Too close! Opened three loss-making stores in a row, with a loss of 200 million, and the boss was deeply in debt.

In the southeast corner of Beijing Workers Stadium, an old two-story building of a slightly famous Beijing restaurant is located here. Since the opening of 2065438+in June 2005, Youjingge once became the first new Hong Kong-style restaurant in Beijing with the endorsement of Jackie Chan and many other first-line stars.

Recently, Li Chuang, the founder of Jingge Restaurant, shared his story of opening three stores in succession and losing 200 million yuan in the initial stage of his business on a short video platform. He even laughed at himself: "Only one restaurant has not officially opened, and the initial investment has reached more than 70 million. This sounds like an industry joke, but we did it. "

Although jingge restaurant introduced foreign investment, it developed to Nanjing, Zhengzhou, Chongqing and other cities. However, it is still difficult for Li Chuang to conceal his profound reflection on the initial decision.

Total 2490

Catering boss internal reference Wang Chao | Wen

In less than half a year, the coffee shop was transformed into a new Hong Kong-style restaurant.

The layman looks at the excitement, and the expert looks at the doorway. 20 14 by chance, Li Chuang, with certain wealth, decided to seek a higher development breakthrough. At that time, coffee was booming in China, and Li Chuang thought it was an opportunity and worth a try. When choosing the site, Li Chuang took a fancy to the location of Jingge Sporting Goods Store. "This is a relatively complete old house with a history of more than 200 years. At that time, the transfer fee alone was as high as 6.5438+million. Later, in order to reduce the unit price of rent per square meter, we signed a five-year contract and paid 654.38+0.2 million in one lump sum. " Li Chuang said in the video. The most striking thing about this house is its internal design structure, which is an antique Huizhou architecture with a history of more than 200 years. Li Junrui, a well-known designer who participated in the project, mentioned in an open interview: "Due to his deep feelings for China culture, the former owner of Jingge visited many places in China and found an ancient Huizhou house in Wuyuan, Jiangxi. The house was directly packed back to Beijing. After half a year's efforts by workers and designers, these hundreds of camphor tree stakes were re-made into their original appearance and radiated their original light. "

"At that time, I had' living money' and abundant cash flow, so I was extravagant, unrestrained and didn't pay attention to details." In this way, the first store has spent 22 million before it is fully operational. At the end of 20 14, a coffee shop brand named UKing coffee was born. However, after just a few months of operation, Li Chuang found that he only learned the skin of coffee, but didn't learn the essence. This project lacks certain rationality and scientificity from the initial stage of investment. When the coffee shop project reached a deadlock, Li Chuang met Jinping Chen, the executive chef of Li Gang Tea Restaurant. Jinping Chen has brought many new ideas to Li Chuang, such as the fusion of cuisines, that is, instead of focusing on a single cuisine, a variety of cuisines are made in one store at the same time, and different cuisines are integrated with each other to form a unique and innovative signature dish of the restaurant. Chen Jinping and Li Chuang hit it off and soon reached a cooperation. 2065438+In March 2005, UKing coffee announced the external transformation and upgrading, and all the original decoration designs were demolished, leaving only a big frame, leaving nothing behind, and the decoration design costs were splashed. On the other hand, classic dishes such as "Baked Wild Mushroom with Cheese" and "Frozen Pineapple Bag" brought by Jinping Chen have brought infinite vitality to the Quiet Pavilion. At this point, under the strict control of Chen Jinping's products, coupled with a large number of marketing promotion in Li Chuang, Jingge has ushered in a small outbreak, and the daily revenue of gym shops has increased from 6,000 yuan to more than 65,438+10,000 yuan. The whole has entered a stage of steady rise.

The first store opened less than three months ago and opened two loss-making stores in succession.

However, in less than a year, Li Chuang opened two stores in succession, namely Palm Springs Store and Wangjing Store. Palm Springs Store is located in Palm Springs Life Square in Chaoyang Park. It was originally a Hong Kong-style hotpot in spring, summer, autumn and winter. Li Chuanghao contributed 165438+ 10,000, plus a small proportion of equity. Finally, I won the management right of this store. Then do the same thing and redecorate the storefront according to the style of Jingge restaurant positioning. The second store was born in this way, but according to Li Chuang's personal statement, this store was still in a state of breakeven until the middle of 15. What Li Chuang regrets most is Wangjing Store T 1. At that time, driven by the property of Wangjing SOHO, Li Chuang invested heavily to build a theme restaurant "Special Space Roaming" covering an area of 1600 square meters. The inner cabin of the space battleship is the whole scene. More than 50 display screens simulate space flight, and blue bars overhead render the atmosphere of "starry sky". The whole theme restaurant is very futuristic.

"The cost of this software system alone exceeded 70 million, which became a major innovation at that time." However, with the late management and operation not in place, as well as the emergence of various problems, Wangjing store began to gradually become deserted. It was not until Jingge Wangjing Store closed that Li Chuang discovered the actual loss of more than 20 million yuan. Among them, the loss of decoration cost100000 yuan, and the actual operating loss1000000 yuan. Afterwards, Li Chuang analyzed and summarized; "Excessive pursuit of form, pursuit of the so-called theme restaurant, regardless of the cost of investment, but forget that the fundamental of catering is to do a good job." In addition, the location of Wangjing SOHO T 1 is also problematic. Not to mention consumers, even Li Chuang himself can't find the location of the store. Secondly, in Wangjing area, most of them are working groups, and the unit price of customers is low, and there is almost no night consumption. But it is gratifying that because of this space theme concept store, the brand awareness of Jingge has also increased significantly. However, at that time, when the public commented on the search for Cantonese cuisine, Jing Ge definitely ranked first. Although on the surface, Jingge brand is becoming more and more popular, the real situation is that Li Chuang has opened three loss-making stores in succession, individuals and companies are constantly mired in debt, and the original shareholders also have the idea of quitting.

Unexpected introduction of external investor Qi Jian Hong.

Li Chuang, who has been anxious, began to intentionally expand his contacts and circles and introduce external investors. Because of the maintenance of luxury cars in the store, I met Qi, the chairman of Yaolai Holdings. Finally, after some twists and turns, Qi decided to buy 70% of the shares of Jingge and reached an intentional cooperation. In this way, Li Chuang was lucky to introduce the first external investor. But surprisingly, Qi has brought more star resources-Jackie Chan. Thanks to the flow of Yu Chenglong and many first-line stars, Jingge's business is booming. Specific to the revenue level, the daily revenue of a single store is as high as 654.38+10,000 yuan, with an average of 70,000-80,000 yuan.

At that time, high-spirited Li Chuang promised shareholders that he would open 300 new stores within three years. But even more paradoxically, the company's financial level is still in a state of loss, unable to fulfill its due commitments to shareholders. And I can't find the reason for it for a long time. Later, Li Chuang found that there were many unreasonable wastes and imperfect cost control. "The Red Sea like catering is not as simple as imagined, and refined operation and management capabilities are very important. On the one hand, the industrial chain of the catering industry is very long, from raw material procurement and transportation to warehousing, to production and finally to customers. On the other hand, the superposition of multiple attributes such as production, retail and service in the catering industry also makes management more complicated. " Li Chuang analyzed this. For the blind expansion and development before, Jinping Chen, general manager of Youjingge, also publicly stated in an interview with the media that Youjingge's current expansion measures are very cautious, not pursuing quantity, but paying more attention to quality. The pursuit of "opening a family and becoming a family" pays more attention to improving the efficiency and reputation of a single store. Extended stores in other places have high requirements for raw materials, and put forward requirements for logistics and refrigeration of raw materials; Secondly, the catering industry is a high-intensity, talent-driven industry, and it takes time to build a dedicated team and constantly make blood for the new store. "After many trial and error and traps, Jingge has passed the critical period and even formed a set of effective management measures. In order to highlight the differences, Jingge's stores have also made different styles. The decoration of Beijing Huamao Store embodies the sense of majesty and grandeur, while Beijing Chaoyang Park Store embodies the people-friendly style and has the street view culture of Hong Kong. Previously, Wangjing SOHO Store built a space battleship theme restaurant with a strong sense of science and technology. One of the most important abilities of the founders of catering brands is to constantly reflect on the detours they have gone through. Li Chuang, the founder of Jingge, reflected in time and realized that it is a wrong way of development to lose money in a single store and expand blindly, which is also valuable. At any time, dishes and services are always fundamental to the catering industry, and reducing costs and increasing efficiency is a protracted war around the industry. For example, some netizens commented on the praise of Youjingge: "Youjingge is very cost-effective and reliable, and will not step on the pit at all. "At any stage of enterprise development, slowness does not mean unhappiness. Only steady development is the permanent way for the brand to stand. "