Zhao Han of Yunhaiyao, A Person Who Dances Forever
Text | Zhong Yixuan
Editor | Qiao Qian
Today, Yun Hai Yao released an obituary announcing that its founder, Zhao Han, passed away yesterday due to a sudden heart attack at the age of 40.
Yun Hai Yao is a chain brand of Yunnan cuisine. In 2009, founder Zhao Han and his friend Zhu Haiqin opened the first Yun Hai Yao restaurant in Beijing. According to data from Narrow Door Food Eye, as of July 2025, Yun Hai Yao has 143 stores in 29 cities in China and 5 stores in Singapore overseas. It is also one of the representative brands of the chain - style Yunnan cuisine in China.
After Zhao Han's sudden death, many well - known founders of catering brands posted messages of mourning and farewell on their WeChat Moments. One founder told 36Kr, "(Zhao Han) was a nice guy, a typical Yunnan entrepreneur, honest and hard - working."
Zhao Han's entrepreneurial journey began with an obsession with Yunnan cuisine. For this obsession, he experienced choices, setbacks, and long - term trials. Now, the background picture of Zhao Han's WeChat Moments is a portrait of Nietzsche, along with a classic quote from Nietzsche - "Those who do not hear the music think the dancers are crazy." This also serves as the best annotation for Zhao Han's life.
"My entrepreneurial history is the process of making Yunnan cuisine go out of Yunnan." Zhao Han mentioned this sentence many times in public.
He was from Yunnan. In 2004, he was admitted to Renmin University of China and went to Beijing to study. Since his sophomore year in college, almost everyone around him knew that this thin young man wearing glasses "had only one thing in mind: to open a Yunnan cuisine restaurant", and his obsession was very deep.
At first, people thought it was just a crazy talk, and Zhao Han himself also said, "No one believed me." It wasn't until 2008, when he was a postgraduate at Renmin University, that he met Zhu Haiqin, who was also planning to start a business. The two hit it off immediately. Together with two other partners, they opened the first Yun Hai Yao restaurant near Houhai.
This is how the name Yun Hai Yao came about. "Yun" represents Yunnan cuisine, "Hai" means "Houhai", and "Yao" implies "delicious dishes".
During their first entrepreneurial attempt, the young people were full of enthusiasm. Among the four partners at that time, two were from Yunnan. Coupled with Zhao Han's high requirements for the "taste of Yunnan", even the chefs and waiters in the first store were invited from Yunnan.
The four partners also had their own duties. As the leader, Zhao Han was responsible for overall business planning. His friend Zhu Haiqin had management experience in enterprises and understood the store model. His cousin Lü Zhitao could mix cocktails, and his classmate Hu Fengyang was engaged in software development and could also cook delicious Yunnan small - pot rice noodles - which are still one of the signature dishes of Yun Hai Yao today.
However, Houhai has never been short of entrepreneurial stories. Over the past decade or so, too many people have poured their dreams into Houhai without any success. These young people who opened a restaurant with great enthusiasm were no exception. When the restaurant opened, the early winter in Beijing arrived, and the snow was falling heavily. The water in Houhai stopped flowing. "There were very few customers. From the opening to the Spring Festival, there were few people in the store, and the average daily loss was as high as 5,000 to 6,000 yuan," Zhao Han recalled in a later account.
After the Spring Festival, the young people made the most important decision in their lives at that time. Despite the losses, they decided to open a second branch. They attributed the failure of the first store to the location. Perhaps a "niche Yunnan cuisine restaurant in the alley" was not suitable for Yun Hai Yao, or perhaps they should move to shopping malls.
But one thought never wavered. They always believed that the direction of Yunnan cuisine was correct. Zhao Han was still as persistent as ever. "We must fire the last bullet, shed the last drop of blood, and go all the way to the end. We are absolutely not allowed to give up halfway," he said.
The second Yun Hai Yao restaurant was soon opened in the Omei Hui Shopping Center in Zhongguancun. After graduating from Renmin University, Zhao Han had a deep affection for Zhongguancun. He specially designed an advertising slogan for the Zhongguancun store: "Yunnan cuisine for North - drifters, drifting back to Zhongguancun." A young man who had come all the way from Yunnan to Beijing always had the determination to root his hometown cuisine in Beijing.
Riding on the trends of consumption upgrading and the rise of local cuisine, and at that time, offline shopping malls were starting to reach out to the catering industry for more traffic. Yun Hai Yao's business strategy gradually became clear - centered around shopping malls, offering "high - quality Yunnan cuisine that the general public can accept".
Since then, following the wave of commercial real estate expansion, like other brands such as Xi Bei, Waipo Jia, and Green Tea at that time, Yun Hai Yao rapidly expanded through chain - stores and became one of the representative brands of the chain - style Yunnan cuisine in China.
In 2014, after a joint investment from Sequoia Capital and Julin Capital, Yun Hai Yao continued to accelerate the opening of its stores. By 2019, Yun Hai Yao had opened more than 100 directly - operated chain restaurants in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. This was the only round of financing in Yun Hai Yao's history so far, and it even did not participate in the wave of Chinese cuisine financing in 2021.
As the number of stores increased, Zhao Han appeared in public less and less. In 2020, due to the COVID - 19 pandemic, the sales of Yun Hai Yao's stores were severely hit. Zhao Han wrote in his WeChat Moments, "It's not cold when it snows, but it's colder when the snow melts." At that time, the most well - known news about Yun Hai Yao was that during the suspension of business, more than 400 Yun Hai Yao employees went to work at Hema, and Hema paid them corresponding labor remuneration to maintain the normal life of Yun Hai Yao employees, which once inspired several catering brands to follow suit.
When a consumer heard about Zhao Han's death, he said, "In early 2020, when dine - in was almost impossible in Beijing, the Yun Hai Yao and Rong Xiaoguan restaurants near my home bravely continued to offer dine - in services for a short period, which saved me."
As of July 2025, Yun Hai Yao had opened 143 stores in 29 cities in China and 5 stores in Singapore. Compared with the achievement of having more than 100 stores in 2019, the growth rate was slow. Until now, Yun Hai Yao has to face problems such as brand aging and supply - chain risks caused by expansion.
Different from hot pot and Sichuan cuisine, due to the higher difficulty in standardizing the supply of ingredients and production processes, it has always been difficult for characteristic cuisines represented by Yunnan cuisine and Jiangsu - Zhejiang cuisine to achieve large - scale chain operation, unless they are willing to develop into fusion cuisine.
After the number of stores exceeded 140, problems in Yun Hai Yao's supply - chain management began to occur frequently. In recent years, the stores have reported several food - safety problems such as improper food storage. In 2024, when Yun Hai Yao provided catering services for ByteDance in Singapore, more than 100 ByteDance employees suffered from collective food poisoning due to the excessive content of Staphylococcus aureus in the dishes. This was the most serious food - safety incident in Yun Hai Yao's history and also seriously affected its internationalization process.
Today, the new "mountain - wild style" represented by the characteristics of Yunnan and Guizhou has blown into the catering industry again. In the tea - drinking industry, there are representative brands such as Shangshan Hecha and Qu Chashan. As for Yunnan cuisine restaurants, the rise of delicate Yunnan cuisine represented by Yungui Bistro restaurants has become a representative branch of innovative Yunnan cuisine, and its development speed is significantly faster than that of traditional Yungui cuisine like Yun Hai Yao.
But in a sense, Yun Hai Yao was forward - looking - after all, the feasibility of the Yungui style has been repeatedly verified today. Driven by Zhao Han's obsession, it brought Yunnan cuisine to the whole country and even became the earliest enlightenment for many consumers about Yunnan cuisine. More importantly, until now, Yun Hai Yao is one of the few brands that have successfully achieved chain operation of Yunnan cuisine.
A founder who had interacted with Zhao Han offline described him as "a very gentle and polite entrepreneur without a sense of distance, a very elegant entrepreneur."
But in fact, similar to Nietzsche in his WeChat Moments background, Zhao Han was a bit "crazy" inside.
More than a decade has passed. Looking back at the details of this experience, we will find that all of Zhao Han's decisions were almost like those of a "madman". He was very daring to invest and take risks. Before deciding to start a business, there was only one year left before his master's graduation. If he wanted to fully devote himself to entrepreneurship, he couldn't balance his studies. In the end, this young man didn't get his master's degree from Renmin University, but only completed his studies. For example, 300,000 yuan of the initial capital for entrepreneurship was the money that his parents had saved for him to buy a house with great difficulty.
Later, in an interview, Zhao Han admitted that he was indeed unconventional. He said that he switched from history to Chinese studies in his sophomore year, and some concepts in Chinese studies had influenced his life. "Chinese studies talk about 'the use of the useless'. It doesn't specifically refer to knowledge but more provides us with values and principles of behavior. It has guided my life path choices later, which is to not follow the rules."
After Zhao Han's death, Liang You, the founder of Tiaohai Tavern, posted a message of mourning for Zhao Han on his WeChat Moments. They both started their businesses near Houhai, studied in Zhongguancun, and even gave up their studies halfway and resolutely started their own businesses.
He wrote like this -
"I still had an appointment with you to go back to Kunming and drink together. When we parted last time, I played a song 'Tears of a 20 - year - old' by Chen Sheng for you, saying it was a belated birthday wish for your 40th birthday. The moon was very bright that day, and the ginkgo fruits on the terrace of my house were in full bloom. I didn't expect it to be a farewell forever. Thank you for showing me the world. You are a good elder brother and a good senior. We have discussed our ideals and shared our pains on many nights. We both studied in similar universities in Beijing, started our businesses near Houhai, and are on the paths of offline catering and taverns. We both chose to leave Beijing after staying here for 15 years. It's hard not to feel sad for the loss of a kindred spirit. I believe you are not afraid of death because we have discussed it many times. Under the winter cherry trees in the next life, I will play the piano and sing for you again. Brother Han, Brother Han, rest in peace, rest in peace."
(The cover image is from the movie "Singin' in the Rain")