Get a token after your dumpling meal: A dumpling restaurant near Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications has turned AI computing power into a "post-meal dessert"

"After you finish the dumplings and feel full, go to the front desk, tell the staff your table number, collect the token, and top up some computing power for your Agent."

In July this year, every table at Jingu Yuan Dumpling Restaurant just outside the south gate of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications had a small card of this kind. On the first day of the Futian period, long queues formed at the entrance of the restaurant. People came not just for dumplings, but also to get a 10-yuan computing power card.

Source: Post by a netizen

On social platforms, netizens commented that "Each generation has their own version of free eggs to claim"; "Is this what a big city is like? You can even get tokens when eating out." Some netizens also joked: "Why does this feel so much like a work chore"; "I actually went to look up what the word 'token' means."

Source: Netizen comments

A dumpling restaurant that has been in business for more than a decade has gone viral for turning AI computing power into a free post-meal gift.

01. The dumpling restaurant owner who graduated from BUPT is "not doing his proper job" again

"I miss the mackerel dumplings and four-fresh potstickers at Jingu Yuan" — many BUPT students left such messages in the comment section of related posts.

Before going viral, Jingu Yuan was already the "queuing king" among the restaurants near BUPT, known as the "hidden canteen for BUPT teachers and students". During the peak Winter Solstice period in 2025, the number of online queuing tables exceeded 15,000.

For people from BUPT, what makes Jingu Yuan special is not only its delicious food, but also the owner's identity as an alumnus.

Source: Netizen comments

The owner, Li Bo, graduated with a postgraduate degree in communication engineering from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications in 2010. Most people with this educational background would go to large tech companies to write codes, but he chose to open a dumpling restaurant with his partner right after graduation.

This is not the first time that Jingu Yuan Dumpling Restaurant has gone viral for its "tech content".

On April 7 this year, Jingu Yuan Dumpling Restaurant officially announced the "Jingu Yuan Dumpling Restaurant · SKILL" agent skill on its WeChat official account. This is the first Skill for private AI assistants for customers in the catering industry, making Jingu Yuan the first restaurant nationwide to take the initiative to open its queuing ticket collection interface to AI Agents.

What exactly can this Skill do? Li Bo packaged all the information of Jingu Yuan, including its business hours, menu structure, dumpling fillings, queuing rules and even Wi-Fi password, into a digital document that can be read by large language models. Users can directly get a queuing ticket by saying "Help me get a queuing number at Jingu Yuan" to their own AI assistant.

Source: Official WeChat account of "Jingu Yuan Dumpling Restaurant"

The number of reads of this post quickly exceeded 100,000, and the headline "The most popular dumpling restaurant in Beijing starts feeding AI lobsters" later became a trending search on Weibo. Comments under the trending search read: "As expected of someone with BUPT background"; "I thought I was hallucinating from writing too much code"; "AI will be everywhere in our daily life in the future".

Source: Netizen comments

Making computing power cards into post-meal gifts this time is Jingu Yuan's second "viral tech event" within half a year.

This time, Li Bo chose an AI application community named "Guancha" as his cooperation partner. During the event, customers could get 10 yuan worth of computing power quota of Guancha by eating dumplings. More than 3,000 computing power cards were prepared in total during the activity, and the main group of people who claimed the cards were students from surrounding universities and internet practitioners.

In this way, a dumpling restaurant has become an offline landmark in the AI circle.

02. Not only Jingu Yuan, the catering industry has seen rising AI penetration in 2026

Since the beginning of 2026, from dumpling restaurants to bars, from convenience stores to coffee shops, "computing power" and "AI" are entering catering consumption scenarios in all kinds of unexpected ways, not just limited to Jingu Yuan.

1. The AI bar in Zhongguancun, "the bar with the largest 'foam' in history"

AGI Bar, known by the tech circle as "get the romance of technology in one second" and "the secret base of Chinese AI", is an AI-themed bar located in Zhongguancun, Beijing.

Song De, the founder, summed up the common points between AI and alcohol as "hallucination, bubbles and distillation". The bar gets its name from the concept of "Artificial General Intelligence", and its Chinese name translates to "Knowledge Distillation" — which not only refers to the distillation process of alcohol, but also echoes the AI model distillation technology.

Source: Post by a netizen

Walking into the store, you can see logos of Chinese AI companies hanging all over the wall. The events held here include developer seminars, researcher meetups, and gatherings for employees of AI labs. Song De's goal is to create a place where people from different labs, universities and competing companies can sit together and discuss industry trends.

Source: Dianping

The store focuses on craft beer, its signature drink is called "AGI Foam", and it teases itself as "the bar with the largest foam in history", meaning "the foam of beer superimposed on the foam of AI". More customers regard this place as a "brainpower party site", which attracts many entrepreneurs to discuss technology and investors to hang around.

2. Tencent WorkBuddy Coffee Festival, AI tools enter coffee shops

On August 13, Tencent WorkBuddy linked up with five premium coffee brands including Something For, Peet's, COSTA, Algebraist Coffee and Shanzhi, and held a cross-border coffee festival in offline stores across multiple cities in China.

This is not a simple brand co-branding activity. The event transformed the core of AI office efficiency improvement products into a tasteable, check-inable offline consumption experience.

Source: Internet

In this cooperation, online, consumers can open the WorkBuddy mini-program, complete operations such as chatting with AI, summoning experts, and setting automated tasks, to accumulate points and draw coffee vouchers; offline, Something For launched co-branded cup sleeves and the limited special drink "Buddy · Molecular Strawberry Cold Brew" in its stores in Shenzhen and Dongguan, fully demonstrating the application of WorkBuddy in catering scenarios.

3. JD 7FRESH AI milk tea, the whole process from R&D to packaging is decided by AI

Earlier, JD 7FRESH launched a ready-to-drink tea drink named "Pink Guava Sakura Tea". It is the first product in the instant retail industry developed by AI through the whole chain.

From flavor proposal, R&D, packaging design to marketing promotion, all processes are led by AI. Here, AI acts as a "smart product manager". Facing the vague demands such as "spring, pink, cherry blossom", it accurately captured that "guava" is a big hot topic on social platforms; visually, it recommended the light pink main color that is more in line with the preferences of Generation Z and the 300ml flat square bottle with a comfortable grip... The whole project only took more than 3 months from initiation to launch, and the sales volume of the product exceeded 100,000 bottles in the first week.

Source: Internet

Jingu Yuan turns computing power into post-meal gifts; AGI Bar turns computing power into in-store experience; Tencent turns coffee shops into offline exhibition halls for AI tools; JD 7FRESH lets AI act as a product manager... In these scenarios, AI is no longer just a "marketing gimmick", it is becoming part of the catering space and even the product itself.

03. The "computing power code" of the catering industry: from selling a meal to connecting a lifestyle

When words like "giving away computing power", "AI development" and "full-chain AI products" frequently appear in catering consumption scenarios, an interesting trend is emerging: under the AI boom, catering brands are learning to talk to users in a brand new way.

Source: Dianping

Catering consumption: from satisfying appetite to connecting interests

Now more and more young people walk into a store not just because "the food is delicious", but also because "this store understands me".

One of Jingu Yuan's core customer groups is BUPT students and internet practitioners in Wudaokou. What Li Bo did is not "adding some tech gimmicks to dumplings", but standing with customers by "giving away computing power". Going to AGI Bar for a glass of beer is not just about drinking, but also completing a social certification that "I am a member of the AI circle".

The language of brands always follows users

The first generation of catering marketing focused on "delicious food", the second generation on "environment", the third generation on "service", and the current fourth generation focuses on "social interaction".

It