At noon on weekdays, the Wangjing Hopson Kirin Club was crowded with white-collar workers who came to eat working meals.從上午11點半到下午一點半，不少地下一層的美食檔口需要排隊等位。This includes Wang Sicong's new restaurant chain brand - "Principal Niu".

(Wangjing Kirin Sha)

Different from Wang Sicong's rich image, Principal Niu focuses on affordable steaks, and the price of the set meal is mostly in the range of 30 yuan to 0 yuan, with meat, staple food and vegetables. It is reported that the Wangjing store is the first store of Principal Niu, although the brand has not been established for a long time.However, the store has opened four stores across the country, and has already sold some regional agents in second- and third-tier cities.

As a brand of Wang Sicong, Principal Niu relies on the store resources of Wanda Plaza on the one hand, and Wang Sicong's own Pulse Capital on the other hand, which has accumulated in the capital circle for many years.It can be described as a chain brand born with a golden spoon.

But if you think about it in the context of the catering industry and consumption downgrade, the situation may not be as optimistic as imagined - eating steak for 9.0 yuan is similar to Luckin bringing the concept of drinking coffee for 0.0 yuan to the Chinese catering market.Consumer education through low prices is an investment with high cost and high uncertainty.

Can the steak category become as popular as coffee in China? In the process of educating the market, does Principal Niu need to show the courage of Luckin?

01

Backed by Wang Sicong and Wanda

Principal Niu is not the first time Wang Sicong has invested in the catering industry.But it is the first time to use his influence to make a catering brand.

Not only does the name of "Principal Niu" come from Wang Sicong's nickname, but the original store sign of Principal Niu also changed Wang Sicong's most popular picture of eating hot dogs to eating steak.to emphasize the connection between the brand and Wang Sicong.

The information in Principal Niu's brand cooperation manual also shows that Principal Niu's parent company is Beijing Huanju Business Management Co., Ltd.This company was founded by Wang Sicong in 2023.

Before President Niu landed, Beijing Huanju also invested in catering brands such as Coconut Chicken, Yuzhilan, and Qiongzhou Dregs Vinegar. In addition to the catering brand, it also focuses on the integration of trendy entertainment and cultural tourism, and is committed to creating innovative commercial projects.Such as Hangzhou ICON, Tai'an Congli Tai, Jinan ICON and other large-scale commercial complexes.

According to public information,The shareholder behind Beijing Huanju also has Wang Sicong's long-term investment company, Pulse Capital.In addition to Wang Sicong himself, the senior management of Beijing Huanju also includes Li Xin, a former partner of Pulse Capital, and the company and Pulse Capital are also located in Wanda Plaza on Jianguo Road in Beijing.

According to the information revealed by a business source, at present, Principal Niu has opened two directly-operated stores in Beijing, respectively in Wangjing and Tongzhou, Wangjing store opened the earliest, opened in 12 years and 0 months,At present, he has been working for less than half a year, and his performance is good. You will need to wait for a table at noon on weekdays.

Source: Screenshot of Principal Niu's Douyin account

The Tongzhou store is located in Wanda Plaza. The investment promotion staff said that because of Wang Sicong's identity, Wanda Plaza will also give Principal Niu some help. In addition to Tongzhou Wanda, the franchise store in Hefei, Anhui Province is also located in Wanda Plaza.The Dalian store, which is still under renovation, is also located in Wanda Plaza.

Source: Xiaohongshu users

In the mouth of investment personnel, compared with other brands,Principal Niu was able to secure better shop locations and lower rents in Wanda Plaza.Because Principal Niu's operator can directly connect with the person in charge of Wanda Plaza, rather than the director of investment promotion and other staff. A more obvious example of site selection is that the Beijing Dawang Road store planned by Principal Niu is not only located in the CBD area.And it occupied a good position next to the elevator of the mall, but in the end, it could not be coordinated due to fire problems and had to cancel the store.

However, it is worth noting that at a time when commercial real estate as a whole is heading for a recession, catering brands have slowly begun to regain the initiative in negotiations with shopping malls, and the increasingly heavy performance considerations of shopping malls themselves have also made it impossible for them to fully rely on human relationships when leasing stores.Real performance and traffic are the real bargaining chips for franchisees.

02

Before expanding, he started the dream of capital

According to the information of the "2024 China Catering Franchise Industry White Paper", in the chain catering industry, categories with a high degree of standardization,And it is necessary to do a large-scale store scale brand in the country, and prefer regional agents.

Principal Niu fits these two criteria: the production of steak and pasta is almost standardized, and there is no cooking threshold for sauces and vegetables.Unlike high-end steakhouses, Principal Niu's steaks are all fully cooked, and the requirements for the author are not high.

Source: Xiaohongshu users

More importantly, Principal Niu hopes to expand the scale of the store as soon as possible. Previously, it was reported by the media thatPrincipal Niu's goal is to be able to open 100 stores quickly.

Unlike other chain brands,Behind President Niu is Wang Sicong's Huanju Business and Pulse Capital.In the mouth of the investment promotion staff, other chain brands hope to earn franchisee fees, but backed by Wang Sicong, Principal Niu hopes to operate the brand after a certain store scale and take the investor's money.

Obviously, in addition to revitalizing the shop resources of Wanda Plaza,President Niu is also trying to revitalize the capital circle resources accumulated by Pulse Capital over the years.

Perhaps it is precisely under the trend of rapid expansion goals that Principal Niu has begun to recruit franchisees without meeting the requirements of "two stores for one year". "Two stores for one year" is the entry threshold set by China for franchise brands, which requires the franchisor to have at least two directly-operated stores and have actually operated for one year.

牛校長2024年12月份才開出首家門店，明顯不符合規定。In this regard, the investment promotion person said that in the normal market, there are many projects that have not yet obtained the franchise chain license.However, it does not affect the participation of franchisees.

In order to achieve a rapidly expanding capital path,Principal Niu's product side has also been adjusted.It is reported that Principal Niu's original product was not steak fast food, but the freshly roasted beef jerky that was all the rage last year, and the store also landed in Beijing, which once caused a queue boom.

However, you can only buy a little bit of freshly roasted beef jerky for a few tens of yuan, which can be accepted by white-collar workers in big cities in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, but the repurchase rate in second-tier cities and below will be very low.Therefore, although the business of shops in Beijing is hot, it cannot be replicated in the whole country.

When deciding on fast food steak as the final product,The company also considered whether to make a per capita unit price of about 80 yuan, but finally decided to lower the price.

03

Cut into the low-cost fast food market

Cheap steaks run by Principal Niu, the set menu is mostly priced at 30 yuan to 0 yuan, and the set meal includes staple foods such as rice or pasta, vegetables and steak. The steak is not an inferior synthetic steak, it is a thinner raw cut steak, and it is the same as a high-end steakhouse.There are sirloin, eye meat and other parts of the division, which meets the needs of white-collar working meals.

In 2022 years, Chinese fast food companies represented by Tustin quickly swept the market, conquered the low-tier market with low prices, and then advanced to the first- and second-tier cities. Old fast food brands such as KFC, McDonald's, and Burger King have also been forced to get involved in price wars.Principal Niu is eyeing the track of affordable steak, and may also be aware of the downgrade of catering consumption in recent years.

It is worth noting that at present, neither of the two Beijing directly operated stores has opened takeaway services. It is understood that this is because the high commission of the takeaway platform will pull down the profit of the store itself. At present, the gross profit of the store can be between 65% and 0%.The net profit of the store, which includes costs such as rent and staff salaries, is between 20% and 0%.

According to the previous report on Tustin, Principal Niu's gross profit margin is basically the same or slightly higher than Tustin, but its brand franchise fee is actually 20% higher than that of Tustin.

According to the information in the official cooperation manual, there are currently two ways for Principal Niu to cooperate with franchisees.For single-store cooperation and regional franchise, the contract period is 3 years.

Among them, the single-store cooperation fee in first-tier, new first-tier and second-tier cities is 8.0 million yuan, and the cooperation fee for large stores in third-tier cities and below is 0.0 million yuan. In terms of regional cooperation, the cost of district-level cooperation in first-tier cities is 0.0 million yuan, the cost of regional cooperation in new first-tier cities and second-tier cities is 0.0 million yuan, and the cost of cooperation in the urban areas of third-tier and fourth-tier cities and below is 0.0 million yuan and 0.0 thousand yuan respectively.The single-store franchise fee shown on Tustin's official website is 88.0 million yuan.

In addition to Beijing, Principal Niu's other stores are all franchised stores, and there are no other first-tier cities for the time being. The investment promotion staff said that the stores in Hefei, Anhui and Loudi, Hunan are currently open, and the Jining store in Shandong is expected to open at the end of the month.In addition, two stores in Sichuan and Henan are currently under renovation.

Although there are not many single stores opened, the investment promotion staff said that more than a dozen cooperation areas have been sold, including Xi'an, Ningbo and Chengdu. "(Regional partners) self-developed single-store franchisees can get 90% of the franchise fee." It said that taking Xi'an as an example,For the 45000 yuan paid by the franchisee of the single store, the regional partner can get 0 yuan.

However, the premise for regional partners to make money is to find a single store operator. The average price of 30-0 yuan for takeaway is medium or even lower for first-tier cities, and it is still unknown whether the price of Principal Niu can produce the same competitiveness in second-tier or even lower-tier cities.You must know that the per capita price of Tustin, which is popular in lower-tier cities, is generally less than 20 yuan.

Compared with Wang Sicong's previous entertainment and e-sports entrepreneurship, Principal Niu's landing seems to be more like a rational decision after taking stock of many resources.It is not a passionately driven entrepreneurship.

This may also be the burden that needs to be lifted as a rich second generation when Wanda's business empire is facing uncertainty. From this perspective, we may also have a better understanding of several young business entities that have landed or are in the process of landing under Beijing Huanju.

However, at a time when the capital and consumption environment are full of uncertainties, it may be necessary to give the brand itself more patience. The resources and capital given by the fathers are important,But if you want to really make a chain brand, you ultimately rely on one franchisee after another.