Roasters break into Beijing to become “scalpers”: The hundreds of billions of grilled fish track is heading for a “stagnation period”, and there are still many checkpoints for Internet celebrities to become popular

Photo source: Visual China

Blue Whale News, February 14 (Reporter Zhang Jinglun)At 9:55 a.m. on February 14, there were still 5 minutes before the opening of the Heshenghui Mall in Chaoyang, Beijing. The entrance of the shopping mall in the B3 parking lot was already crowded with people, and dozens of people were waiting here. The moment the glass doors of the mall opened, most customers sprinted 100 meters in one direction. What makes diners look forward to is the Sichuan-Chongqing spicy grilled fish brand roaster who has become popular in Beijing recently.

Since the first store opened in Beijing in September last year, the popularity of roasters has remained high, becoming the new queuing king in the capital’s food circle. According to netizens on social platforms, diners waiting for two or three hours is just the basics, and seven or eight hours are no surprise.

The scalper market is also growing savagely with the help of booming business. On February 12, Ping An Beijing released a message saying that Beijing Chaoyang police launched a crackdown on scalpers who appeared around an Internet celebrity restaurant and arrested a total of eight scalpers who had reversed their numbers. As soon as the news came out, some netizens immediately recognized that the catering brand involved in the incident was a roaster located in Heshenhui, Beijing.

Grilled fish is not a new category. There are many grilled fish shops across the country. It is rare for consumers to queue up to eat grilled fish among many brands. Why is the roaster, an old brand established for more than ten years, able to resist the trend and become popular? In Beijing, where first stores are gathered and grilled fish brands are crowded, how long can the popularity of roasters last? After the freshness, can the roaster transform from an Internet celebrity to a permanent celebrity?

You need to use running to grab the number

In order to smooth the queue the next day, the Blue Whale News reporter specially learned the roaster’s queuing skills on social platforms one day in advance. A senior who has eaten a roaster shared her experience: there are 23 tables in each of the small tables, which means that the 23 tables of the two tables can be eaten directly at 11 o’clock. If you drive, the door at elevator entrance 3 in Area D is the closest. You don’t need to recognize the way at all. You just open the door at 10 o’clock and follow the crowd.” rdquo;

The picture shows the roasters taking the number and queuing up. Photo by Blue Whale journalist Zhang Jinglun

At 10:01 a.m., when the Blue Whale News reporter arrived at the roaster queue entrance, there were already twenty to thirty people in front of him. At 10:10, when the Blue Whale News reporter got the number, it was already table number 33. During the waiting process, the pedestrians coming and going were filled with plaintive voices. Many customers complained when they got the number. They should go to another place to eat, and it would be three o’clock in the afternoon. They might as well find a barber shop.

Wait until 10:50, the first batch of customers in line enter the venue. Blue Whale News reporter found in the online queuing system of stores in Heshenghui in Beijing that the number of small tables has reached 131, medium tables 109, and large tables 15. At this time, it was only about 10 minutes before the meal started. At the same time, the number of small tables, 90 medium tables, and 16 large tables at another Xizhimen CapitaMall store in Beijing by roasters has reached 105 tables, and 90 tables.

Although the waiting time was very long, the crowd in line did not choose to leave. There are even customers who run into friends while queuing. The Blue Whale News reporter asked several customers one after another. ldquo; Should have come earlier.& rdquo; Ms. Zhao said that she arrived at 10:10 and picked up the number around 10:30. There were nearly 100 small tables in front of her. The chairs in the baker’s waiting area were all full, but he was afraid of overcounting, so he could only sit in the waiting area of the restaurant opposite.

After two o’clock in the afternoon, Ms. Zhao and her friends finally entered the door of Hesheng Hui roaster after a four-hour queue. Outside the door, there are still more than 200 numbers still in line. Nearly a hundred people are as calm as Mount Tai and insist on sitting at the door waiting. Ms. Zhao told Blue Whale News that they were lucky that several tables in front had been overbooked.

The hot state does not only appear at noon. At 22:55 on February 13 (Thursday), in the store online queuing system of Roaster Heshenghui Store, there were also 122 small tables, 109 medium tables, and 43 large tables.

Such a grand queue also attracted a group of scalpers who resell dining numbers. In response to this, the roaster brand responded to the Blue Whale News reporter that since its opening, the roaster has continued to boycott scalpers and actively cooperated with the police to crack down on scalpers.

The picture shows the roaster’s number verification page

The roaster brand said that in response to the boycott measures of scalpers, it adopted methods such as technical interception and identity verification, extending business hours, not opening priority membership rights in two Beijing stores, and establishing a scalpers blacklist system. Roasters are also working with the same shopping malls and relevant units to improve appointment rules, optimize the dining experience, and prevent illegal people from taking advantage of loopholes.

Although merchants have taken some optimization measures, such as verifying the number of mobile phones that day when retrieving offline numbers, reserving mobile phones when retrieving numbers, and entering the store by relying on paper number arranging tickets and verifying mobile phone cellular data numbers. They tried to keep scalpers out, but there were still fish that slipped through the net.

While waiting for the queue, the Blue Whale News reporter noticed that a man was holding a paper number in his hand and pretended to lower his head to play with his mobile phone while walking back and forth near the number picking team. The Blue Whale News reporter came forward and asked, only to realize that this person was the scalper. Lao Li (Yellow Cattle’s pseudonym) lowered his voice and whispered to the Blue Whale News reporter that he would buy it now for 30 yuan, and the evening number would be 80-100 yuan. ldquo; All you earn is hard-earned money, and you can’t sell many numbers in a day.” rdquo;

Since the staff issuing the number would look up and check the faces one by one, in order to avoid being discovered, after a while, Lao Li changed his clothes and appeared at the end of the team again. Lao Li told Blue Whale News that I can get the same number in advance based on the time you want to eat. You don’t have to wait much when you come.

The Blue Whale News reporter observed that Lao Li was not the only scalper at the scene. One of the female scalper complained to Lao Li that I had gotten the first number to enter, but that person had something to do and couldn’t come. It was a pity that the beautiful number was a good number. rdquo;

By searching for keywords such as roasters Beijing on multiple social platforms and second-hand trading platforms, you can also see many posts of Beijing Heshenhui roasters queuing up to pick up numbers. One of them has a link where a Heshenhui roasters queuing up to pick up numbers. More than 900 people have bought it.

Deeply cultivate the Sichuan-Chongqing base areas

In fact, the popular roaster in Beijing is not a newly created Internet celebrity brand, but an old brand that has been operating in Sichuan and Chongqing for more than ten years. It is praised by diners as the leader of Chengdu and Chongqing spicy grilled fish.“”

Data from the Beijing City Bureau of Statistics show that in 2024, Beijing’s catering industry achieved revenue of 127.39 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4.9%. In the current environment where overall catering consumption is sluggish and catering owners are worried about store passenger flow, roasters often queue up for hours and even have scalpers selling numbers, and the popularity lasts for several months is surprising.

From many market perspectives, roasters have gone from Sichuan-Chongqing fire to Beijing, which is closely connected with the brand’s innovative grilled fish category and its focus on spicy flavors. According to the report “Analysis of the Current Situation and Future Trends of the Grilled Fish Market in China” issued by consulting firm Frost Sullivan, spicy flavor is the number one flavor in terms of grilled fish sales in the country, and its popularity and satisfaction are higher than other flavors.

Spicy grilled fish originated in the Sichuan and Chongqing region, the base camp of roasters. In 2022 and 2023, the roaster’s traditional making skills of black bean flower spicy grilled fish have been rated as a representative intangible cultural heritage project in Wuhou District of Chengdu City and Jiangbei District of Chongqing City.

In today’s catering market, making good taste is not enough to make a brand popular for many years. Effective marketing strategies and social attributes are also the top priority.

The baker’s strategy is to deeply cultivate Sichuan and Chongqing. As of November 2024, bakers have opened 71 direct-sales stores, the vast majority of which are located in Sichuan and Chongqing. Among them, 51 stores are densely deployed in Chengdu, basically covering Chengdu’s popular business districts, shopping malls, streets of large communities, etc., and have also accumulated a solid mass base for them. Not only do locals love to eat, but locals also choose when receiving friends from other places.

In addition, this brand is also known for its high-pitched advertising. For example, in Chengdu, the slogan “Eat roast” instead of hot pot will ring in subway cars, and this has become the first Sichuan dialect learned by many foreign tourists in Chengdu. Even at Zhang Huimei’s Chengdu concert in November 2024, a scene where fans shouted the baker’s slogan Amway made a hot search on social media.

Just like the beauty of tea is to Changsha and the happiness of the people in the four seasons is to Beijing, the roaster is a delicious business card in Chengdu. The popularity of cultural tourism in Chengdu has also driven the growth of roasters. Roasters rely on brand influence to accumulate a large amount of tourist traffic. Coupled with the first-store effect and people’s curiosity, it is reasonable that Beijing will be full of tourists.

Is the grilled fish category going to become popular?

Zhan Junhao, a strategic positioning expert and founder of Fujian Huace Brand Positioning Consulting, analyzed to Blue Whale News that the success of roasters and the launch of Haidilao’s grilled fish seed brand have indeed made people see the market potential of the grilled fish category. However, this cannot be directly equated to the comprehensive recovery of the grilled fish category, and it needs more support from brand and market data to verify it.

In fact, around 2015, there was a wave of grilled fish craze in China, and some regional chain brands took advantage of the trend to expand and enter major shopping malls. In the following years, as the shortcomings of large single products became more and more obvious, problems such as single flavor, single dish, and increasingly serious homogenization were amplified, and the popularity of the grilled fish category began to decline.

In the past two years, the grilled fish track seems to be a little silent. On the one hand, most of the leading grilled fish chain brands in the market have relatively fixed camps, and the size of stores is no longer accelerating, but seeking development while maintaining stability. On the other hand, except for some regional grilled fish brands that have little potential, there are almost no new national grilled fish brands.

But from a macro perspective, the size of the grilled fish market is still expanding. Frost Sullivan’s “Analysis of Current Situation and Future Trends of China Grilled Fish Market” report shows that the size of China’s grilled fish market will reach 134.18 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year growth rate of 10.2%.

In the huge grilled fish market, new and old brands are piled up. If they want to survive the reshuffle, they can only continue to save themselves and tap for new quantities.

From the perspective of products, recently, live fish have become the selling point of grilled fish chain brands. However, in terms of taste, after years of development, most grilled fish brands on the market are still the same. The flavors are nothing more than spicy, garlic, rattan pepper, pickled cabbage, etc. It is difficult for consumers to feel fresh. Take Beijing Chaoyang Hesheng Hui as an example. The sincerity of being in Hesheng Hui b1 with the roaster and outside the riverside city, whether it is the taste of grilled fish, side dishes or desserts, all have similarities with the roaster.

In addition, creating the Internet celebrity attributes of brands and stores has also become a drainage means for many brands through marketing. For example, roasters have made their debut in youthful marketing such as birthday gifts and cat nests, but it is difficult to become a brand moat.

This is another drawback of Internet celebrity marketing. Although new Internet celebrity stores can attract consumers with their freshness, the long-term development of catering brands relies on repurchase. If brands cannot create differentiated features according to local conditions, consumers ‘brand loyalty and willingness to repurchase will be greatly reduced.

Zhan Junhao pointed out that as competition intensifies, issues such as brand homogenization and supply chain may gradually emerge. Therefore, in order to gain a foothold in the grilled fish track, brands need to create differentiated positioning based on consumers ‘mental perceptions, focus on product innovation, improve service quality, and strengthen supply chain management and brand building. Only in this way can we stand out in the fierce market competition.

For roasters, adapting to the unexpected queuing craze may be just the first lesson in entering Beijing.