Another Beijing restaurant with more than 20 years of history enters the new retail of community catering!

After Meizhou Dongpo opened a mini stall in the supermarket, Wangshun Pavilion opened a community convenience store, and Ziguangyuan opened a community stall store, Youth Commune opened a new "market-style" retail model!

The market was opened on the first floor of the restaurant, selling hot dishes, cold dishes, semi-finished products, bread, fried chicken, homemade drinks, and hot dishes and cold dishes were sold by kilograms and packaged away. Potatoes and beef brisket were 39.8 yuan/kilogram...

On the opening day, nearby residents came to line up early in the morning to enter. Before 12 o'clock, the queue of guests had changed 4 groups.

Recently, the first food and life market under the Beijing 20-year-old catering brand New Century Youth Catering-Youth Commune iHOME opened.

What does the restaurant sell in the market? How to sell it? What is the difference from the supermarket? How to combine it with catering? Follow the reporter to find out.

The first floor is set aside for a market, where hot and cold dishes are sold by kilogram and can be packed and taken away

The market is opened by the Youth Commune Wannian Huacheng store. Youth Commune is an upgraded version of the Youth Restaurant. This brand has more than ten stores in Beijing and more than twenty stores across the country, mainly operating Beijing roast duck and home-cooked dishes.

What are the highlights of this comprehensive upgrade to a food and life market?

1. The first floor is a market with a full "market style", and the second and third floors are catering

At around 10 am on Thursday, when the reporter came to the Youth Commune iHOME Wannian Huacheng store, there were already five or six uncles and aunts queuing up to measure their body temperature before entering. Before entering, there were waiters who personally helped them scan the WeChat code to register and receive the "79 yuan minus 10 yuan, 158 yuan minus 20 yuan" coupons. During the scanning process, people kept joining the queue. According to the waiter, they were all nearby residents.

Youth Commune iHOME is located at the intersection of Fengtai East Road, surrounded by schools, hospitals, and high-rise buildings in the community.

The restaurant is distributed in an arc shape, with three floors. The first floor is a food and life market, open from 7 am to 10 pm. The second and third floors provide normal catering, open from 9 am to 9 pm. The second floor has a la carte and private rooms, and the third floor can be used for banquets. Before the brand upgrade, the first floor was the a la carte area. After it was changed to a market, the business area is about 300 square meters.

Entering the market, the first feeling of the reporter is: exquisite!

The decoration incorporates the "factory style" that young people like nowadays, clean and neat!

The bread and braised food in the "glass room" were placed on the "cart";

The most attractive thing is the semi-open open kitchen, with a well-designed LED sign, which makes people feel like they are in a street night market...

A long table and chairs are specially set up next to the floor-to-ceiling windows facing the street, and several young people are holding computers while eating and working;

The lively aquatic products are in full view in the transparent seafood pool;

The brightly colored fruits and vegetables are placed in large woven frames and log-colored wooden racks...

The exquisite decoration and placement made the reporter think that he had come to a mid-to-high-end supermarket, but what are the specific products and prices? Let's take a look.

2. Product selection: hot dishes, cold dishes and braised food are sold by kilogram, and the pastry room "moves" into the staple food kitchen

Entering the Youth Commune iHOME Market (hereinafter referred to as "Youth Market"), there are fruits, vegetables and seafood in the middle, bread and braised food to the right, grains, oils, rice, noodles, snacks, etc. to the left, a transparent kitchen on each side, and the elevator on the right side of the door leads directly to the dining area on the 2nd and 3rd floors.

Let's first take a look at what its homemade delicacies sell and how they are sold?

① Stewed hot dishes, cold dishes, and stewed food are sold by kilogram

Potato stewed beef brisket, braised pork with pickled mustard greens, spicy chicken with fresh peppers, spicy crayfish, stewed lion's head... The Youth Market has brought many hot dishes on the menu of the Youth Commune restaurant into the market. The dishes are put into the induction cooker for heat preservation and heating, placed in the transparent kitchen, and sold by kilogram with clear prices.

The reporter compared the recommended dishes of the Youth Commune Dianping and found that most of these dishes are the restaurant's best-selling dishes for many years, and they are mainly stewed and roasted. They are the category that tastes better as they are stored, and are very suitable for takeaway.

In addition to hot dishes, the market also supplies more than ten kinds of cold dishes such as seasoned potato shreds, cowpeas, kelp shreds, lotus root slices, potato slices, etc., as well as special side dishes such as pickled radish, kimchi, and pickled pepper chicken feet, as well as stewed products such as stewed money tripe, stewed beef, stewed duck liver, stewed duck wings, and stewed duck gizzards, all of which are sold by kilogram.

However, there are also some products that, in order not to affect the taste, such as vegetable salads and cold noodles, the sauce and main ingredients are packaged separately; some cold dishes such as mouth-watering chicken and husband and wife lung slices are also sold in boxed form.

② The pastry room "moves into" the staple food kitchen

The market has a special staple food kitchen, and the products include pies, buns, fried dough sticks, and pancakes of different flavors. In the open kitchen, an aunt is making pancakes on an electric baking pan, and there are steamed buns and flower rolls in the bamboo basket not far away.

The entire staple food kitchen is like moving the pastry room of the restaurant, but adding several fresh noodles, dumpling skins and other rich product lines.

③ Add bread and fried chicken to attract young customers

In addition to the production lines of hot dishes, cold dishes, pastries, etc. that traditional Chinese kitchens already have, in order to attract young customers, the market has also added two new production lines for fried chicken and freshly baked bread.

The fried chicken area mainly supplies fried chicken steaks, chicken legs, chicken wings and other "chicken series" fried products, as well as grilled lamb skewers, small waists and other special fried products such as fried hairtail, fried meatballs, fried lotus root strips.

The bread area mainly provides freshly baked bread, and the products include donuts, hand-torn bread, wife cakes, durian pastry, egg tarts, etc.

④ The water bar "moves" homemade drinks

The staple kitchen and the fried chicken area are in the same open kitchen area. The window countertops also display a variety of homemade drinks sold by the restaurant's "water bar". The staple kitchen area displays freshly ground soy milk, and the fried chicken area displays homemade sour plum soup and kumquat lemon, all sold by the cup.

⑤5 semi-finished products, you can take them home and cook them

In the refrigerated area, the reporter also found semi-finished dishes. On that day, there were 5 products to choose from, including pickled fish, sour soup beef, Kung Pao chicken, fish-flavored pork shreds, and black pepper beef fillet. They were packaged in multi-grid lunch boxes, and each grid was filled with processed main ingredients, side ingredients, and small ingredients. The sauce was adjusted and packaged separately, and the operating instructions were attached. Customers can buy it home and make a dish with simple operations.

⑥Semi-finished ingredients can be matched at will

In the same area, in addition to semi-finished dishes, the Youth Market also provides semi-finished ingredients. The cut beef slices, chicken cubes, and pork shreds are adjusted with base flavors and marinated with starch.

For customers, semi-finished ingredients can be fried in a pan after they are bought home, and the auxiliary ingredients can be freely matched. For the Youth Commune, this is just the most common job of a restaurant chef.

It is worth mentioning that when all the homemade products mentioned above are sold and signed, the ingredient list can clearly show the main ingredients, auxiliary ingredients and main seasonings, which is a bit like a simplified version of the "standard dish card". Some even mark the brand of the glutinous rice flour used in the seasoning, which is also an advantage that other supermarkets do not have when selling homemade food products.

⑦ Selling chef-selected spices

The market also has a special area-"Chef-selected Spice Area", which mainly sells finished spices such as star anise, pepper, bay leaves, cumin, as well as self-ground chili powder and cut chili segments.

Unlike ordinary supermarkets that sell spices in bulk and of uneven quality, the Youth Market puts each spice in a delicate transparent box. The pepper is full, the chili segments are all taken from the middle section, and the bay leaves are uniform in size... The restaurant's procurement and selection of products are stricter than many supermarkets, so you can always buy high-quality products, which is also a major advantage of catering in the market.

In addition to the homemade delicacies mentioned above, the market also provides supermarket retail products, including vegetables, fruits, fish, meat, eggs, dairy products, wine, grains, rice, oil, snacks and cleaning supplies.

In the conversation with the staff, the reporter learned that the retail products are almost all sourced, not sold on behalf of supermarkets. The fruits and vegetables are also the original long-term suppliers of the restaurant. The labels also have the manufacturer and origin, and the price and quality are guaranteed.

3. Price: Lower than dine-in and take-out, bread is more than 50% cheaper than the market price

What are the prices of products sold in the market? We compared 3 types of homemade delicacies:

①Comparison of dine-in hot dishes: one pound of potato beef brisket is less than 40 yuan

Because many hot dishes are original dishes for dine-in, we compared the menu prices displayed on Dianping with the market prices. Among them, the dine-in price of fresh pepper and spicy chicken is 68 yuan/portion, the market price is 42.8/jin, the dine-in price of small potatoes and braised beef brisket is 78 yuan/portion, the market price is 39.8 yuan/jin... The market price is obviously lower than dine-in.

②Compared with takeaway braised goods: braised beef is 17 yuan cheaper per pound

The Youth Commune dine-in menu sells braised food by portion, but takeaway is sold separately and the weight is marked. After comparison, it is found that:

According to the takeaway menu of the Youth Commune Wannian Huacheng store, "braised duck liver is 36 yuan/280 grams, braised duck head is 5 yuan per head, and braised beef is 42 yuan/140 grams", while the market price shows "braised duck liver is 24.9 yuan/500 grams, duck head is 5 yuan/piece, and braised beef is 88.8 yuan/500 grams".

In short, there is no takeaway commission and other costs, and the market price is much cheaper than takeaway.

③Compared with the market price of bread: 8.8 yuan for 3 donuts, more than 50% cheaper

Freshly baked bread is a new product in this market, but the price advantage is very obvious: 8.8 yuan for 3 donuts, 10.8 yuan for 4 egg tarts, 9.9 yuan for a hand-torn bread... It is more than 50% cheaper than the market price, so it also attracted many customers to buy. The "factory bread" of other brands, such as sliced ​​bread, placed next to the freshly baked bread area, was almost ignored.

"If you are tired of shopping, you can go upstairs to eat. We have roast duck, stir-fried dishes..."

"In the future, guests who come to dine can buy drinks on the first floor. They don't have to bring wine every time, and they don't have to buy it outside, which reduces a lot of trouble."

Under the "warm reminder" of the service staff upstairs and downstairs, many customers were successfully "converted". They went to the second floor to eat after shopping, and some guests upstairs went to the shopping area after dinner.

Use the new "market-style" retail model to seize the family kitchen

From Meizhou Dongpo entering the supermarket to open a "mini stall store", to Wangshun Pavilion to open a "community convenience kitchen", and Ziguangyuan to open a stall store in the community... At this stage, restaurant owners are constantly exploring the road of new retail in community catering.

Youth Commune is doing a market in its own restaurant. What inspiration can it bring to catering people?

1. Brand endorsement + high-quality products are the unique advantages of catering companies in retail

"It sounds strange for a restaurant to run a market, but the Youth Restaurant has a history of more than 20 years in Beijing, and customers trust us very much, so residents around here come as soon as it opens."

Although the trust is high, the most important thing for customers to buy home is that it tastes good, and for restaurants, products are the core competitiveness.

For old brands like Youth Commune, taste has always been a relatively high standard in the industry, and years of store opening experience have made the restaurant familiar with the preferences of surrounding customers. In addition, most of them are made on-site by chefs, which looks very appetizing, with accurate product selection, and the taste and category are absolutely "killing" other homemade products in the supermarket!

Brand effect + high-quality homemade food, Youth Commune uses the unique advantages of catering companies in retail to attract residents around to check in as soon as it opens.

2. Cold dishes and pastry chefs rotate to fill the "idle period" of employees

In addition to the advantages in products, Youth Market also has great highlights in personnel control.

According to the service staff, "most of the staff in the homemade food area are chefs, including cold dish chefs and pastry chefs."

Although the working hours in the catering industry are long, due to different divisions of labor, there are differences in the peak hours between different positions, and there will always be positions in the "idle period".

The market can make full use of employees during the peak hours, reducing operating costs. Professionals can also gain the trust of customers when doing professional things, and the income of employees will increase accordingly.

3. Seizing the family kitchen, "1 product + 4 scenarios" is the future trend

The restaurant solves the problem of providing guests with meals in different scenarios. In the past, restaurants mainly provided two ways: dine-in and take-out. However, with the development, especially under uncertain factors such as the epidemic, catering people gradually realized that in addition to take-out and dine-in, they must expand new channels, create new scenarios, and increase risk resistance.

The Youth Commune seizes the family kitchen through the "market-style" retail method!

Compared with dine-in, the market has the characteristics of "high frequency" and "high customer flow". It is unlikely that customers will go to the same formal restaurant 4 times a month, but it is common to go to the market once a week or even every three or four days; when dining in a restaurant, you have to wait for the previous table to leave before the next table can consume, but you can enter the market at any time.

The future catering industry must be based on a multi-channel business model with one product and four scenarios of "dining in + takeaway + home kitchen + e-commerce".