The fireworks on the streets of Beijing are finally coming back.

On December 6th, "Beijing Press Release" said that from now on, you can enter supermarkets, commercial buildings and various public places without checking the negative certificate of nucleic acid test, and just scan the code to enter; Enter the Internet cafe, bar, chess room, KTV, script killing, sauna and other closed places, as well as restaurants, indoor fitness and other places, you must scan the code and check the negative certificate of 48-hour nucleic acid test.

Subsequently, many shopping malls in Beijing, such as Chaoyang Heshenghui, Huaxi Live, Raffles and Longhu Daxing Tianjie, announced that they would no longer check the negative nucleic acid certificate when entering the market, and some shopping malls resumed eating.

On the same day, China Newsweek visited and found that many restaurants had opened their doors to welcome guests, and even queued up. A catering company said that employees were very excited to hear the news of the resumption of in-class meals, because it meant "having classes, earning money and looking forward".

The hot pot restaurant queues up for 4 minutes

The Xizhimen store in Haidilao is resumed on the first day of eating. Photo/Yu Yuanshe

At 7: pm on December 6, the Xizhimen store in Haidilao lined up again after a lapse of half a month.

"two? You are the 15th table, and it is estimated that you will have to wait for more than 4 minutes. "

Ms. Jia, who was waiting for the bus, hurried to the punch hall for her first meal as soon as she got off work. "Winter is the season to eat hot pot, and eating in the store is more ceremonial and atmospheric."

compared with consumers, the happiness index of diners is several times higher. Chen Jian, manager of Xizhimen store in Haidilao, told China Newsweek that everyone was very excited when they heard the news of the resumption of eating in the dining hall, and their working status was also very positive, because it meant "having classes, earning money and looking forward".

According to him, throughout November, the store was closed off and on three times because of the epidemic. The first two times were 8-1 and 21-23 respectively, and the third time was from the 25th to yesterday. "The service industry is a process of emotional transmission. Since the closing of the canteen, everyone will inevitably have some anxiety."

after receiving the notice to resume eating in the dining room, Chen Jian organized employees to thoroughly clean and disinfect the store, and even invited a professional xiaosha company to carry out a more comprehensive xiaosha. In addition, the store paid off the stock of the warehouse, checked for leaks and filled in gaps, and timely stocked goods to ensure adequate supply.

Haidilao said that the employees who return to work in Beijing stores are inspected once a day according to the epidemic prevention requirements, and they arrive at their posts with 24-hour nucleic acid negative certificates. At present, store employees have completed food safety training and examinations before returning to work; For employees waiting to return to work, the company also arranged online job skills training to prepare for their arrival.

at 2: pm on December 6th, _ _ Hotpot Heshenghui Store is also working hard to restore the dining room. The staff said that the store received a notice to open the dining room near noon, and then the kitchen staff immediately took up their posts, checking the stocking, cutting vegetables and washing vegetables in an orderly manner; The dining area is also cleaned and disinfected one by one, and the tables and chairs on the facade are scrubbed. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon, the store welcomed the diners at the first table, and at 5: 3, it ushered in a small peak. At the same time, more than a dozen tables were seated in the store.

the above staff said that last night, the restaurant cafeteria received 72 tables of guests, about 16 people, and nearly 3 cups of milk tea were sold, and the overall sales situation basically recovered, which was the same as before the restaurant cafeteria was suspended. "The store staff are very excited. It has been more than half a month since we served consumers so closely."

In recent days, many places across the country have announced the resumption of dining hall meals.

on November 29th, Zhengzhou announced that the liquidity management would be lifted from 24: , and it would be transferred to normal epidemic prevention and control, and supermarkets, vegetable markets, restaurants and other places would be opened in an orderly manner. Since November 3, many districts in Guangzhou have successively announced the lifting of the temporary control zone, and other areas except high-risk areas have gradually resumed eating; On December 5th, three districts of Jinan, namely Jiyang District, Pingyin County and Shanghe County, issued notices, and all catering service units within their respective jurisdictions resumed dining services in an orderly manner.

stimulated by the recovery of the catering industry, catering stocks have continued to rise recently. On the morning of December 7th, Xiabu Xiabu performed best with an increase of about 7%, Haidilao increased by 4.6% and Helens increased by about 3%.

Will retaliatory consumption come back?

With the opening of dining halls, many catering people have seen the dawn, but in the view of Qin Wei, an industry insider, bottoming out does not mean returning to normal, and there is still a gap from the catering full of blood. "The recovery of dining room food is like boiling water. After cooling for so long, it is impossible to boil again overnight."

during the visit, China Newsweek found that the recovery situation among different locations, brands and formats is very different.

another hotpot restaurant in the same shopping mall as Xizhimen store in Haidilao is still empty during the evening rush hour; In the Xi tea shop downstairs, there are no consumers, and instead, there are a group of takeout staff who take meals.

Huaxi Live, located in the West Fourth Ring Road, was almost one of the first shopping malls to announce the resumption of dining on December 6th. However, during the peak dining hours that night, almost no restaurant was full of customers, and in many restaurants, there were obviously more waiters than consumers.

Guijie, the most famous food street in Beijing. However, from the street to the end of the street, less than 2% of the restaurants resumed eating. Even in Hu Da, which is famous for its reputation, it was only open for takeout that day.

On the first day after the resumption of school meals, Hu Da did not open school meals. Photo/Yu Yuanshe

A merchant said that due to the hasty notice of the policy, the stocking and staff in the store were not ready, and customers who could not receive the meals in the hall for the time being could only take out or pack them.

An Shaoning, secretary-general of Beijing Catering Industry Association, told China Newsweek that the recovery status of dining in catering enterprises is different, which mainly depends on two factors, one is the preparation of goods, and the other is the status of people, that is, employees.

Qin Wei told China Newsweek that under the condition of job rotation, employees' income is definitely not as high as before, and now the year is approaching, many people have applied for returning home in advance, and even employees have directly resigned, hoping to change their cities or industries for development.

Qin Wei is also very helpless about this. Catering has long been faced with the difficulties of recruiting and retaining people. At this juncture, employees are understandably resigned, but enterprises will once again face many pressures such as re-recruiting and re-training.

On the other hand, the operating cost pressure of catering enterprises may further increase after the reopening of dining halls.

after the opening of canteen food, the water, electricity and staff expenses of the store will definitely be indispensable, and many restaurant enterprises have also launched various promotional activities in order to restore passenger flow. Behind these activities are the real money earned by enterprises. Once they fail to meet expectations, profits will inevitably fall again.

fundamentally speaking, customers' lack of consumer confidence and willingness to consume are the biggest factors affecting the recovery of the catering industry at present.

Xue Hongyan, vice president of Xingtu Finance Research Institute, pointed out that generally speaking, the decline in consumption caused by the disappearance of consumption scenes will recover with the recovery of consumption scenes, such as catering consumption. With the recovery of restaurant food, the income of catering industry will be significantly improved, such as travel and other offline gathering consumption scenarios. However, it is difficult to return to the normal level, because it is difficult to restore consumer confidence overnight.

Wen Zhihong, a senior expert in chain operation, pointed out to China Newsweek that consumer confidence includes two aspects. One is the confidence to dare to spend. Because of the uncertainty of future income expectations, consumers are more tight with their money bags.

the other is the confidence to spend with confidence. The epidemic, which lasted for three years, caused many consumers to have fear, which also took time to eliminate. Even if the restaurant resumes eating, consumers will not go to the store for their own health reasons.

According to the survey conducted by Jinan Social and Economic Survey Center in July this year, the persistence of the epidemic has led to changes in people's consumption concepts, and consumption tends to be more conservative and cautious. Among the 181 units surveyed, 77.9% think that consumers' consumption intention has decreased and their consumption amount has decreased since the city resumed eating, and more than 4% of the people eating in restaurants have decreased, accounting for 46.4%, of which 34.5% have decreased by 4%-6%.

under the superposition of multiple factors, it is almost impossible to expect retaliatory consumption in catering.

The recovery of catering needs a multi-pronged approach

The total economic output of nearly 5 trillion yuan and the employment of 3 million people, which is the great value of the catering industry to China. Its prosperity is not only related to GDP growth, but also related to the livelihood of countless families.

Zhao Jingqiao, executive director of the Service Economy and Catering Industry Research Center of China Academy of Social Sciences, pointed out that as a traditional service industry, catering industry is a labor-intensive industry, which has a large-scale employment population and has played a great role in attracting employment.

"At present, there are nearly 3 million people directly employed in the catering industry in China. It is also the main employment channel for low-income groups, rural labor force and laid-off workers, so the catering industry is affected, which will also have an impact on the stability of the whole society. At the same time, we should also see that many catering enterprises are mainly small and micro enterprises, and many are family couples' restaurants. Their income will also have a great impact on the stability of the whole family. Therefore, the stability of the catering industry has played an important role in the employment and people's livelihood of the whole society. " Zhao Jingqiao explained.

Huaxi Live dining area. Photo/Yu Yuanshe

At present, the recurrence of the epidemic is still the sword of Damocles hanging in the catering industry. To make the passenger flow return to normal and restore vitality, it still needs the concerted efforts of many parties.

In this regard, Wen Zhihong suggested that the government can introduce measures to stimulate consumption, such as coupons. From the practice of various places, issuing food and beverage vouchers can quickly stimulate residents' willingness to consume food and beverage and stimulate the vitality of the main body of the food and beverage market.

Take Beijing as an example. In July this year, Beijing issued "Happy Reunion" food and beverage vouchers to consumers in the whole city. The government and the platform enterprises providing food and beverage services jointly contributed, and launched three kinds of food vouchers, namely, take-away, shop arrival and old-age assistance, totaling 1 million yuan.

According to the data, the issuance of consumer vouchers has stimulated citizens' enthusiasm for consumption. In the first three quarters, Beijing's catering revenue reached 75.24 billion yuan, down 11.6% year-on-year, and the decline was 4.8 percentage points narrower than that in the first half of the year.

enterprises also need to take active actions. Wen Zhihong said that after the resumption of the restaurant food, the takeaway still can't give up. Practice has proved that the double home mode of "in-house food+take-out" can significantly enhance the ability of catering enterprises to resist risks.

The Tenth Five-Year Plan for Digital Economy pointed out that digital service is an important way to meet people's needs for a better life. For catering enterprises, the digitalization of channels can help the catering industry to further expand trading scenarios, constantly break through the time and space constraints of catering consumption, help the industry expand effective supply and increase merchants' income.

According to the survey conducted by Meituan Research Institute, 82.97% and 83.4% of the merchants surveyed said that the opening of take-out service helped them expand their service radius and increase their income.

In addition, the prevention and control of epidemic situation cannot be relaxed. Beijing Catering Industry Association reminds catering enterprises to strictly implement the epidemic prevention and control measures of catering business units, restore in-house food in an orderly manner, and do a good job in epidemic prevention and control and safety production service guarantee in the catering industry.

freezing for three feet was not built in a day, and the return of blood in the catering industry is bound to be a protracted war. But even so, the catering people think that they must stick to their teeth. "It doesn't matter how much it costs, in order to let employees have food, let enterprises live, and let consumers not forget us."

References:

How do catering enterprises save themselves under repeated epidemics? , Agricultural Television Network, July 12, 222

Author: Yu Yuan