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on march 18, hou yi retired from hema, but he did not "disappear" from his wechat moments. on that day, i sent him a wechat message saying, "no matter what, lao cai (hou yi's nickname), i look forward to seeing you again." hou yi replied, "see you again."

hou yi did not set his moments to be visible for three days, so his past glory just “lies” in his moments. he did not quietly disappear from the social world just because of his retirement.

142 days after announcing his official retirement, on august 7, hou yi posted a message on wechat moments that he had opened a "small restaurant" called "tonight's moment" in a business district at no. 988 quxi road, huangpu district, the core area of ​​shanghai.

in this way, hou yi returned to the public eye in a high-profile manner.

on august 16, hou yi posted another circle of friends: "from july 6th, we started to prepare and set up the team, and on august 2nd, we started trial operation. on august 12th, we became the number one barbecue restaurant on dianping.com, and on august 16th, we officially opened for business..."

he took a photo in front of the "tonight's moment" restaurant, which was his new battlefield. he was surrounded by flower baskets and bundles of barley sent by his "brothers and comrades-in-arms" with words such as "good luck in opening" and "guests are flocking in".

"i'm thick-skinned and there's nothing to be embarrassed about opening a small restaurant." hou yi said that after retiring from hema, many people approached him and invited him to be the chairman of a certain company, or to do consulting, or investment. "i don't want to work for others anymore. i'd rather be my own boss and do what i like," said hou yi.

"involution? going deeper brings opportunities"

more than 100 days before the opening of "tonight's moment", hou yi went to lingyin temple in hangzhou and experienced "silent viewing" again. he said in his circle of friends:

in the fengqing yang class, the four words that teacher ma admired the most were "静观妙", which came from the lingyin temple in hangzhou. after retiring, he read them again and had a lot of insights:

watching the wonders quietly is like looking at the world with a cold eye, but it is not cold, because the mind is calm. if the mind is calm, one will not go with the flow and will see the wind as wind, the rain as rain and the clouds as clouds.

the audience is wonderful. the wonderful thing is the word "wonderful". they are full of passion and enthusiasm for loving the world. although their hearts are calm, they are not dead. they still love all living beings and all things, and still think that everything is wonderful!

may you and i be able to quietly watch the wonders, keep moving forward, and keep loving; 60 years old is a new starting point, and it is most important to be full of love for the world, full of appreciation for others, and maintain a good attitude and body...

during the more than 100 days that hou yi was "unemployed", many people approached him and asked him to be the chairman of a listed company. large consulting companies wanted him to speak overseas about china's new retail and asked him to make investments... "i refused them all. i'd rather see what opportunities there are in china myself." hou yi said with a smile that he is quite popular.

starting from april, hou yi spent two months running around the country. "i didn't have any purpose at the time. i didn't have time. now that i've retired, i have time to take a deeper look. i ran all over china three or four days a week."

“there is a huge price difference between the real good ingredients from their place of origin and the terminal price in the catering industry today.” hou yi said that catering is not like supermarkets. supermarkets purchase on a large scale and have strong bargaining power, but catering is not like that. even if there are dozens of restaurants and 100 items, the purchasing volume is very small. therefore, even if it is difficult for catering stores to form good prices, it does not matter if the purchasing price is a little higher because of the high gross profit margin.

in fact, the entire catering industry has intensified its internal competition since 2024, with activities such as price cuts, promotions, group purchase discount packages, etc. emerging in an endless stream. at the same time, various costs such as rent, labor costs, and food costs are also rising, squeezing the profit margins of catering companies.

"if you look superficially, you will find that there is a high degree of involution everywhere; but if you look deeply, you will find opportunities everywhere. i have seen many industries and categories, and if you look deeply, there is a lot of room for growth." hou yi said, i see a lot of opportunities in the market, it would be a pity not to do it, so i might as well jump in and give it a try.

what surprised hou yi was that after the trial operation of "tonight's moment" on august 2, the business was generally good. after hou yi posted a circle of friends on august 7, new and old friends flocked to the store. "in less than a month, my store became the second place for barbecue in huangpu district."

hou yi revealed in an interview on august 16 that the store's daily turnover was about 30,000.

“i want to open a store that others can’t understand.”

now, hou yi takes the subway from his house in the suburbs to the store early every morning and arrives at the store before 10 o'clock, "to review various situations in the store the day before, prepare for the day's business, and try out the dishes," said hou yi.

hou yi has a car and can hire a driver to drive him, but he still chooses to take the subway to "go to work". "this is how i exercise. walking 10,000 steps a day is pretty good." on the day of the interview, hou yi looked in good spirits and very relaxed. he said that he would find a resting place next to the restaurant in the afternoon so that he could take a nap.

it took less than a month to set up the team, choose the site and decorate the store "jinxiao yike". hou yi's strong execution ability and the speed of his comeback are astonishing.

compared with hema's exploration from 0 to 1, with thousands of skus and hundreds of stores... "running a restaurant is relatively easier, with only more than 30 skus in total." from the "crossover" of supermarkets to catering, hou yi treated "tonight's moment" as a model room and continued to polish it.

hou yi did not introduce any capital for this store, and invested entirely with his own funds. "i want to build a store that others cannot understand," hou yi said.

the restaurant "tonight's moment" firstly sets the prices of many dishes to the extreme. 38.8 yuan for 6 grilled oysters with garlic and chili, 9.9 yuan for one swimming crab, 28 yuan for 2 people of chicken soup and seafood congee, 9.9 yuan for a large glass of beer, 48 yuan for a special crispy duck... these dishes and prices are "rudely" displayed on the light boxes outside the store, under the store's house number, and on the walls inside the store...

the oysters at "tonight's hour" can be used as sashimi, and they come from zhuanghe, dalian, liaoning, the best oyster producing area in china. the same plate of peanuts from yunnan was sold for 88 yuan in a high-end restaurant in shanghai, but at hou yi's "tonight's hour", it only costs less than 10 yuan.

"today, i want to put the best ingredients in china, the most seasonal ingredients, in this store." hou yi said that this has something to do with the supermarket business he has been doing for a long time. "the restaurant's dishes follow the seasons and are served in different seasons." hou yi regards this as an important positioning of "tonight's moment" and even a competitive advantage.

hou yi also understands shanghai users very well. "i think that if consumption is downgraded, there will be no market in shanghai." shanghai itself is a fairly wealthy city. consumption upgrading and the pursuit of a better life are what everyone aspires to. providing good products at the lowest prices is what shanghai people need.

past experiences have taught hou yi to know where the good things are, what the supply chain of those good things is like, and what prices are the most favorable... these "information gaps" and "relationship networks", after years of accumulation, are probably completely lacking in most self-made catering entrepreneurs.

it's not just the dishes, but also refined management, digitalization, equipment innovation, logistics innovation... hou yi wants to apply all these things accumulated over the past few decades in the restaurant "jinxiao yike".

the digitization of the kitchen is an important strategy that hou yi is concerned about. "we have been digitizing the kitchen equipment since the first day. it takes about 8-10 minutes for others to grill oysters, but we only need 2 minutes." hou yi said in an interview that microwave grilling, microwave steaming, double-sided grilled lamb skewers...are all under research. "we hope that all equipment in the future will be controllable equipment, without the need for chefs to control, but rather the introduction of digital technology, using time and algorithms to control."

in hou yi's opinion, the digitization of kitchen equipment in chinese catering stores is actually far behind logistics equipment, etc., and there is a lot of room for improvement.

“it is possible to open 100 stores next year.”

"in the past, i was thinking and studying various opportunities every day. among these opportunities, the most difficult one is starting a business. starting a business is not something i thought about today, but many years ago." hou yi explained why he was able to quickly open the first "tonight's moment" store after his retirement.

what is most surprising is that the second and third stores of "tonight's moment" are already under planning, located in pudong new area and dahua area of ​​putuo district respectively, and both have entered the decoration stage.

"the new store in pudong is expected to open in october." hou yi said that the store in putuo is expected to open before the end of the year. "if it works, it is possible to open 100 stores next year!"

hou yi did not seem to have thought of being content with just opening a restaurant. in his plan, "tonight's moment" must be a chain restaurant enterprise.

"global catering companies that have standardized their products include mcdonald's and kfc, and another one that is popular all over the world is saizeriya, which provides 100% pre-prepared meals." hou yi said that saizeriya uses standardized catering and industrialization to improve kitchen efficiency and reduce prices. this allows us to see the effect of transforming kitchen equipment and truly realizing industrialization.

data shows that saizeriya, a japanese italian restaurant chain founded in 1967, entered the chinese market in 2003. relying on its differentiated positioning of "affordable italian food", it is called the "poor man's meal" by many consumers. by 2024, saizeriya will have more than 1,500 stores worldwide, with more than 400 stores in china.

according to data from dianping.com, the average consumption per customer at saizeriya's shanghai stores is between 40 and 50 yuan. a serving of garlic snails costs 17 yuan, spaghetti bolognese 13 yuan, and a pizza 26 yuan... "great value for money" has become the most frequently used description by consumers in the review area.

for "tonight", hou yi wanted to make it the "saizeriya" of china.

currently, the average per capita consumption of "tonight's moment" on dianping is 91 yuan. grilled oysters with garlic sauce, black goat kebabs with cumin, and steamed swimming crabs are the top three dishes recommended by netizens. in the evaluation of consumers, words such as "high cost performance" and "exceeding expectations" also appear frequently. hou yi and his team are also aware of some complaints from netizens, such as the lack of waiters, "we are constantly optimizing the service experience."

while the first store was in operation, we were polishing every aspect, including the positioning of user groups, updating of menu items, changes in business hours...all of which were constantly being dynamically adjusted in order to open more stores in the future.

hou yi still remembers a conversation he had with lu zhengyao, then founder of luckin coffee, several years ago. "lu was talking about the digitization of the new coffee machine, how many coffee beans needed to be added, what kind of coffee beans to add, how many cups to grind...all of these were achieved through the digitization of the equipment. the key is that through this, chain management becomes simple and operation is also simple." hou yi said that not much manpower is required in the process and costs can be reduced.

as japan's saizeriya becomes more and more popular in china, and as more and more chain coffee shops appear on the streets of shanghai, hou yi also has the same expectations for the chainization of "tonight's coffee shop", which is the motivation for his "comeback".

on august 7, the same day hou yi announced his move, there were reports that hema had been profitable for four consecutive months and had given up on copying sam's club. the new ceo yan xiaolei made it clear at the general meeting in june: hema would not be sold, and set a goal of 100 billion yuan in annual gmv in three years.

all the past has become a cloud of smoke, and hou yi is already on a new journey. although we are still used to calling him by his nickname "lao cai", he has become "teacher hou" and is walking in a new world.