Where do the young people who are experiencing a consumption downgrade go to eat?

Are Young People Less Frequent in Restaurants?

On a weekend in December 2024, Xia Lin, who had just finished visiting an exhibition in Beijing 798 with her friends, opened Dianping as usual to find a restaurant for dinner. Suddenly, she found that half of the restaurants she had bookmarked around her had closed down.

That was the first time she directly felt the wave of restaurant closures. In fact, in 2024, the number of closed restaurants far exceeded what she could imagine -

Searching for "restaurant closures" on social media, the first topic that comes up is "Handling Items After Restaurant Closures", and there are more than 530,000 notes discussing this topic. In these notes, you can see a variety of closed restaurants.

In October last year, a practitioner in the catering industry posted an article documenting a closed restaurant in a shopping mall that had been boarded up. Well-known chain catering brands such as hot pot, fried skewers, braised pot, and grilled fish were all on the list. "The winter of the catering industry is coming, and there is a wave of restaurant closures in shopping mall stores," he said.

But in the more than 500 comments under this post, almost all of them are complaints about these restaurants. Some people say that they are pre-made dishes, and the closures are because more and more consumers are alert. Some people say that these stores are "expensive and not delicious, and they deserve to close down". Others say that they don't eat in these stores because "they are poor, it's difficult to earn money this year, and they can't save much for their children, so they can only save on themselves. How dare they eat out casually?"

As a daily part of food, what to eat and how to eat have always been the top priorities for young people. Once, when many internet-famous restaurants first opened, they attracted many young people to come and check in, and queuing up for a table was the norm for every restaurant. But in the past two years, the grand scene of queuing up has disappeared, and the number of times the restaurants are crowded is also countable.

So it is visible to the naked eye that cooking at home has become the first choice for many young people to have meals.

Since moving to a house with a large kitchen this year, Xinran has started cooking by herself. On the one hand, the price is affordable. On the other hand, "the dishes outside are always the same, and there is no strong sense of freshness," and most of them are overly processed and overly seasoned dishes, and Xinran always feels that they are not healthy. After learning many stir-fried dishes and pasta from online recipes, she feels that her taste has become much lighter.

From feeling uncomfortable if not eating out before to feeling uncomfortable when eating out now, like Xinran, many young people are no longer willing to eat outside. According to the "2024 Young People Eating Out Report" by HouLang Research Institute, more than 30% of young people eat out no more than three times a month. In other words, they don't eat out even once a week. This has also caused many restaurants to frequently have a cold business. According to data from Tianyancha, in the first half of 2024 alone, more than 1 million catering-related enterprises closed down sadly, and even many internet-famous restaurants closed after only one or two months of opening.

Of course, not all restaurants are like this. Still under that post, some people say that the catering area on the B1 floor of the shopping mall next to their home is still crowded, and even some restaurants still have people queuing up at 9 pm; others say that they only go to small local restaurants now, "The cooking is visible on the spot, the ingredients are bought fresh on the same day, and the price is also economical and affordable."

There is a small Yunnan cuisine restaurant near Xia Lin's company. Every noon, this small restaurant is full of people. The menu needs to be written by hand, the dishes are freshly cooked by the boss, the tables are never completely clean, and when there are many people, you need to share a table. Sometimes Xia Lin and her colleagues have a meal together for three people, ordering 5 main dishes and 3 bowls of rice, with an average cost of less than 100 yuan per person. With an affordable price and freshly cooked hot dishes, Xia Lin and her colleagues go there two or three times almost every month.

It can be seen that young people are not unwilling to eat, nor are they unwilling to eat outside. It's just that in terms of eating, they pay more attention to cost performance.

The "Self-Cultivation" of the Leading Pizza Brand

The adjustment and remodeling of young people's consumption concepts have made the catering industry in the past two years a mixed bag of joys and sorrows.

Some restaurants have closed down one after another due to poor management and failure to adapt to the changes in consumers' consumption structure, while some restaurants have successfully catered to consumers and achieved rapid expansion to seize the market.

A few days ago, the China Industry Research Institute released the "Analysis of the Market Status of the Chinese Pizza Industry in 2024", showing that the market size of the Chinese pizza industry in 2022 was 37.5 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 3%. It is expected that by 2027, this data will double to 77.1 billion yuan.

In such a consumption environment, the pizza industry can still maintain a strong growth trend, and Pizza Hut may have contributed a lot.

As the leading brand in the pizza category and western casual dining restaurants, after observing that consumers' dining preferences have changed and they began to value cost performance, health quality and diversity, in 2024 alone, Pizza Hut has made many big moves with great concentration.

The first is to sound the horn of low prices in the pizza industry.

At the 2024 Yum China Restaurant Managers Annual Conference, Kuai Jun, the general manager of Pizza Hut China, mentioned when speaking that "Cost performance is an important factor for Pizza Hut to attract consumers." It is precisely by observing the consumption needs of young people that for 7 years, Pizza Hut has continuously optimized the product combination and increased the proportion of pizzas under 50 yuan. In December, with a generous gesture, Pizza Hut gave all consumers a big New Year surprise - on the new menu for 2025, Pizza Hut has reduced the prices of 30 popular products across the board.

The moment she saw the news, netizen momo was a bit skeptical. She asked netizens for verification on social media, "Is this true?" It wasn't until she walked into a store and saw the menu that she realized that "the wind of consumption downgrading has also blown to Pizza Hut". This generous move has caused consumers to sigh continuously on social media, "When I was in primary school, I felt that Pizza Hut was very expensive. Now that I'm in graduate school, its prices have finally come down." "It's so cheap. Does Pizza Hut not want to do business anymore?" "How dare Pizza Hut reduce prices like this?" Pizza Hut, which offers great value for money, has even become the new canteen for some office workers.

In addition to working on prices, Pizza Hut has also entered the new product show.

After finding that young people's demands for pizza are becoming more and more demanding, Pizza Hut has begun to strive for breakthroughs. This Spring Festival, Pizza Hut broke the tradition. In addition to the classic crusts such as thin and crispy, hand-tossed, cheese-stuffed crust, and sausage-stuffed crust, it launched the Fortune Cat Crust Pizza, making the pizza look like a fortune cat, focusing on the new year and new happiness. The cute appearance has refreshed everyone's perception of pizza, and the meaning of attracting wealth has also attracted many young people to come and check in. Some netizens said, "Young people can't resist the words 'attracting wealth'", and even posted their own fortune cats on the Internet and played a game of "Whose Fortune Cat is More Festive" with netizens.

Pizza Hut's innovation is not only to cater to consumers' dietary needs, but also to meet consumers' emotional needs. In 2024, more and more consumers are willing to pay for emotional value, and Pizza Hut has also played with emotional value in product development.

For example, the Durian Explosion Pizza with a burst of flavor in one bite, the Coriander Pig Ear Pizza that successfully awakens the coriander bloodline of young people, and the Spicy Strip Cheese Chicken Pizza limited to April Fool's Day. Although they sound curious, they have captured the hearts of many young people with their increasingly addictive taste and fun and quirky characteristics. The Dungeon & Fighter co-branded Bullfrog Pizza and the World of Warcraft co-branded Warcraft Pizza that were launched successively have also met the limited needs of game lovers.

Not only that, Pizza Hut also made a thoughtful move in 2024. After finding that among the young people group, the consumption demand for "single-person meals" is becoming more and more vigorous, but it is difficult to find high-quality and cost-effective single-person meals, Pizza Hut has also followed the trend and targeted to launch freshly made high-quality pizza burgers.

With a series of measures, Pizza Hut not only handed in a brilliant report card in the first three quarters - opening more than 3,600 stores in mainland China, and it is expected to reach 4,000 stores in 2025, but also has shaped a new brand image in the hearts of young people - nowadays, Pizza Hut is not just a western casual dining restaurant, and its new products have become a kind of "food social currency" that can meet their various needs such as taste buds and emotions.

Down-to-Earth, Steady Progress

Since opening its first store in Dongzhimen, Beijing in 1990, Pizza Hut has become the leading pizza brand in the hearts of Chinese people. And the three words "Pizza Hut" have also become synonymous with pizza.

According to the "2024 - 2029 China Pizza Industry Development Prospect and In-depth Research and Analysis Report" by the China Industry Research Institute, in the past three years, Pizza Hut's market share is 37.4%, far higher than other pizza chain stores.

And Pizza Hut has always been at the forefront of pizza category innovation.

After finding that consumers prefer to eat the toppings on the pizza rather than the thick crust, Pizza Hut launched the "Hand-Tossed Series" pizza in 2021. At the same time, after finding that the number of hot pot and barbecue stores with a strong flavor in Dianping is growing faster than the overall market, Pizza Hut has also developed the Spicy Series pizza to cater to consumers' food preferences. On the product innovation road of Pizza Hut, the pizza, a delicacy from Italy, has also taken on a Chinese flavor.

For decades, Pizza Hut has always been at the forefront of the domestic pizza