Wenheyou (文和友), a Chinese restaurant often dubbed the “Disneyland of Chinese cuisine”, serves over 40,000 diners a day!
The 6-story restaurant (located in Changsha, China) is meticulously designed to replicate the old Changsha street scene, complete with vintage items and tattered signboards. Through careful design and storytelling, Wenheyou transports visitors back in time, offering a nostalgic experience.
Wenheyou has become a cultural icon, and a must visit for tourists, in Changsha. But how does it manage the unique operational challenges of running a 6-story restaurant serving tens of thousands of customers daily?
Tune into this episode of the Impulso podcast as we dive into the Disneyland of Chinese cuisine, Wenheyou.
The trend of experience-driven dining is just one of many innovative concepts emerging in China’s fast-evolving and competitive F&B scene.
Join Momentum Works F&B innovation immersion to Changsha this November to see first-hand Wenheyou and other innovative F&B concepts, as well as best practices in operations and supply chain management.
Also available on Spotify and Apple Podcast.
Featured materials:
Momentum Works Immersions: F&B innovations
Momentum Works: Transforming Frontline Industries
Video sources:
Disneyland Paris Welcomes Back The Magic With A Reopening Starting June 17 | Disney Parks
FULL Magic Happens Parade 2024 at Disneyland Park! – Disney 100 Years of Wonder Celebration
Frozen Themed Land & 2 Frozen Rides | World of Frozen at Hong Kong Disneyland
BACK TO THE 80’S | A Vintage Restaurant Tour | Wenheyou, Changsha, Hunan
Guangzhou’s Food Court on Steroids: Wenheyou Super
Old China in Wenheyou | Discover Guangzhou
Haidilao Dance
[AI-generated transcript]
Sabrina: Hello everyone and welcome back to episode 94 of the Impulso podcast by Momentum Works. So on today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about Wenheyou, which is also known as the Disneyland of Chinese cuisine, and they serve over 40, 000 people a day. So Disneyland typically symbolizes a world of fantasy as well as nostalgia for some people, and Wenheyou aims to and manages to capture this charm.
So, stepping into Wenheyou feels like you’ve travelled back into the 1980s of old Changsha. The six story restaurant spanning 20, 000 square metres was built to replicate the old Changsha street scene, showing the life of Changsha’s ordinary citizens in the 80s and 90s. So the restaurant spends a lot of effort to recreate the nostalgic feeling of old Changsha through its meticulous design details.
It’s adorned with nearly 10, 000 vintage items and tattered signboards, all meticulously designed to look as if they had existed more than 40 years ago in the 1980s, creating an atmosphere steeped in nostalgia. And of course, in addition to the main restaurant, there are a number of small [00:01:00] stores in the restaurant selling snacks, souvenirs and even a bookstore. Okay,
so, Jianggan, you recently visited Wenheyou on your recent trip to Changsha, right? What was the experience like?
Jianggan: I think for people to understand Wenheyou, you would need to understand Changsha first. So we spoke with generally friends in the F& B industry would know Changsha very well because it is seen as the entertainment capital of China.
It’s a city of 10 million, which is, of course, small by China’s standard. But it’s somehow very vibrant that it has lots of, Concepts and lots of experiences. And when you were in Changsha itself, I saw you feel that the city just doesn’t sleep. So we go to the sort of coastal business focus cities in China.
Nowadays people sort of go somewhere after dinner and the streets become quiet, but when we were in Changsha for a couple of days that was not even doing a Metro holiday. So every night, like 11, 12 Close to midnight, the streets were full of people. That’s the context. And when it comes to Wenheyou per se [00:02:00] so I heard of this restaurant even before the pandemic, because there were news reports about, you know, sometimes like 20, 000 dinner parties in a queue to get a table in it.
And of course after the pandemic, it became a little bit different, but still, I mean, it’s packed and with lots of people waiting outside. The restaurant itself. I don’t know what I should call the restaurant because
Sabrina: Because I remember when you were explaining it to us as well, restaurant didn’t seem like the right word, right?
Jianggan: I don’t know
Sabrina: how to
Jianggan: call it. So before I went there, I thought, okay, they took some old streets and sort of refurbished them and created some experience. But when I was there, I realized it was actually in shopping mall. It was actually in a new shopping mall with top brands. And they took six floors of a portion of the shopping mall and turned it into something old.
And when I was walking around, I was constantly asking people, Hey, you must have taken this from somewhere, like old neighborhood or some, some building which was about to be demolished. But [00:03:00] there was, the management always smiled and told us, look, everything’s new. We made it look old.
Sabrina: They spent a lot of effort into designing all their, not just the signboards, right, but even the streets and all.
They have, like, tattered stickers pasted on the walls.
Jianggan: They spent probably in a range of 100 million yuan. That’s like 12, 13 million dollars to, create a whole atom sphere. And I was told that I think they engaged the production houses of movies to come in and help them design everything.
So everything was new. No, everything is new and everything looks old.
Sabrina: So it was very, very meticulously designed, right?
Jianggan: It is, it is. And down to the minute details. The stark difference you will see is when you’re actually standing. I mean, when, so basically on some of the floors, there’s a door which leads to the other side of the mall.
And once you’re there, you feel that, wow, okay. I don’t know how to say that. You see a line between the old and new. So the new part is just. No more part of the mall, right? You have [00:04:00] shops, you have restaurants and stuff, but once you step into the small entrance and it feels like I mean, depending on what your life experiences have been, it either feels very nostalgic, I mean, something in the past or maybe a cyberpunk.
Sabrina: Yes, I remember looking at the photos. It looks very similar. So I guess this is why people say that Wenheyou is kind of like the Disneyland of Chinese cuisine, right? Because similarly to Disneyland, they spent a lot of effort putting, they spent a lot of effort into this design elements to kind of recreate the, this feeling of like, not really nostalgia for some, but of course, like we mentioned, most of the people who visit Wenheyou probably weren’t I don’t remember much of 1980s.
I mean
Jianggan: I mean, for people who have been through 1980s or even before, you would know that, okay life is not as easy as it is nowadays. But of course some people would feel that, okay, that was a time that you actually had optimism about the future. As compared to now, where, I mean, [00:05:00] the economy is at a crossroad, people don’t know.
Well, what’s going to be next? But the people I saw there I saw two, probably two groups, which I could recognize and trust the young people. Young people like to use social media, like to experience. So lots of them, they’re taking photos, you know just post on social media, et cetera. And the second group is the tourists.
And there were lots of tourists there. I think they have somehow viewed Wenheyou to be an icon of Changsha.
Sabrina: It’s more of a cultural experience as well, right?
Jianggan: And it’s kind of funny, right? I mean, we go to China, Changsha per se, and you would see some of the brands, which are, I mean, aside from Wenhe, you also have Cha Yan Yue Se which is not really bubble tea, which is like, yeah, kind of milk tea concept with a traditionally brewed sort of tea leaves kind of concept.
Chagee, as we see in Singapore, initially copied from Cha Yan Yue Se. And some people have been sort of saying that, Oh, Cha Yan Yue Se has never managed to expand outside Changsha because you in most places in most cities [00:06:00] in China, you don’t see Cha Yan Yue Se. Yes, but we go to Changsha is everywhere. So there was one junction or pedestrian road, not far from what we were like five minutes walk from Ohio.
It was more like six Cha Yan Yue Se outlets. At this junction. I mean, like you raise your head, it’s fine. You turn right, it’s another one. You turn left, it’s a third one. And if you pass, they’re staring at you. So it’s interesting. And I was talking to people who are familiar with the way they design things.
They said that, okay, well, same, same as we’ll tell you. This concept has become uniquely Changsha. So, which becomes something that attracts lots of tourists something towards that when they come, they will look to experience, but it also makes it difficult for them to expand outside, right?
Because the experience become less authentic. The reason why they open so many stores is they occupy all the retail space. The whole street of lots of pedestrians, you, you don’t see any other.
Sabrina: Only Cha Yan Yue Se
Jianggan: Cha Yan Yue Se and it’s only when you like you know, [00:07:00] go through the whole stretch.
There’s a small lane opposite. You see one Chagee, but otherwise it’s only Cha Yan Yue Se.
Sabrina: Only Cha Yan Yue Se but I think that’s the interesting thing about companies like Wenheyou and Cha Yan Yue Se right? When you’re branding or sort of the concept of your store is so deeply ingrained in a certain city’s culture.
Bringing that. Out it’s kind of difficult as well. So we’ve seen, we know when you has expanded into Guangzhou and Shenzhen, right? Yeah. They’ve tried, but of course it’s very difficult for them because do they replicate, it wouldn’t make sense to replicate the culture of Changsha and bring it into Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
Jianggan: So we had a dinner with the management where we sort of discussed about the expansion as well. And I think the charge , to megastores in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. And they felt that initially, they wanted to create one experience, which is one for you is one for you, per se, but also infused with lots of local elements of the cities they went in.
So, you know, Guangzhou and Shenzhen are both tier one cities. So Guangzhou has a [00:08:00] very rich and very long culinary culture. And Cantonese restaurants came from there, right? So and Shenzhen is a, is a migrant city, so it has its own sort of fusion of different cultures and different experiences.
The challenge for Wenheyou is that historically it has been recognized as a cultural icon as we discussed of Changsha. So when I go to a new city and how do they merge this strong identity with the local elements. They spent a probably lots of lots of money and lots of lots of attention to design the stores in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, but consumers were confused saying.
Sabrina: Is it designed to look like the old Changsha or is it designed to look like the old Guangzhou and old Shenzhen? a mix?
Jianggan: It’s, it’s more like a mix.
Sabrina: I can see why that would be confusing, because it looks, it Like something that you’ve seen before, but at the same time,
Jianggan: there
Sabrina: are elements that you’ve never seen before.
Jianggan: And it’s
Sabrina: weird.
Jianggan: So the reflection for the management is that the next time when they talk about product expansion, they should probably not go and try to imagine what works in a [00:09:00] particular city. They should probably find a partner in that city who knows that city inside out, who can Resonate with the, with sort of 98 is 97 experience of that city and who can recruit that.
And from her point of view instead of like exporting everything, what they should really export is the know how of how to manage such a large setup, right? Imagine like 70, 000, 40, 000
Sabrina: people a day,
Jianggan: they need to have very efficient supply chain, very efficient operations. And I was looking at the kitchens, they have kitchens on multiple floors.
And how do you balance that wall? And, also we go into the restaurant. I think you can show some video footage of that. It’s very confusing, right? I mean, so it’s very easily, you get lost very easily.
Sabrina: Also, cause I think the restaurant is six stories and technically the whole thing is the restaurant, right?
So you can sit anywhere. So for a consumer, it’s probably kind of confusing as well. You
Jianggan: can see yeah, there are tables everywhere. The funny thing is that some of the places are [00:10:00] labeled as like male bathroom or female bathroom, like a public one, but actually there are tables that you can sit.
And then there’s also one skating rink, which initially they created a skating rink of like 1980s where you don’t have the, what do you call that? The ice skating. So it’s more of a sort of a roller skater. So they have that skating rink. Eventually, it became too popular. So they turned the skating rink into a bunch of tables as well.
Sabrina: But I guess if you’re serving 40, 000 people a day, you do need to have the capacity as well, right?
Jianggan: You do need to have the capacity. And I think when they created this concept, they knew it was going to be popular, but they didn’t know how popular it would be. But I think Founder had this strong sort of a desire to create something authentic.
So one story they told us is that for the ice skating rink, so, sorry, for the roller skating rink, and initially they really sort of put the posters of 1980s and put a ticket counter and people actually can go there and rent the, what do you call that? [00:11:00] Yeah. And actually do the skating and they have the lighting of like a discotheque of 1980s as well, playing the music.
They also told us that to make it more authentic they invited some old ladies to come in and sit around the corner to play mahjong. And they paid the old ladies, retired ladies 3, 000 yuan a month just to play mahjong.
Sabrina: That’s my dream job, guys. In case anyone is wondering, to be paid to play mahjong, you know, in a very nice restaurant.
But I think this is something that One Hero does that is kind of similar to Disney as well, right, in the sense that it’s not just through their design elements that they are trying to create that feeling of nostalgia, but they also have a lot, they weave a lot of storytelling into the experience. So obviously when you visit Disneyland, there’s all these, like, characters and mascots that you can meet that are, like, in their certain Areas of Disneyland.
Mm-Hmm. But in Wenheyou it’s similar, right? So they do have stories of real people that they try to weave into the design or the concept of the restaurant just to make it seem a little more authentic, [00:12:00] right?
Jianggan: Yeah. So it actually feels quite authentic. Mm-Hmm. Aside from, from the fact that it’s everything like so condensed into a area which looks a bit cyberpunk.
So I mean, there’s this like a store setting like random. Items and it was a real store and which was popular in 1980s and because of demolition of the old places, I think the store owners have decided not to do it anymore. But when your founder invited him to open that store there, and same go for a bookstore, same goes for a number of like, you know street stores, selling like fried food and stuff.
They really put a lot of effort in it, and I think for Changsha itself, for that store itself, it’s paying off.
Sabrina: I think they spent a lot of effort curating even the merchants that they allow in, right? Because of course, like we said, they are a restaurant, but because they are so big, they also do have individual stores inside the restaurant that are operated by external parties.
Jianggan: It’s like when you go to a shopping mall, right? You have the food, you have the
Sabrina: food.
Jianggan: You have no, sorry Large supermarket and he sells food But [00:13:00] you might also have a food court attached to it
Sabrina: Yeah, then you have individual sellers selling stuff And of course this these people bring kind of a more nostalgic feeling into old chunks as well Right.
So like you were saying about the bookstore when most of these merchants actually don’t really pay rent right
Jianggan: I don’t know if you think about a story of them inviting, I mean, old people to come here to play Mahjong and actually pay them to do so. So I, at the end of the day, those hawkers are there to sell stuff, but they’re also part of the experience. In a way That each of them is unique, and they contribute to the whole experience.
So, of course the economics, they need to figure out, I mean, who brings more to do.
Sabrina: I’m sure that’s something that they’ve spent a lot of effort thinking about as well. And it’s interesting because we’ve kind of seen the rise of, I don’t know if it’s still a trend, but we’ve seen that there are a lot more restaurants trying to create this experience driven dining, right?
So typically when we talk about tech companies like e commerce, food delivery, there’s this metric we use, which is store quite how shall. Yeah. So quantity. [00:14:00] Speed, quality, as well as cost, right? Yes. And recently, we’ve also seen that there’s been this element of fun added. For example, through TikTok shop, where people do like live commerce, etc.
And we see that restaurants are also trying to I mean, this store is also applicable to restaurants, right? They do focus on being cheap. Are you a fast food chain? Are you a quality restaurant? And now they’ve also introduced the element of fun.
Jianggan: I think at the end of the day, F& B is a large sector with lots of different concepts.
And the biggest denominator of course is savings, right? I mean, you go for your sort of daily at, very reasonable, very cheap price. But not everyone can play this game, right? I mean, if you look at the whole sort of key sector, only Mixue manages to, I mean, to, do it cheaper than everybody else.
And if you, I mean, the same lesson applies elsewhere, right? I mean, if you look at the EV industry, only Tesla and BYD can do it very cheap and the others would have to find ways to [00:15:00] differentiate. Of course the experience becomes something that people use to differentiate. I mean you have probably been to Haidilao multiple times.
Sabrina: So yeah, and a good example I was thinking of is Haidilao, right? So I think they were one of the first few chains that kind of started this experience dining. I mean they had the noodle dance and then they had the face changing performance. Now they even have the kemusan, which is like the dancing waiters, and there’s also another famous hot pot in China, they’re famous, but they also have, they specialize in having their waiters dance, right?
Yes.
Jianggan: ke mu san which means I don’t know how to translate that word. ke mu san means that, okay. You, you are somebody and there’s somebody who’s a much more fearsome towards you. And you said, okay, fine. I will not compete. That’s ke mu san it’s like, it’s like giving up is ransom, right? So they create a concept out of that.
And they have people dressed up in a very, very weird costume. You can play a video for that and dance. So I’ve been there a few times. I mean, the food is good. And I don’t [00:16:00] quite really like the dance, but every time I see like, you know, the parents bring their kids there and every kid loves it.
They create opportunity or excuse for people to visit them. I mean, that also shows the competition that FNB players in China.
Sabrina: And I think it’s not just something that’s unique to China, right? I mean, we’ve seen it outside of China as well. There are a lot of game stores. For example, in Singapore, there was that whole Ralph Lauren coffee shop.
In, I think the U S they have like fork and film, which is isn’t Ralph Lauren. It’s an experience. So like, like there’s a coach cafe as well. It is fun because people would go because they associate the brand and then they go into F& B. There’s also Falkland film in the US, which is sort of like they play you a movie as you eat, and then they will curate the menu based on dishes from that movie.
Because there’s different movies.
Jianggan: So
Sabrina: I will go more than once. So for example, like if there’s a movie that you like, you will go once. If there’s a new movie, you’d go again. So it’s like, I feel that’s the thing with this experience driven dining, right? You have to keep [00:17:00] introducing something new.
Jianggan: Okay, my behavior as a consumer might not
Sabrina: be the same.
But that’s, I realized that’s why Hai Di Lao also always changes what they do, right? So now the noodle dance is not as popular, but then they have the dancing with us.
Jianggan: I think it’s interesting story, right? Because it came out of a relatively smaller city. You know, hot pot province of and I think initially, the founder felt that I mean, we try to compete on taste. It’s very difficult because taste is subjective. And besides to maintain consistent superiority. Over something, which is subjective is quite hard. Yeah. So they decided to focus on experience per se. I think back then nobody was focused on experience, so they managed to stand out, right?
I mean, you can do a manicure, while queuing, and
Sabrina: Now they wash your hair. After you eat hot pot. Cause you know it’ll stink, like it makes, the smoke makes your hair smell. So now at some outlets, they wash your hair.
Jianggan: Nice. They constantly add that to the experience element. And also, of course nowadays as F&B [00:18:00] competition in China hits up.
So, people are trying to sort of create different experiences, which means that the leading players have to constantly innovate to stay ahead. Many of these players are actually coming out of China. Haidilao is quite successful.
Sabrina: Haidilao has been pretty successful outside of China, right?
But of course, this is just
Jianggan: When did you first go to Haidilao? Do you remember?
Sabrina: Oh my god, maybe when I was in secondary school. JC.
Jianggan: How do you feel?
Sabrina: When I first went to Haidilao.
Jianggan: Spoon back to
Sabrina: memory? When I first went to Haidilao, like, noodle dance. Yeah, you couldn’t remember the food,
Jianggan: right?
Sabrina: So, yeah, I didn’t.
Honestly, okay, my opinion is that Haidilao The best hot pot is the hot pot you eat at home because it’s the cheapest you just buy ingredients from the no You are doing your own cooking. You don’t have to go to haiti now But why you go to haiti now is let’s say if you’re celebrating your friend’s birthday, right?
They have cake they have like the big neon sign boards. Then they sing very loudly embarrasses your friend. It’s very fun So it’s the experience. It’s not the food
Jianggan: So it’s the same reason why young people in certain countries [00:19:00] go to like fast food restaurants to celebrate birthdays. So they create that experience for you.
Sabrina: It’s the Karen diner thing that was in the U. S. as well, right? So, okay, it’s basically this diner where you go and the waitresses are all very rude to you.
Jianggan: Oh.
Sabrina: On purpose.
Jianggan: Oh.
Sabrina: And people go there because it’s, it’s funny and it generates like social media content.
Jianggan: Do you go there like again or just go there?
Sabrina: You go there a one time thing so they did like a pop up I think it was more of a pop up like a one time thing just to try it out So I think you definitely see that I mean, experience is something that people are looking for, right? But again, this is just one part of the F& B business. This is how you attract customers.
But in the long run, we know that F& B is a very operations heavy business, right? So if you’re a company like Wenheyou, who serves 40, 000 people a day, how do you manage your operations? Especially your restaurant is six stories. There’s so many tables.
Jianggan: How do
Sabrina: they manage? First,
Jianggan: put people at the strategic locations with a signboard saying that, Hey, if you get lost, ask me.[00:20:00]
Sabrina: Oh, But
Jianggan: it’s people who are lost.
They do have people there. I was talking to the management, of course, I mean, it has a couple of things, right? And first, how do you how to manage the supply chain? Because we do make sure that you have enough inventory enough ingredients for all these people.
And how do you manage the kitchen operations? And how do you in order to draw, like, repeat customers? And how do you? Sort of change the menu and how frequently do we change the menu and what is the seasonal stuff that we want to put on the menu and how to source for it. So I think you have to go there and see how they do it.
So it’s, it’s very hard, hard to make.
Sabrina: And I think that’s the interesting thing about F& B, right? That it’s such an operationally heavy business at the back end. That’s the whole supply chain and kitchen operations. The thing about even product innovation, how often do you have to change your menu?
So for example, a company that we talk about very often is Luckin Coffee, right? Luckin innovates their products very, very quickly. They have about a hundred SKUs a year. So how exactly do they do it? And then of course, there’s also the more like. Front and facing side, right? How do you track your customers [00:21:00] to get them to come?
Do you use experience or do you like me? You just sell very very cheap products that will bring in a crowd But of course to sell a product as cheap as like the Mixue ice cream You have to be so operationally efficient your supply chain has to be so
Jianggan: established Yeah, you have to have skill and you have to be very efficient and across all different aspects so we’ll look at The different companies Mixue, Luckin that we talk about a lot They all managed to create extreme efficiency in multiple aspects of their operations.
When it comes to say well, how you write this concept, I mean, it’s not something that if you open like 30, 000 stores, but once a store is there and it’s pretty defendable. So it’s cultural icon And everybody who goes to Changsha as tourist and Changsha attracts lots of tourists and you have to go there.
We were sitting in a private dining room, which resembles like you know, 1980s, like household, like dining room where you still had multi generation living in the same household. The people are telling us that many of the dining rooms are actually reserved by [00:22:00] business dinner parties, right?
If you have customers, clients, partners from visiting from different cities, so you do invite them to Wenheyou because it’s something that you can actually be proud of and you can showcase to them and it creates a reason for people to be there.
Sabrina: And it’s kind of something that you wouldn’t see anywhere else because where else in the world would you go that you would be able to see? This old Changsha culture.
Jianggan: No, if you only say it in Changsha, because I mean. Where
Sabrina: else in the world would they want a six story restaurant replicating the old Changsha streets if not in Changsha?
Jianggan: Yes. And also, I think there’s a bit of a background here because of the you know, China went sort of urban rejuvenation initially over the last 20 years. And lots of the old neighborhoods were demolished and making way for. High risk buildings, apartment blocks, et cetera.
That made I think lots would take businesses possible because now you have the density. Yeah. And you have the infrastructure there, but also you also made the cities less things distinct. Mm-Hmm. . So in cities like Chendu, et cetera. So you do have people [00:23:00] trying who have been through the old city and who are now trying to do, build something unique for that city.
I do think that, in many of the large metropolises in the world, you do have that opportunity, right, to create something which is unique for that city.
Sabrina: Yeah. With a lot of culture and all. So if you guys are interested in visiting Wenheyou after today’s episode, which I’m sure you are Momentum Works is actually planning a F& B immersion to Changsha in November this year.
So one hero of course, is one of the stores that we’ll be visiting, right, just because of the concept and because it’s a must see in Changsha. But we’re not just gonna be looking at brands and concepts. We’re also going to be looking at the operation side of f and b businesses like the supply chain, maybe some restaurant tech.
So if you guys are interested, I will leave a link in the show notes down below so you guys can register. And then of course, a member of our team will reach out to you to share a little bit more about the program. So, Jianggan, what would you say to people to get them to join our F& B immersion?
Jianggan: I do think that there’s something unique about Changsha in terms of how [00:24:00] concepts are created, brands are created and how the supply chain is managed.
I was there for a couple of days. We visited not only the concepts and we also visited lots of factories. Factories producing different kinds of food elements and I think quite a number of concepts are bursting out in the sense that I Bumped into at least three different parties who try to create this Steamed dish concept from a suburb of Hong
Sabrina: Kong.
Jianggan: In Singapore. So he’s already gaining popularity in cities in China. I think there’s opportunity for them to come out. And I do think that there’s chances that partnerships can be built. In addition to looking at all operations, looking at all the service providers, looking at all the sort of brand building and the different aspects of actually managing a business.
Sabrina: So if you guys are interested, the link will be down in the show notes below. Can just reach out to us and we’ll Contact you. So thank you guys for tuning into another episode of the impulso podcast. We hope that you enjoyed today’s episode. And as usual, if you did do like our podcast and subscribe to us on YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcast, or your preferred podcast [00:25:00] platform to stay up to date on the latest happenings and trends in tech, new retail and the broader digital economy.
Thank you. And bye bye.
Jianggan: Bye bye.