In Beijing, He Missed Native Flavors, so He Opened His Personal Restaurant

• Wu Zhixun left his hometown and his job at an area financial institution to spend his 20s pursuing an performing profession in Beijing.
• He entered his 30s prepared for a profession change and seen Beijing lacked the flavors of his hometown.
• One 12 months after opening his restaurant, Wu, now 31, says he has made again his preliminary funding.

Wu Zhixun stumbled into performing by chance when he was a younger grownup. Years later, a equally surprising flip of occasions led him to open — and grow to be the face of — a preferred restaurant in Beijing.

In 2013, the sporting model Li Ning was sponsoring college basketball video games throughout China. They selected Wu to look in an advert. Quickly after, folks began recognizing him on the streets of Yunnan, the southern Chinese language province, the place he’d grown up.

After graduating, he obtained employed by an area financial institution, however six months in, a video-streaming firm requested him to look on a actuality TV present wherein he’d be cooking for celebrities.

“I assumed it was a rip-off at first,” he instructed Enterprise Insider. However they provided to purchase him a flight to Beijing, 1,500 miles northeast of Yunnan, so he give up his job and dove into the world of performing and tv.

Profession shift into F&B

Over a seven-year performing profession, Wu appeared in three TV exhibits and a Huawei marketing campaign.

In 2017, after his mom was identified with breast most cancers, he returned to Yunnan for a 12 months and a half to spend time along with her.

Whereas he was again house, he invested cash into two F&B ventures, neither of which panned out.

The primary was a snack store. Wu and three companions every invested 100,000 yuan into the store, which bought rooster ft, rice noodles, and mango rice. The store shuttered after six months.

Subsequent, he invested 50,000 yuan in a Japanese restaurant. Inside three months, the restaurant closed. Trying again, he mentioned he may see the issues had been with the placement and the administration.

The restaurant was tucked away on the second flooring of an workplace constructing, and nobody on the administration group had any expertise operating a kitchen. They did not know what number of elements to order, and so they usually bought out of in style dishes earlier than the top of the day.

Bringing the style of house to Beijing

On the finish of 2018, Wu moved again to Beijing. Inside a few years, he met his companion, and so they began discussing the concept of beginning a household.

He needed extra profession stability and was bored with being an actor. “You are at all times ready to be chosen,” he mentioned.

Whereas residing in Beijing, he noticed a market alternative to serve genuine Yunnan meals.

“Yunnan flavors are textured,” he mentioned. “There are bitter, aromatic, numbing, spicy notes, and these are all from pure crops.”

Eating places in Beijing simply weren’t getting the flavors proper — so he determined to launch his third F&B enterprise.

He wanted cash for the preliminary funding, so he bought an house his mom had given him and invested 600,000 yuan into the restaurant.

His mom was towards the concept of him promoting. “My mother must know one thing can have a 100% success charge earlier than she’ll do it,” he mentioned.

Palms-on administration

It has been virtually two years since Wu, now 31, started planning his restaurant, Yican, or Can Bistro in English. He works with a enterprise companion, Qu Fei, who invested an extra 400,000 yuan into the enterprise.

Studying from his earlier enterprise failure, Wu knew he needed to open the restaurant in a busy space. He selected a industrial enterprise park in southeast Beijing, close to Sihuidong station.

They employed Yunnan cooks and slowly renovated an area that had beforehand been a clothes retailer.

The restaurant has been open for a few 12 months. When BI visited the restaurant in early February, all 10 tables had been full by midday.

Can Bistro is a dog-friendly restaurant, and a Bichon Frisé and a Schnauzer had been among the many friends. Diners sat on rattan chairs, consuming from speckled black ceramic dishes. Steaming bowls of bitter papaya fish, spicy beef, stewed rooster, and crispy tofu lined the picket tables. Some friends washed down their meals with Asahi beer and pure wine from Yunnan.

A meal for 4 sometimes consists of round six dishes. The stewed rooster, 68 yuan, has grow to be in style. The potatoes crumble, and the meat is completely tender. The bitter bamboo shoots and water spinach dish is an unusual mixture in Beijing, however in style among the many Dai ethnic minority in Yunnan.

Beijing’s altering meals scene

Over the previous 5 years, Beijing’s meals scene has seen waves of eating places open and shut. “Ninety % of bistros shut of their first 12 months,” Fiona Wu, a gross sales skilled working in Beijing’s life-style trade, instructed BI.

With a purpose to make it within the Beijing market, Fiona mentioned eating places have to be in style “from the start.”

And that is the place it got here full circle for Wu.

“It was about seems to be at first,” Fiona mentioned of Can Bistro’s recognition. “The look of the place, the restaurant decor, and the bosses’ being good-looking, attracted customers on RedNote,” she mentioned, referencing the favored Chinese language social media app.

Shortly after opening, Wu’s advertising and marketing group posted a sequence of candid pictures of its homeowners on the Chinese language social media app. The pictures had captions like, “Not ingesting espresso except a scorching man has made it for me.” Wu mentioned that individuals who noticed the restaurant on-line started to return in particular person.

“With out that advertising and marketing marketing campaign, they would not have gotten a lot footfall at first,” Fiona mentioned.

One 12 months after opening, Wu mentioned he and Di have made again their preliminary funding. Wu mentioned that in the summertime, traces usually type outdoors the restaurant.

Operating the restaurant has meant each Wu and his enterprise companion have needed to be taught one another’s manner of doing issues.

Wu says he is happier now. He visits the restaurant day-after-day — and nonetheless has time to play basketball twice per week.

“It is a world away from once I was on the financial institution.”