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- Chief Business Intelligence
- Chief Business Intelligence
Introduction: The first generation of Internet celebrity restaurants have many difficulties on the way to market.
On June 19, the former Internet celebrities lined up for the restaurant "Green Tea" and fought for the Hong Kong IPO again.
This is the fourth time that Green Tea Restaurant has hit the market, but compared to the first three times that it failed or failed, Green Tea Restaurant may not have gone further.
Chances are, this time, the odds are lower.
After all, the green tea restaurant still has to face two strong opponents at the moment, namely Xiaocaiyuan and Taier Sauerkraut Fish, both of which are rising stars, with rapid growth in the number of stores and performance, and the brand strength should not be underestimated.
On the other hand, the green tea restaurant, for so many years, not only has it not been listed, but the scenery of the high turnover rate is no longer there, and the plan to open the store has been continuously failed, as if it has become an "outdated" Internet celebrity.
This time, Green Tea Group mustered up the courage to submit a prospectus on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and there was a determination to regain popularity, but I don't know how many stories that Green Tea can tell to impress capital this time?
Post-70s Zhejiang husband and wife started a business
A year ago, the two of them paid dividends and collected more than 200 million
If you want to say the word "green tea", it was put 16 years ago, but it was a proper top-notch one.
Back then, even the editor queued for nearly 2 hours for it, just to eat its signature dishes "Bread Temptation" and "Green Tea Roast Chicken".
That's right, Green Tea has been in existence for 16 years, and it is one of the earliest Internet celebrity restaurants.
In 2004, Wang Qinsong and Lu Changmei opened a youth hostel called "Green Tea" on the shore of West Lake in Hangzhou.
Surrounded by green tea plantations and a beautiful environment, this hostel has been praised by many travelers, and in addition, the hostel's dishes are often praised by tourists.
In the Green Tea Hotel, Wang Qinsong and his wife will provide meal service in addition to accommodation services.
Due to the hostel's geographical location, Green Tea Hostel has attracted backpackers from all over the country and even the world, and in order to satisfy the appetite of different people, Wang Qinsong, who was a chef, has made the dishes into fusion dishes, and has also launched several dishes that are widely favored by customers.
Relying on the advantages of delicious dishes and high cost performance, the dishes of Green Tea Hotel became an instant hit, and after the word of mouth fermented on the Internet, more and more people came to eat, and even exceeded the number of tourists who came to stay for a time.
So, in 2008, Wang Qinsong and his wife decided to switch to the catering industry, concentrate on making green tea restaurants, and make the store independent.
The killer feature is still the market-proven cost-effective and fusion cuisine, featuring Hangzhou Bang cuisine and fusion cuisine, with a per capita consumption of about 60 yuan.
Jiangnan cuisine and the decoration color of Jiangnan style really make the green tea restaurant stand out from the crowd of bold northern cuisine. Its mild and light taste is under the heavy mouth and stimulation of Sichuan, Hunan and Hubei cuisines, and it has created a characteristic road.
In 2010, Wang Qinsong and his wife landed in the first-tier cities of Beijing, and the green tea restaurants at that time hit it off with the new trend of quality consumption in the first- and second-tier cities.
Therefore, at that time, they began to check in, take pictures and post pictures in the circle of friends, which can be said to have the basic elements of an online celebrity store.
In Beijing's green tea stores, the influence of green tea as an "Internet celebrity restaurant" has been confirmed once again, and there are long queues when it is time to eat, often waiting for hours.
According to media reports, the average daily traffic of green tea stores exceeded 1,500 people in its heyday, and the average queue per person was two hours, which can be described as a smash hit.
At that time, Wang Qinsong and his wife were still relatively down-to-earth, and they were not in a hurry to expand, and by 2013, the number of green tea restaurants in the country was only 13.
Until 2018, the number of green tea restaurants nationwide increased to 77, an increase of 64 stores in 5 years, equivalent to 13 stores a year.
You must know that it took 5 years for Green Tea Restaurant to reach 13 stores in 2013.
Although the number of stores has increased, the presence of green tea restaurants has decreased, and the word "Internet celebrity" is getting farther and farther away from green tea restaurants.
It is not easy for Internet celebrities to become popular, and this law also applies to green tea restaurants.
It is worth mentioning that due to the epidemic in 2020, the green tea restaurant had a net loss of more than 55 million yuan in this year, and in 2021 and 2022, the annual profit of the green tea restaurant turned into a profit, with 114 million yuan and 16.579 million yuan respectively.
Picture: Meal viewing bureau production
As soon as the restaurant made a profit, Wang Qinsong and his wife hurriedly "opened the table" first, and did not treat shareholders badly at all.
In May 2023 last year, Green Tea took out 350 million yuan to distribute dividends to shareholders.
From the perspective of equity structure, Wang Qinsong and his wife control 65.85% of the equity of the green tea restaurant through a wholly-owned company and family trust enterprises, which means that almost all of the large dividends of 350 million yuan have flowed into the pockets of Wang Qinsong and his wife, about more than 200 million yuan in dividends.
What's more interesting is that during the three-year period from 2021 to 2023, the total net profit of the green tea restaurant is only about 427 million yuan, so "generously" giving 350 million yuan in dividends to major shareholders, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a "clearance" dividend.
The scenery is no longer there, and the first generation of Internet celebrities is "old"?
It stands to reason that if a chain restaurant opened in a traffic business district wants to make money if it relies on cost-effective customer attraction, it must have a high turnover rate.
When the green tea restaurant was popular, the turnover rate was really high, Wang Qinsong mentioned in an interview in the early days:
"The lower limit of green tea is 4 turnovers, which should be a threshold for public catering, if it can't be reached, then it may be necessary to consider whether there is a problem."
However, within a few years, Wang Qinsong's words "snapped" in the face, and from 2018 to 2023, the green tea restaurant has reached the 4 turnover rate he said, and it has been declining year after year.
Picture: Meal viewing bureau production
According to the prospectus, from 2018 to 2023, the turnover rates of Green Tea Group will be 3.48 times/day, 3.34 times/day, 2.62 times/day, 3.23 times/day, 2.81 times/day and 3.30 times/day respectively.
It can be seen that the green tea restaurant can no longer return to the high turnover rate of its former peak.
The reason for the decrease in the turnover rate is not only the lack of innovation of green tea itself, but also the fact that it has more competitors and has seized part of the passenger flow.
In the prospectus of green tea that has hit the IPO many times before, you can find a Chinese food chain brand Xiaocaiyuan, which focuses on new Hui cuisine, has always been regarded as a strong competitor by green tea.
In 2020, with 283 stores, a total revenue of 2.5 billion yuan, and a brand strength of 0.7% of the market, Xiaocaiyuan ranked second in the casual Chinese food market, second only to Xibei noodles.
Xiaocaiyuan, which opened its first store in 2013, has 548 directly-operated stores in 119 cities in 12 provincial-level administrative regions in China as of January 11, 2024, mainly in the Yangtze River Delta region.
As of June 11, 2024, Green Tea Restaurant has a total of 382 outlets, covering all first-tier cities, 15 new first-tier cities, 30 second-tier cities and 79 third-tier and lower cities in China.
From 2021 to 2023, the total revenue of Green Tea Group will be 2.293 billion yuan, 2.375 billion yuan and 3.589 billion yuan respectively.
In 2021-2023Q3, the revenue scale of small vegetable gardens will be 2.65 billion, 3.21 billion and 3.43 billion yuan respectively.
In addition, according to the revenue of the first three quarters, the revenue of Xiaocaiyuan in 2023 is expected to be more than 4 billion.
In addition, the turnover rate of the rival Taier sauerkraut fish is even more eye-catching, with a turnover rate of 4.3 in the first half of the year, 4.0 in the second half of the year, and 4.1 for the whole year.
It's just that the turnover rate of green tea has decreased, and the grand occasion of no longer queuing up may account for more of its own reasons.
Green tea, which has debuted for more than ten years, can still be used for Internet celebrity products more than ten years ago, bread temptation and green tea roast chicken, and I haven't heard of any big explosive products since then.
After all, after so many years, everyone has eaten what they should have eaten, and there have been waves of Internet celebrity restaurants, unless they want to be nostalgic for the taste, no one will think of eating green tea for the first time.
In fact, Wang Qinsong, as the direct leader of the green tea menu design, has not launched new products, but none of them have set off popularity.
According to the prospectus, from 2021 to 2023, green tea will launch 178, 172 and 168 new dishes respectively.
It can be seen that the frequency of launching new products is very frequent, but what consumers can remember is still the "bread temptation" of green tea in the world.
And the most important point is that the quality control of green tea is getting worse and worse, and on social platforms, you can find many posts complaining about the unpalatable green tea restaurant.
And in March this year, the green tea restaurant was also exposed that the 38 yuan "Buddha jumping over the wall" used pre-made dishes, but did not mark the word "pre-made dishes" in the menu, nor did it take the initiative to inform customers that it was pre-made dishes.
Although the green tea restaurant later responded that it had removed the pre-made dishes from the store, at a time when everyone's resistance to pre-made dishes is so high, green tea will inevitably lose popularity.
After all, today's consumers can accept the psychological price of pre-made dishes around 30 yuan, referring to Yonemura bibimbap is an example, even if they all know that Kimura bibimbap is a pre-made dish, but it does not prevent everyone from eating the same deliciously, and no one scolds.
Raise money to expand stores in an attempt to tell a new story
In fact, the iterative update of Internet celebrity restaurants is so fast, and green tea, as a veteran, can be boiled to the listing stage, which can be regarded as a very success.
In fact, in the Internet era, as the first generation of Internet celebrity restaurants, green tea missed the best time of brand marketing, and did not continue this momentum.
As early as 2015, Wang Qinsong admitted in an interview that "in terms of brand marketing, this is something we have to learn, at least much faster than your speed, which is the first."
However, it was not until 2019 that Green Tea had just opened its official Weibo, and the Douyin account was also opened in 2021, so it can be said that it missed the golden age of the self-media era.
The turnover rate is not good, and Green Tea hopes to expand and open stores, hoping to continue to tell its own story by relying on high-speed expansion.
In this IPO, Green Tea plans to open 112, 150, 200 and 213 new restaurants in 2024, 2025, 2026 and 2027, respectively.
However, it is still unknown whether the capital market will buy it.
When there is no aura of "Internet celebrity", green tea will only have the meaning of "nostalgia".
Have you ever eaten at a green tea restaurant? Do you think it's cost-effective? Welcome to leave a message in the comment area to discuss and express your opinions or opinions, thank you.
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