Received a ten-million-yuan investment from an affiliate fund of Wenheyou. The ten-year journey of "Mapo Charcoal BBQ" to become "Delicious and Affordable" | Early-stage Project

Every city has several famous online celebrity commercial streets, and Guangzhou is no exception. Yuanjing Road is one of the distinctive streets.

Back twenty years ago, Yuanjing Road was ordinary and remote. Later, with the arrival of Koreans, they gathered here and opened clothing stores, supermarkets, and restaurants. Through evolution, this place has gradually become one of the most influential Korean communities in South China.

Yuanjing Road is not only an epitome of Korean culture but also a paradise for food lovers. You can find various delicacies here, among which Korean barbecue is the most famous. The first store of "Mapo Charcoal Barbecue" that 36Kr recently came into contact with is located here.

Mapo Charcoal Barbecue is a Korean barbecue chain brand established in 2014. Not long ago, it just received an investment of nearly ten million yuan. The investor is the Hunan Qiantai Fund led by Wenheyou. The financing is mainly used for store expansion. 36Kr was the first to disclose this round of financing.

Dishes of Mapo Charcoal Barbecue, provided by the interviewee

The founder of Mapo Charcoal Barbecue, Li Yongzhe, used to work in a Korean restaurant for many years. Later, after returning to China with his lover, because his lover especially liked to eat barbecue, he had the idea of opening a barbecue restaurant. He took out almost all his savings of more than 600,000 yuan to rent a store of about 80 square meters and started his entrepreneurial journey with seven tables. With the authentic Korean barbecue flavor, he quickly won the word-of-mouth of customers. In just three months, queuing began to occur, and the long queue at the store entrance often blocked the street, with the daily table turnover rate nearly 15 times.

He recalled: "I remember that in order to provide seats for customers to wait in line, we bought out two or three hundred plastic stools from a nearby hardware store. There were even situations where customers fought with each other in order to eat barbecue earlier."

Up to now, Mapo Charcoal Barbecue has gradually expanded from a small store of 80 square meters to a large store of more than 600 square meters, becoming a well-known food sign on Yuanjing Road. It has been on the list of must-eat restaurants on Dianping for three consecutive years from 2022 to 2024.

In the past ten years of development of Mapo Charcoal Barbecue, the brand has made very few actions in publicity and promotion. In today's fiercely competitive catering marketing, Li Yongzhe is more willing to rely on the repurchase brought by solid products.

In terms of price, Mapo Charcoal Barbecue adheres to the product concept of "delicious and affordable". Different from the per capita consumption of more than 100 yuan in the market, the per capita consumption of Mapo Charcoal Barbecue is about 80 yuan, which also constitutes the brand's differentiated competitive advantage.

Behind the cost performance is a solid supply chain support. Mapo Charcoal Barbecue has its own factory, realizing the full-link control from raw material procurement to processing. It not only ensures the quality and freshness of the ingredients but also effectively controls the cost.

In the past ten years, Mapo Charcoal Barbecue has opened nearly 30 stores in Guangzhou, Foshan and other places. The expansion pace can be described as slow, which is related to the deliberate actions of the founder. In fact, after the first store became popular, people kept coming to express their intention to join, but considering that his various systems and supply chains were not yet perfect at that time, Li Yongzhe politely refused almost all of them. Later, unable to resist the insistence of some old customers and friends, he tried to make some cooperations. Currently, nearly half of the stores are opened by internal employees.

Now, with all aspects of conditions becoming increasingly mature, Mapo Charcoal Barbecue is gradually accelerating the pace and plans to expand the number of stores to 100 within the next 18 months, focusing on the Pearl River Delta region and considering entering key provinces and cities such as the Yangtze River Delta.

The new brand image of Mapo Charcoal Barbecue, provided by the interviewee

At the same time, the brand is also upgrading its image. In the opinion of the founder, the customers of Mapo Charcoal Barbecue are mainly young women, who have higher requirements for the store image. Although the company still achieved very good results in the past when it did not do well in this aspect, in order to better meet the needs of customers, it decided to make such a change to enhance the brand's competitiveness.

According to 36Kr, the Yuanjing Road store of Mapo Charcoal Barbecue is under renovation and will be built into the flagship store after the image upgrade. It is expected to show a new look in December. With the brand upgrade and market expansion, Li Yongzhe hopes that Mapo Charcoal Barbecue can become the representative of "quality barbecue, delicious and affordable" in the hearts of customers.