The criteria for young people to choose a restaurant are no longer just "delicious".

Often, people complain that finding a suitable restaurant is a huge challenge in life.

Not only is it difficult to make a decision when it comes to solving the problem of hunger or rewarding oneself on a daily basis, but also in situations such as family gatherings, business receptions, get-togethers with friends and relatives, and afternoon tea with best friends... It seems that there are never enough good restaurants in almost all situations involving "eating".

Especially for young people who are already tired of queuing, they even don't look for restaurants in the streets and alleys based on ratings.

Why are there fewer and fewer "suitable" good restaurants?

Consumers who have become "picky" need to be taken seriously

Many restaurants may not be aware that the supply and demand relationship between consumers and restaurants has changed.

According to relevant data from Hongcan.com, the overall catering market declined by 30% - 35% in the first half of this year, and the decline in some categories even exceeded 50%. This may be attributed to two reasons. On the one hand, a large number of high-end catering businesses have entered the transformation period, and the era of making quick money with a fast in and out approach is over. On the other hand, the overall price range of catering supply has shifted downward, and the prices of multiple categories have dropped significantly.

Catering businesses find it increasingly difficult to find business growth, while consumers are troubled by the difficulty of finding good restaurants. Xiaofen (a pseudonym) who works in Hangzhou is deeply troubled by this. Being teased by netizens as living in a "food desert", Xiaofen is actually not convinced. But she also admitted to 36Kr that she feels somewhat powerless to refute. "When I want to make an appointment with my family and friends to choose a restaurant, many highly rated restaurants are just so-so, and various recommendations are basically the same. I don't know where I can find more fresh options for everyone to choose from." And there are not a few consumers like this. The "reverse check-in" trend that previously emerged is that a group of rebellious consumers began to flock to low-rated restaurants.

A basic business logic is that no matter how the times change, it is the businesses that can meet the needs of users that win business success. Obviously, there is some deviation between the increasingly diverse and segmented catering consumption needs and the catering supply that cannot get rid of the inertia of the traditional model.

And considering from both ends, perhaps the actual situation at present can be better understood.

Nowadays, consumers have indeed become more picky and are resisting the highly homogenized "standard answers". The core of users' complaint about the scarcity of good restaurants is that in addition to the basic need of delicious food, restaurants cannot meet the requirements of segmented needs such as style, service, scene, and crowd.

Before this, the mainstream way for a popular restaurant to achieve growth was to obtain a differential advantage through the cost performance at the consumer end and the lean management at the business end, thereby continuously expanding to form a scale effect or brand effect. This is a consideration starting from improving business efficiency. The content of the supply has not changed, and what is delivered is still the dining experience, but from the results, it is not a comprehensive dining experience.

Changing good restaurants need more spotlight

According to the "2023 China Catering Consumption Trend Report", satiety and taste are no longer the only needs of the new generation of diners. Catering + experience will be able to better meet the needs of consumers.

A restaurant is a scene where food and space are combined. There are also many catering businesses and restaurant managers who have seen the emerging needs of consumers and are trying to create more distinctive restaurant scenes for them with more complex sensory experiences and cultural emotions such as vision and hearing in addition to taste.

The cultural experience enhanced by multiple senses is not an empty talk. For example, Pizza Hut once created a "Monet Water Lily Immersive Restaurant" in Shanghai in the summer of 2020, creating a Monet Garden for consumers through immersive projection technology. When the same plate as the world-famous painting "Water Lily" and "Sunset" in the physical scene is placed in the corresponding position, the water lily will automatically bloom, and the sunset will automatically pour down. Under the interweaving of images, lights, and music, dining seems to be sinking into a physical exhibition.

And this method can be continuously replicated and reproduced. For example, Pizza Hut's light and shadow restaurant in Chengdu tried to integrate Chinese culture and presented the national intangible cultural heritage "Qiang Embroidery" as light and shadow.

A restaurant can also be a part of the life and entertainment of young people. For example, the "camping" trend that has been popular in recent years can also be a scene experience that a restaurant can deliver. Last year, Haidilao tried a pop-up store of camping and hot pot in Shanghai, providing a camping experience tour while saving the cumbersome steps of organizing and arranging, and providing various services such as outdoor KTV, mahjong, and board games, rapidly expanding the scene of "catering" itself. Facts have proved that this has indeed captured the social and emotional value of the young group, and Haidilao has also expanded camping hot pot stores in Wuhan, Beijing and other places.

Haidilao Camping Hot Pot Source: Internet

Of course, catering chain brands such as Haidilao and Pizza Hut themselves have a considerable size and also have the marketing capital to make their voices heard in the market. But in fact, there are more restaurants that are insisting on meeting the needs of different types of users and providing distinctive services. For example, some pet-friendly restaurants are not only for dining, but also a communication place for pet lovers; another example is the recent popularity of local cuisine and Bistro. The former meets the consumers' need for the atmosphere of life, and the latter is a display of an exquisite life.

However, even good wine is afraid of deep alleys. In the digital world, the distance of information is infinitely shortened, but the cost of matching is constantly increasing. The emergence of platforms such as Douyin was once a way for catering businesses and managers to break through. A good experience allows consumers to spontaneously share, and restaurants themselves can further show their own characteristics through short videos and live broadcasts. And the efforts of Douyin in life services have also been confirmed in the catering industry, and continue to bring business growth to catering businesses in the Douyin ecosystem.

These restaurants that insist on going their own way need more spotlight.

Restaurants that are more than just delicious

In terms of form, the business logic of the Douyin ecosystem may be more suitable as an amplifier for good restaurants to be "seen".

Take Yongronghui in Chengdu as an example. In today's highly competitive market of seafood buffets, the brand has achieved a comprehensive upgrade in the high-end buffet field with its "Unlimited supply of signature fresh Boston lobsters" and more than 200 kinds of high-quality seafood delicacies available throughout the year. It quickly captures the minds of consumers and successfully achieves brand breakthrough.

The differentiated positioning they want to convey is "To entertain important people, come to Yongronghui". For this purpose, in the creation of the restaurant environment, the natural luxury stone is used as the decoration theme to create an elegant dining environment, and a one-on-one butler service is provided for each customer. In 2024, Yongronghui was listed on the "Douyin Heart-Pounding Restaurant Atmosphere List", also showing the efforts behind the continuous strengthening of brand awareness to the market.

And making good use of content to drive growth is another new engine that the brand has found beyond the restaurant business itself. Through content to show the advantages of high-quality ingredients, services, environment, etc., to complete the seeding. At the same time, through a marketing combination of group buying, business detail pages, search engines, short video creativity, etc., the link from interest seeding to location weeding is quickly completed within the station. This is a proven business logic, behind topping multiple Douyin Life Service lists, resulting in more than 400 million video exposures within Douyin.

Beyond the logic of converting from interest content to business, Douyin Life Service attempts to provide users with an entrance different from the "standard answer". Recently, Douyin Life Service officially released the three major theme lists of "Heart-Pounding Restaurant Flavor List, Atmosphere List, and Trendy List", with three segmented needs of authentic flavor, style atmosphere, and novel experience, to help users find restaurant choices in different scenarios based on the "delicious" foundation, thereby further reducing the dislocation between the supply and demand sides.

In the past, the links between catering businesses, consumers, and platform lists mainly focused on the post-link, which was based on the summary of user evaluations after consumption. This certainly has a guarantee of the lower limit, but it lacks the possibility of exploring more experiences, and also leads to the occurrence of various "reverse check-in" behaviors at present. The logic of the Douyin Heart-Pounding Restaurant List is to take a step forward and make a "predictive" recommendation from the accumulation of consumers' interest preferences and consumption habits. The list itself presets the corresponding dining scenarios, and decomposes the general "delicious" demand into details.

The essence of business operation is to meet needs. When the personalized needs of users form catering needs with scene characteristics, restaurants that can meet the needs are also presented in the form of a list, with a more specific and definite matching scene. Especially for those catering businesses that have their own characteristics and are actively embracing the new business model, they can feel the focus of this spotlight more.

And catering businesses that still insist on the taste are also welcoming benefits. For example, Huda Restaurant, which was selected into the Douyin Heart-Pounding Restaurant - Flavor List, coincided with its 25th anniversary when it was listed. Combined with its own anniversary activities, host Martin's restaurant exploration and other actions, it simultaneously launched an exclusive double-person set meal on Douyin, forming a smooth system of list endorsement, activity drainage, and meal product acceptance, giving full play to its characteristics as an authentic flavor of old Beijing and the positioning value of urban memory. As of September, the cumulative payment has increased by 77% month-on-month, and the growth on the Douyin platform is significant.

For a city, the emergence of the Douyin Heart-Pounding Restaurant List also provides a more diverse reference for the daily choice of restaurants.

Behind catering is life. And whether a restaurant is attractive may require more than just being delicious, but rather everything about life. Douyin, which has been emphasizing that it is recording a beautiful life, seems to be a matter of course to focus on the list. This "little happiness" related to users' lives and business operations is essentially its attempt to allow each user to have a better life experience and a better satisfaction or even a surprising experience in catering needs in different scenarios.