Tea Yan Yuexue enters the tavern, blindly following the trend or rational choice?

In the past, the tavern was the bright pearl of urban nightlife, and the brilliant listing of Hellens pushed it to the top of the industry. The good times did not last long, and the trend of taverns quietly subsided. Today, the number of stores in the first three years of listing of the tavern has dropped sharply by 375, but Changsha, the founder of Guofeng tea, has opened seven taverns in a row, with a daily revenue of tens of thousands per store. Two completely different phenomena, people can not help but think, tavern wind, can reignite?

01
From Popular to Cold: The Rise and Fall of Bistro

The origin of the tavern can be traced back to Paris after the French Revolution. At that time, Bistro (tavern) quickly became the favorite of the French with its cheap small restaurant form serving civilian cuisine. Over time, the concept of the tavern gradually spread around the world. In China, with the upgrading of consumption and the prosperity of night economy in recent years, the style of tavern is also popular. Since 2018, Hellens has developed rapidly, and with its unique direct operation mode and intensive management, it has successfully occupied a place in the market, leading the new format of tavern to rise rapidly in the Chinese market. In 2021, Helen's company successfully went public and won the "first share of the tavern", with a market value of more than HK $30 billion on that day. With the popularity of Helen's company, more and more investors have seen the potential of the tavern market and have joined the track one after another. According to the "2021-2022 China Tavern Industry Development and Benchmarking Case Study Report", the tavern industry will only raise funds five times in August and September in 2021, with the market size of the industry reaching about 128.04 billion yuan. In addition, the number of tavern stores has also shown explosive growth, and taverns with various themes and styles have sprung up. However, just when the outside world thought it was going to usher in a glorious moment belonging to this track, things did not develop in the expected direction. Since its listing in 2021, Helen Division, with the power of capital, began to use the "debt lease" model of expansion, the number of stores in 2021 alone more than 400, the increase in stores to stimulate revenue growth, but also buried a certain degree of concern. The 2021 financial report shows that Helen's net loss reached 0.23 billion yuan, and the 2022 financial report shows that revenue decreased by 15.05 to 1.559 billion yuan year-on-year, with a loss of 1.601 billion yuan during the year. In addition, as of December 31, 2023, the total number of stores owned by Helen Division has also dropped from 782 at its peak to 479.

After a short period of prosperity, it ended with the silent withdrawal of countless cross-border players. In 2019, Bla Bla Bar, a tea brand owned by Naixue, opened more than 20 stores in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Hangzhou and other cities, and has now closed all stores. The "small noodle wine" opened in Shanghai has been closed and some stores have been converted into ordinary stores. Some people in the industry believe that there are many reasons for the withdrawal of taverns from national popularity to losses. At first, the tavern attracted a large number of young consumers with its unique social atmosphere and cultural experience, but with the continuous upgrading of consumer demand, it is difficult for the tavern with increasing homogenization and lack of new ideas to meet the consumer demand. In the highly competitive market environment, many taverns lack innovation and characteristics in decoration style, wine quality, service experience and so on, resulting in serious loss of consumers. At the same time, some enterprises themselves blind expansion, blind cross-border, simply continue the traditional pub business or increase the category of wine, it is difficult for customers to buy.

02
Innovation mode brings new heat

Despite the many challenges facing the tavern industry, the market does not seem to have completely abandoned these 0.1 billion areas of scale. According to the enterprise survey data, more than 71000 new registered enterprises will be added in 2023 and more than 18000 will be canceled, which means that about 53000 new enterprises will be added in 2023, and taverns are still one of the few growing tracks in the industry. In this context, some enterprises began to seek new opportunities. Take the founder of Guofeng tea as an example. In April, the brand opened seven taverns called "Day and Night Poetry Tea" in Changsha's May Day business district, and plans to open 30 stores this year, entering the tavern circuit strongly. This official position is a leisure interest pub with the theme of art and poetry. The products mainly take "fresh nitrogen" as the core process, and focus on four kinds of tea, namely black tea, green tea, oolong tea and yellow tea, plus several kinds of wine such as gin, rum wine and white wine, as well as milk base, to prepare tea wine products. According to the rough estimation of micro-wine, there are 60-70 dining tables in the day and night poetry tavern. According to the per capita unit price of 15 yuan, each table is occupied for 40 minutes, and the daily revenue of a store should be around 10000 to 15,000 yuan. This unique innovation model has not only attracted the attention of a large number of young consumers, but also brought new vitality to the tavern market. In addition to rolling out of the sky and crossing the border, the wine and beverage industry in the period of stock competition also regards "rejuvenation" as a new proposition in recent years in order to seek new scenes and growth points, while the drinking scenes of young people's drinks in the early C and late A, day coffee and night also provide a new "flow code" for wine companies ". in 2022. Luzhou Laojiao's Baidiao Tavern Off-line Laboratory opened in Chengdu, selling not only Luzhou Laojiao's fine brewed beer, but also various liquor cocktails. The Taibai Tavern opened by Shaanxi Taijiu in Datang City that never sleeps has opened a new model of wine travel tavern. Taverns with Chinese concept have also become a new front for yellow wine to rejuvenate. For example, Shaoxing yellow wine's three brands, Guyue Longshan, A series of characteristic pubs such as "Slow Tavern", "Wendu Tavern" and "Jiujia Tavern" have been opened in succession to cater to the needs and preferences of young consumers. In addition, the brewery is also eyeing the tavern business, in October 2020, "Yanjing No. 9 fine brewing tavern" opened in Beijing, in December 2022, Yanjing tavern opened in Hangzhou, Tsingtao beer also in 2020 layout called Qingdao 1903 tavern, the country has hundreds of stores. In December 2022, China Resources Snow also announced that the brand will build an offline tavern called "JOY BREW" to further expand its market share. Industry experts pointed out that the rise of taverns has not only brought new growth points for wine companies, but also further promoted the rejuvenation of the wine market. However, it should be noted that although the tavern is a good track, this business may not be easy to do. The layout of the tavern by wine companies needs to combine catering creativity and wine culture to innovate and cater to the needs and preferences of young consumers. In order to have the opportunity to survive in the fierce market competition.

03
Industry highly fragmented

Can the tavern really come back? In addition to the big factories that hope to cross the border, the tavern industry is also exploring new development models and innovative paths in the process of opening the road to self-help. In addition to attracting consumers with the same interests and hobbies by creating a tavern style with unique themes such as retro, art, music, and movies, the industry has also explored multiple wine sales models. For example, online taverns that build "where customers are, where is the tavern" service have also set off a craze, I .e. entrepreneurs do not need physical stores, mix drinks at home or in rented office areas, sell them through internet platforms, and then distribute them to buyers by third parties. besides wine, the products are also matched with snacks, poker, dice, ice cubes, etc. "Convenience store bars" and "24-hour self-service pubs" also make drinking more and more relaxed and undefined, which is in line with the sense of relaxation pursued by young people. At the same time, the format of the tavern is also increasingly rich. The US delegation pointed out in its 2023 bar guide that diversified bar formats such as Livehouse bars, fine wine bars and taverns, which focus on immersion experience and trendy play, are igniting the new "night" state of the city and activating the new vitality of night consumption. Among them, Live House, as an emerging music performance venue, has attracted the attention of a large number of young consumers with its unique music atmosphere and comfortable social space, and has become a growing dark horse in the tavern model. Some professionals pointed out that some Live House not only has a special wine bar, but also actively cooperates with well-known wine brands to launch limited edition or co-branded wine products. It provides a unique night consumption channel for whiskey, beer and other drinks, and further broadens the sales scene of other wines. For example, the foreign wine giant, is trying to explore new channels with the help of Live House model. Guo Binchen, chief executive officer of the group in China, once pointed out that Live House model has become a new growth point in the market. In order to lay out new consumption channels, the "Future Bar World" bar industry branch activities were jointly organized by the SIP. However, until now, the physical tavern is still a "not yet fully verified by the market" model. The 2023 Online Alcohol Consumption Trend Report shows that in addition to traditional social consumption scenarios, the demand for home drinking and daily catering is also obvious. It is worth noting that young people aged 18-35 have higher demand in these two scenes, with the proportion of choices reaching 60.2 and 45.2 respectively, which also means that the drinking field of young people may be quietly changing, and it is not necessary to go to the pub to drink. The industry view is that the pub industry is currently in the introduction period, showing a high degree of decentralization, the leading Helen Division market share of only about 1.1 percent, the top five enterprises total market share of only 2.2 percent. The lower industry entry threshold has also caused fierce competition in China's overall pub industry. In addition, the tavern market itself has business difficulties. First, the operating efficiency is "inherently insufficient", and the turnover rate is relatively low; second, the "consumer loyalty" of young people is not high, and "re-purchase" has become a business operator in all industries. Our problem. All in all, the tavern is still full of uncertainty. Whether the style of the tavern can be revived in the future may need the further promotion of the industry giants and the joint efforts of the emerging brands represented by Hellens and Tea Yanyue.

Wen | Huang Xiaoqi