New Decade, Redefinition | A 50,000-word Analysis of China's Full Range of Catering Categories in 2025, Global Perceptions of the Catering Industry, and Three Major Trends

Qing Yong, Founder of Narrow Gate Group & Tomato Capital

Author | Qing Yong, Founder of Narrow Gate Group & Tomato Capital

On November 6 - 7, 2025, the "Deep Plowing the Fields, Fragrance Spreading Globally" 10th Anniversary of Narrow Gate and the Global Chinese Catering Conference was held in Beijing. Qing Yong BOB, the founder of Narrow Gate Group & Tomato Capital, delivered a speech themed "Redefining in the New Decade", and released the "2025 China Catering Annual Report & Catering Globalization Report" on the spot. The 50,000 - word report interprets all categories of China's catering industry in 2025, the global understanding of catering, and three major trends.

I. Preface

Hello everyone, I'm BOB.

In the three years after the pandemic, apart from traveling to most of the important cities in China, I also visited 10 countries and regions around the world. I even went to some countries four times a year, staying for two or three weeks each time. Sometimes I would visit seven or eight cities at a time, shuttling back and forth across time zones from east to west and then from west to east. Sometimes when I woke up in the morning, I couldn't even remember which city I was in.

Every time I went to a country, one thing I must do was to visit local restaurants, explore local chain brands, and taste well - known local Chinese food chains. It was normal for me to have more than ten meals a day. Each time, there were at least five or six people in the group. In the end, only I could still persevere.

Every time, I could out - eat all the fellow travelers and out - stay all my colleagues.

In the past month, my team and I condensed the cities and countries we visited, the excellent brands we tasted, the benchmark cases we heard of, the data we investigated, the information we interviewed, and the data from Narrow Gate Catering Eyes into this report.

We sorted out more than 500 cases in China and around the world. The initial text ranged from 500,000 words to several million words, and then was refined back to several hundred thousand words, and finally had to be controlled within 50,000 words. Every sacrifice was extremely difficult, and we felt that the report was incomplete. But there was no way. Life always requires making sacrifices.

We are always used to summarizing and planning the future in ten - year cycles. This year happens to be the 10th year of Narrow Gate. So I decided to stand up and summarize China's catering industry, as well as myself.

II. About the Past 10 Years and the Past 20 Years

In the past ten years, the chain - rate of China's catering industry has reached 23%, with a revenue of approximately 6.4 trillion yuan. The number of catering stores in China is close to 9 million (excluding group meals).

(Data source: Taking "2024 = 23%" in the CCFA × Meituan white paper as the current anchor point, it is expected that the chain - rate will reach 25% in 2025)

If we divide the past ten years into an era, the time before ten years ago was called the era of master chefs; the past ten years have been the era of chain - operation, which is also accompanied by capitalization.

Before the reform and opening up, the restaurant forms were state - run restaurants and individual - owned restaurants. For a long time, the most influential association in the catering industry was also the "China Cuisine Association".

In the era of master chefs, the ability of the master chef determined whether your restaurant could make money and how much money it could make. In that era, consumers were proud of dining out. Thirty years ago, it was a very proud thing for me to go to a restaurant with my father.

Comparison between restaurants before the reform and opening up and now

In the era of master chefs, except for Ajisen Ramen, the listed catering companies were all full - service restaurant brands relying on master chefs. The characteristics of catering at this stage were low standardization, high dependence on chefs, a very small number of stores but large in size. Maybe dozens of stores could support a listed company.

In the past ten years, the chain - rate of China's catering industry has reached 23%, and that of the United States has reached 62%. The China Chain Store & Franchise Association has also become one of the most influential associations in China's catering industry.

In 2017, Zhengxin Group announced for the first time that it had exceeded 10,000 stores. Since then, Mixue Bingcheng has exceeded 40,000 stores (41,644 stores, nearly 50,000 stores globally), Wallace has nearly 20,000 stores (19,648 stores), and Juewei Duck Neck, Starbucks, Luckin Coffee, KFC, Guming, and Tastin have all become 10,000 - store chains.

Among them, Luckin Coffee opened more than 10,000 new stores in about a year during its peak development period. This speed has never happened in human history. It is a huge miracle that occurred in the era of chain - operation!

In the past ten years, great changes have taken place in the entire era of chain - operation.

First, the upgrade of the supply chain. The improvement of hardware infrastructure such as food production and processing, food preservation, warehousing, cold - chain distribution, etc. has promoted great chain - operation, which is particularly similar to the development of the catering industry in the United States and Japan.

Second, the popularization of mobile payment and SaaS systems has improved the efficiency of catering; the emergence of super take - out platforms like Meituan has made the dining scenarios of catering more diverse.

At the same time, other supporting services are becoming more and more mature. Various decoration equipment, consumable supply service providers, consulting companies, training companies, catering media, and comprehensive platforms like Narrow Gate have emerged; the entry of highly - educated talents and high - quality cross - border talents from outside the industry; and the capitalization of catering have all greatly promoted the chain - operation process of China's catering industry.

Now there are also a series of intelligent devices such as catering intelligent robots and intelligent tea - making machines. Their intelligence level has become higher and higher, and their technical level, efficiency, quality, and cost are superior to most catering chefs. In the next few years, robots may completely reach the level of masters and meet more scenario needs. The critical point of the intelligent automation equipment era has arrived.

In the past 10 years, except for Tongqinglou, which is a full - service restaurant brand relying on chefs, other listed catering companies basically do not rely on store chefs or production technicians. They have high standardization, and many brands have exceeded 10,000 stores. More and more chain restaurants have become listed enterprises, and many are in the process of preparing for listing.

Almost all the companies that emerged in this era meet the standards of standardization, specialization, and branding. The degree of their standardization also affects their chain - rate, the process of capitalization, and market value.

So what changes will there be in the next ten years?

III. Review of Previous Reports

Since 2017, we have almost released an observation report on the catering industry every year, recording the past and predicting the future.

In 2017, we released ( Innovation is never a talent, but a thinking in desperation | The first investment and financing report of China's catering industry) for the first time. Through this report, we foresaw the opportunities for the capitalization of China's catering industry in the future. It was also because of this that we founded Tomato Capital.

In 2018, we released ( 99% of the funds flowed to... | China Catering Report) for the second time. This time, we focused on the changes in the investment and financing of the supply chain. This time, we saw that China's catering industry was entering the era of chain - operation, which further strengthened our confidence and determination in the value of catering capitalization.

In 2019, we released the first national catering category report ( Who is the strongest in China's catering industry? It's all in this article | First release on the whole network), showing for the first time the complete data of all categories and brands of China's catering industry, drawing the first complete picture of China's catering industry for Chinese catering entrepreneurs. It was also in this year that we launched the Narrow Gate Catering Eyes database. More and more platforms began to imitate Narrow Gate Catering Eyes.

The report in 2020 was postponed to the beginning of 2021 due to the pandemic. In this report ( Interpretation of China's catering industry in 2020 with 20,000 words, insights into 4 major trends | First release on the whole network), we saw that China's catering industry would usher in a "capital wave", and capitalization became a new variable to accelerate the chain - operation of catering.

In 2022, we released ( Even though there are many difficulties, still strive for good | Interpretation of China's catering industry in 2022 with 10,000 words). The pandemic made the catering industry one of the industries most affected by negative impacts. Many brands carried out various self - rescue measures in order to survive.

In 2023, we released the report for the sixth time ( 40,000 - word catering report: The bigger the waves, the more expensive the fish!). We deeply interpreted and defined the value of each category of China's catering industry, and put forward three major trends of China's catering industry in the future: newly evolved chain - operation, Chinese food going global, and cost - reduction and price - reduction while adhering to the essence.