stars disappeared on the stage of Hengdian and major variety shows, but they were active in short videos and offline restaurants. And busier than celebrities are short video Internet celebrities such as Big LOGO and Meunier, who hold each other and stand on the platform, which together create a fiery spectacle of catering franchises, and also attract a large number of catering investors to enter the game.

It's just that the cold winter is coming sooner than anyone thinks.

How long can star catering be harvested?

Judging from the follow-up development momentum, after Chen He changed his thinking, the "financial management" income obtained through Xianhezhuang was once very high.

If a franchisee opens a Xianhezhuang, he has to pay a franchise fee of hundreds of thousands of yuan to the brand, and if he wants to invite Chen He to come to the scene to promote, it is another price. According to the city's previous understanding, the stores that Chen He went to on Douyin were all regional agents, and the stores had to give a part of the appearance fee and reception fee. "If you have a separate banquet, the cost will be 1 million yuan."

Zhou Yang naturally doesn't just make celebrities gimmicks, he makes a gorgeous package for every hot pot restaurant: the 500-square-meter Xianhezhuang restaurant can achieve a monthly turnover of 720,000 yuan, with a total gross profit margin of 64% and a profit margin of more than 20%. Zheng Kai's Huo Fengxiang return cycle is even shorter, only 7 months.

But from the perspective of specific franchisees, it is very expensive to get on the traffic of celebrities. With the blessing of marketing, Xianhezhuang has transformed into a hot Internet celebrity project. A 300-square-meter ordinary hot pot restaurant can be won with a franchise fee of less than 100,000 yuan, but if you want to join Xianhezhuang, you have to pay four or five hundred thousand yuan. This is not the end, all the tables, chairs and benches have to be bought from Xianhezhuang, "because of Chen He's LOGO", and 2% of the monthly turnover will be used as a management fee.

Taking Beijing as an example, there are franchised stores that have not yet opened, and the initial investment has reached more than 2 million, which also reduces the cost of labor and ingredients. There are even people who invest more than 5 million.

▲ Xianhezhuang's store will use Chen He's LOGO. Photo / Visual China

The bosses who have spent a lot of money to join can only find ways to reduce costs and increase efficiency. But some money, once saved, is easy to fall into crisis. In August 2020, an explosion occurred at the bottom of a pot at a Xianhezhuang branch, and customers were burned; Then, in April 2021, the ceiling of another branch fell; Some franchisees have been penalized for employing child labor.

A few months later, the franchisees found that Xianhezhuang's business was too difficult to recoup. After the fermentation of negative public opinion in Xianhezhuang, the customer flow has declined significantly, coupled with the rapid expansion of brands in a single region, many branches have joined the ranks of competing for traffic, not to mention making money, it is difficult to recover the cost.

The anxious franchisees pointed the finger at Chen He, hoping that the big star could come out to save the scene. But it's not as decent as when he first debuted, and he couldn't greet a single one when the star withdrew.

Chen He, who felt the change in wind direction, reacted quickly. In 2022, the company he holds shares will withdraw from the ranks of shareholders of Xianhezhuang Brand Management Company, which also means that Chen He and Xianhezhuang will be officially unbound.

Similar plots are constantly staged. Guan Xiaotong's natural stay on the platform has also experienced a flash in the pan, with 181 high-profile stores opened in 2021, and only 47 stores will be closed in 2023. Some franchisees invested more than 3 million yuan, but they closed the store because of losses after opening for half a year.

Guan Xiaotong's reaction quickly cleared up the relationship, and only recognized the spokesperson, not the identity of the boss. After Huo Fengxiang was exposed to food safety problems, Zheng Kai also quickly liquidated and left, and quietly withdrew his shares in November 2021.

▲ October 2021, Changzhou, Jiangsu, Huofengxiang fresh hot pot restaurant. Photo / Visual China

Money that has already gone into the pockets of the brand is hard to spit out again. According to the 800 franchise stores opened in Xianhezhuang at its peak, and the average franchise fee for a single store was 450,000 yuan, the franchise fee of a brand from Sichuan Zhishanguang was 360 million yuan.

And a large number of franchisees who paid real money were left in the ruins of the brand after the star evacuated. How gorgeously the original project plan was packaged, how powerless the reality of being harvested was.

It is not difficult for people who are a little deeper into the catering industry to see that the gross profit margin of about 60% is almost impossible to happen in the hot pot industry, and even Haidilao, the leader in the hot pot industry, has a gross profit margin of only 18%-25% all year round. If you really want to return to the cost within a year, according to the calculation of 22 tables in Xianhezhuang's standard store, the number of turnovers per day must reach at least 10 tables, but even Haidilao, when business is good, there is only an average of four or five turnovers per day.

From this point of view, Xianhezhuang and Huo Fengxiang are more like a dream wrapped in a star filter. With the full arrival of consumption downgrade, the shattering of this illusion is even more certain.

In the past, celebrities loved to pursue high-end atmosphere and high-grade restaurants, such as Huang Lei and Meng Fei's Huangliang Meng hot pot restaurant, a Wagyu beef full of stars sold for 398 yuan, and a hairy belly also cost 198 yuan. Faced with the question of the high price, Meng Fei also responded: "After paying the money, you are qualified to say whether it is expensive or not, whether it is good or not." "In the short term, there are celebrities who respond to every call, and some fans spend money for them.

But nowadays, cost-effectiveness considerations are increasingly intervening in everyone's consumption decisions.

After the large-scale closure of the store in the south of the Yangtze River, Huang Xiaoming still did not give up the catering business. In the second half of 2023, a crab roe noodle restaurant named Mrs. Crab opened to Beijing International Trade Center, this time, Huang Xiaoming's identity was returned to the brand spokesperson, but consumers' eyes fell more on the bald butter noodles priced at 238 yuan a piece, "too expensive" and "who can afford to eat it as a worker".

▲ Mrs. Crab's bald butter noodles are priced at 238 yuan. Photo / Screenshot of Dianping

In fact, Mrs. Crab started her hairy crab e-commerce business, and Huang Xiaoming has served as a brand spokesperson since 2018. The winds of the times are always changing. In August 2023, Huang Xiaoming walked into the live broadcast room of Crazy Brother Yang for Mrs. Crab, and "knocking down the price" became a slogan on their lips.

After several rounds of reshuffle, celebrities have cast too many shadows on their catering business. But it is conceivable that the catering industry continues to rise and fall, and there will be a steady stream of stars in the future, eyeing this side business. It's just that at that point, will there still franchisees and fans pay for it?

The article is the original work of Daily People, and infringement must be investigated

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