Did you make money or lose money by following the trend and opening a Zibo barbecue restaurant?

The "Zibo BBQ" craze has not only made Zibo barbecue popular in Zibo, but also made Zibo barbecue restaurants in other places popular. This has brought unprecedented popularity and "hell-level" operational difficulty to the owners of barbecue restaurants. This article narrates the issue from the perspective of three businesses. Let's take a look.

This year's May Day, Zibo barbecue is still very popular. Young people from all over the country who want to go to Zibo to eat barbecue have snapped up their train tickets and hotel rooms early. Some young people who cannot buy tickets or even have their contracts cancelled by homestays have turned to searching for "Zibo barbecue" restaurants in their own cities.

In addition to Zibo, many Zibo people have opened barbecue restaurants in other places in the past two years. The "Zibo barbecue" craze since March this year has also brought these owners a busy peak since they opened their shops.

Kaibo Finance talked with several store owners and found that some of them have opened their stores for nearly a year, some opened their stores just before the Zibo barbecue became popular, and some just happened to move their two-year-old Zibo barbecue restaurants to the popular vegetable market "Badaju" in March of this year.

Without exception, they all underestimated the enthusiasm of diners. During the conversation with Kaibo Finance, the phones of many bosses were continuously flooded with reservation calls, and they were as busy as a spinning top: some bosses received more than 200 calls a day, and their eardrums hurt from answering the calls; some recruited hourly workers while worrying that their barbecue techniques would be stolen; some worked during the day and opened the store at night, and their family members were also asked to help.

Their stores are also going through a test. In fact, most of these bosses were new to the catering industry and were not fully prepared. The influx of traffic has magnified various difficulties - site selection, cost accounting, customer evaluation, waiting time, and food delivery efficiency.

In the face of attention and challenges, some of them were in a panic, while others actively reviewed the situation. The Zibo barbecue craze brought unprecedented popularity to their stores, and they also had to face the "hell-level" operational difficulties.

The following is their own account.

1. Surprise and joy: New store hits the cusp of the trend and urgently recruits hourly workers with higher salary

Sun Weiqiang | Merchant in Zibo, Shandong

Having failed in business venture before, I never imagined that the Zibo barbecue restaurant that I opened by chance would catch the trend.

I am a "newcomer" in the catering industry. The reason I switched to a barbecue restaurant was that during the epidemic, the decoration project was overwhelmed by accounts receivable. When it was the most difficult, I sold my car and mortgaged my house. I had to switch to a startup project with a healthier cash flow.

In Zibo, Shandong, everyone likes to eat barbecue, and the frequency of consumption is very high. I happened to have a friend who was engaged in barbecue, so I followed him to learn. Opening a barbecue restaurant is a low-cost, low-investment, and low-risk catering business.

In 2021, I invested more than 100,000 yuan to open a self-created brand of Zibo barbecue restaurant "Lu Xiaochuan". However, due to the epidemic, the store was often closed.

After finally getting through the difficult first two years, in March this year, I had to move again due to problems with the old store. I moved the new store to a parking lot, with a total indoor and outdoor area of ​​nearly 1,000 square meters. The annual rent was more than 100,000 yuan, and I started trial operation in early April.

Unexpectedly, the relocation of the new store happened to be in the hot spot, and my store happened to be opened in the Internet-famous vegetable market "Badaju". From April 10th to now, the store has been packed with customers every day, with customers queuing up all day and night, often starting at 7 o'clock in the morning, and there are still one or two hundred people in the queue at night.

Photo provided by the interviewee

According to statistics, more than 300 new barbecue restaurants were opened in Zibo in March and April this year. A few of them are branches of old stores, while most of them are just following the trend. Some of them grill marinated meat, while others, like us, only grill fresh meat.

There are so many people coming from other places to eat barbecue that the Zibo barbecue three-piece set of small pancakes, green onions and dipping sauce is in short supply. Therefore, even if there are so many barbecue restaurants on the market, no matter whether they are experienced or amateur, old or new, every one of them has no shortage of customers.

Because of our good location, we had so many customers that we couldn't handle them all. We had to cancel the promotional items we had prepared for the opening of the new store. For nearly 20 days, all the staff in the store were busy all the time. The kitchen had to cut 200 kilograms of meat every day, string the meat, prepare vegetables, green onions, etc. The two grill chefs grilled from 10 am to 10 pm. I was not relaxed either. I arrived at the store at 9:30 am every day and stayed until 1 am.

Barbecue is popular all over the city, and businesses have not yet reached the point of competing with each other. However, because this is a labor-intensive business, many bosses are most worried about the difficulty in recruiting people.

We used to have seven or eight employees in our store, but now the customer flow and the number of people eating there are so large, we need at least ten employees every day. I can only add hourly workers temporarily, and almost everyone who applies for the job will stay. The wages of hourly workers have increased by 30 to 40 percent. Although they earn hourly wages, they can still earn 6,000 to 7,000 yuan a month.

Many bosses are also worried about people stealing their barbecue skills. I once met a job applicant who was secretly learning the skills in the kitchen. But in fact, what he could see and learn was just the superficial knowledge. The core skills were not visible on the surface.

In the past ten days, our store's turnover has averaged 20,000 to 30,000 yuan per day. I think this wave of Zibo barbecue fever will last until the National Day Golden Week in the second half of the year. Some businesses will have no problem taking advantage of this train and making a few months of quick money. However, I am not considering expanding the store for the time being . I want to treat this as a long-term career. Now I am only thinking about how to run this store well.

2. A newbie in the catering industry opened a restaurant part-time, and went from earning 500 yuan a day to 8,000 yuan a day

Huihui｜Beijing Merchant

I had the idea of ​​opening a store as a sideline last year, and it wasn’t until a classmate reunion during the Spring Festival this year that I had the idea. At that time, we met in Zibo for a barbecue, and this meal gave me inspiration - it was delicious, unique, and there was no similar store in Beijing. In this way, my "best friend" (from Zibo) and I started our journey of co-entrepreneurship.

Looking back now, as newbies in the restaurant industry, our business was a bit reckless and impulsive with a little bit of luck.

We were lucky to find a young chef who had traveled extensively to learn various barbecue techniques. He had previous entrepreneurial experience and took us to the nearby market to buy ingredients, furniture, store decorations, tableware, kitchenware, etc. More importantly, he helped us solve the problem of the taste of marinated meat.

We had already booked tickets to take him to Zibo to learn technology, but unexpectedly, he just tasted the local pickled meat purchased from Zibo and quickly copied it.

The chef also gave us good advice on cost accounting. When we were choosing a pork supplier, we bargained from the retail price to the wholesale price, and in the end, we spent a lot of time haggling over the price difference of 1 cent per kilogram. He told us, "Don't underestimate this 1 cent. We consume at least 20-30 kilograms of meat a day, and the price difference is several yuan a day. This is just one category. If you run a restaurant, you have to save every 1 cent. When you run a big restaurant, you can save a car a year."

Because the store is in Beijing, we also made some adjustments to the grilling method. The original Zibo barbecue required a small charcoal grill on the table, but considering Beijing's relevant regulations on barbecue operations, as well as the overall difficulty and cost of switching to an electric stove, we only kept the "Zibo barbecue" three-piece set of small pancakes, green onions, and dipping sauce, and removed the small stove.

On March 26 this year, the "Lu C BBQ" store opened for trial operation. We invited three tables of guests, and all 11 tables were full that day, so the opening was relatively smooth. But in the following half a month, the store was not doing well. On one rainy day, there were only three tables of guests, and the turnover was only more than 500 yuan . In order to attract customers, I went to the subway entrance and the community to hand out flyers after work every day. It was not until April 14 that things finally turned around.

We usually open at 6pm. That day, people came to eat before 5pm. At 6pm, the upstairs was full, and there were 20 tables waiting to be seated downstairs. The last table of guests left at 1am. The next day was Saturday, and guests started coming at around 4pm. At the peak, there were more than 40 tables waiting to be seated.

Photo provided by the interviewee

After communicating with the customers, I found out that they were all attracted by the short video of Zibo barbecue and searched for related keywords on Dianping.com.

At present, the daily turnover can reach up to more than 8,000 yuan. Although we are still losing money overall, because of the visits of internet celebrities to our store and the increase in customer flow, we suddenly have a sense of accomplishment of being noticed.

But when we encountered this wave of popularity when we were not fully prepared, we found that the challenges facing small shops had just begun.

Because the kitchen is not big enough, the food is served too slowly. We need to expand the kitchen immediately and add more ovens and grill chefs.

This also exposed our operational and management problems. There are currently four employees in the store. My partner, my family and I also help in the store, but the management is still quite chaotic. At first, we wrote the waiting number plates by hand, and later connected to the online queuing system. However, because we did not notice that the system automatically opened the online number queuing, some customers who were waiting offline felt that it was unfair and gave us a bad review.

My partner and I both have our own main businesses. Recently, we have been so busy that we don’t even feel like sleeping is a luxury. During the Labor Day holiday, we plan to readjust all the details in the store and make changes as soon as possible.

If we want to make it a long-term business, we need to spend more time and energy to think about it. How long will the Zibo barbecue boom last? When the boom is over, what are our real characteristics?

3. 40 tables lined up within half an hour after opening, and the phone call for reservations hurt my eardrums

Daluge | Xiamen Merchant

The sudden popularity of Zibo barbecue was completely beyond my expectations.

As a Zibo native, I have always wanted to promote Zibo's local barbecue to southern cities. In addition, the income from my main business dropped significantly during the epidemic, so I partnered with a good friend to open a Zibo barbecue restaurant.

Compared with barbecue in other places, Zibo barbecue has its own characteristics. Generally, the kitchen in Zibo grills the meat skewers until they are 60% done, and the diners put the ingredients on the grill to heat them, then wrap them with small pancakes and heat them for more than ten seconds before eating them together.

To this end, before opening the store, I asked an acquaintance to find the owner of a local barbecue restaurant in Zibo to buy the recipe and learn the technology . After learning, I returned to Xiamen and we spent about a month selecting a location and decorating it. Finally, we opened the store near the residential area in Xiamen’s old city.

After officially opening in April last year, our store has accumulated a group of repeat customers because the Zibo barbecue is delicious and well-made.

Photo provided by the interviewee

At the end of last year, I had a feeling that the catering business would see a recovery after the New Year, but I didn’t expect that Zibo barbecue would suddenly become extremely popular. Moreover, with the collective efforts of Zibo people, the popularity continued to rise, and those of us doing business outside the province also benefited from it.

Our "Zibo Meat Skewers" is the first Zibo barbecue restaurant in Xiamen Island and is currently ranked first in Xiamen barbecue rankings. Therefore, the traffic of "Zibo Barbecue" quickly turned into customer traffic and poured into our store.

But I only have 11 tables in my shop, so the number of customers I can accommodate is limited. Currently, there are 10 staff members in the shop, including me, and I am too busy to handle it. On the busiest day, I received more than 200 reservation calls. My throat was burning and my eardrums were hurting. Now I can only use the hands-free mode when making calls.

Now even weekdays are as busy as weekends, with many people dragging their suitcases to eat barbecue. Last Monday, we opened at 6pm, and half an hour later, there were already 40 tables waiting. We had to close for a day because we were overloaded for too long.

Since April, how to receive guests well and appease guests who have been waiting for a long time has become my biggest worry. I hope to ensure the dining experience of guests, run my shop well in Xiamen, and keep guests who really like the taste of Zibo barbecue.

For this reason, our store cancelled the online number collection and only allows offline number collection and queuing. If the turnover is slow, no more numbers will be released after 11 pm. I will emphasize to customers waiting at the door of the store that instead of waiting for two or three hours and going hungry, it is better to change to another store and come earlier next time.

The "Zibo barbecue fever" has continued from mid-March to now, and more and more people are opening Zibo barbecue restaurants. My second store is currently under renovation, and I will try to open it during the May Day holiday. Some friends from other places have also contacted me to seek to join.

Author: Su Qi Jin Yufan; Editor: Jin Yufan

Source public account: Kaiboluo Finance (ID: kaiboluocaijing), focusing on live streaming e-commerce, new consumption, and focusing on in-depth content.