​西贝能撑三个月，其他餐饮企业呢？

民以食为天。在春节期间，“吃”更是重头戏。而突如其来的新冠肺炎疫情，迫使中国餐饮业在今年春节经历了一场严冬。寒冬之下，大小餐饮企业无一幸免。商家如何在“危”中寻“机”？

“2万多名员工待业，贷款给员工发工资”。中国餐饮龙头之一的西贝餐饮董事长贾国龙直言，如果再这样下去只能撑三个月了。

西贝餐饮在接受CGTN新媒体书面采访时称，其在全国59个城市拥有超过350家门店，年营业额将近60亿元。在新冠肺炎疫情暴发之后，西贝被迫维持生计。一月末，西贝关闭了逾六成线下门店，春节假期期间营业额同比下降87%。

"Our cash flow has been seriously affected because of the epidemic," said a representative of Xibei, a Beijing-based restaurant chain. "We can only last for three months like this even if we pay our employees with the support of bank loans. Our more than 20,000 employees are on the brink of losing their jobs."

The popular chain that has more than 350 restaurants in 59 cities across China told CGTN Digital in a written interview that it has been struggling to maintain the business since the deadly novel coronavirus (COVID-19) broke out in central China's Wuhan in December last year and spread out across the country.

More than 60 percent of Xibei's restaurants have been closed since late January when the epidemic became serious, according to Xibei. The catering giant that claims an annual sales revenue of 6 billion yuan (860 million U.S. dollars) has seen its business revenue slump 87 percent year on year during the Chinese New Year holiday season.

A Xibei restaurant in Shanghai, February 11, 2019. /Photo courtesy of Xibei Restaurant.

而另一家餐饮业龙头海底捞，处境则更加艰难。海底捞在中国境内的550家门店从1月26日起全部关闭15天。海底捞在本月早些时候又发布一份声明称，恢复营业时间待定。

此外，周黑鸭11日也发布公告称，为配合新冠肺炎防控工作，自身约有千家门店暂停营业。

北京临街许多餐饮店在年前就停业了。很多餐厅员工（也包括一些餐厅老板）回乡过年尚未返京，要么是因为餐厅还没开门，要么就是家乡政府劝阻长途出行。

Xibei may not be the worst hit during the ongoing epidemic. Haidilao International Holding, the country's largest hotpot chain listed in Hong Kong's stock market, has kept all its 550 stores on the Chinese mainland closed since January 26 because of the epidemic. While it initially planned to reopen in 15 days, in a new statement earlier this month, it said its reopening time would be decided later.

Haidilao declined the interview request from CGTN earlier this month.

Moreover, Zhou Hei Ya International Holdings, another company listed in Hong Kong and known for its popular snacks made from various parts of duck, said in a statement on Tuesday that its nearly 1,000 stores nationwide have suspended operations because of the epidemic.

As the highly contagious virus spread out like wildfire – having infected more than 59,000 people and killed more than 1,350 as of Thursday – many people have opted to stay home to reduce chances of contracting the virus. Catering has become one of the hardest hit industries in China, along with hotels, shopping, entertainment and tourism.

Many restaurants alongside Beijing's streets have not opened since they shut doors shortly before the Chinese New Year on January 25. Many workers who left Beijing to unite with their families in other places for the Chinese New Year holiday, including some restaurant owners, have not returned to Beijing yet, either because their restaurants have not opened yet or the local authorities discouraged them from traveling at this time.

A breakfast stall in central China's Wuhan City before the coronavirus outbreak. December, 2019. /Photo courtesy of Wan Xing

Bleeding businesses

突如其来的疫情让强依赖于现金流的餐饮业陷入危机。西贝称，无论门店开不开门，都要支付员工工资和房租。而公司的收入来源主要是堂食。员工工资占西贝支出的三分之一，一个月就要支出1.56亿元。

2003年SARS期间，贾国龙只带领着五、六百名员工，疫情一暴发就全体放假了。但如今随着西贝规模扩大，成本也随之上升。

Graphic by CGTN's Qu Bo

Catering industry relies heavily on cash flow. Xibei has to pay employees' wages and real estate rentals whether its restaurants stay open or not, and its income mainly comes from dining-in, the company told CGTN.

The labor cost accounts for one third of the company's expenses. The 2,000 people on its paycheck cost the company 156 million yuan each month, according to Xibei.

"The company lost 700 to 800 million yuan in revenue within a month around the Spring Festival," read the statement from Xibei.

The company noted that it was easier to get by when a similar epidemic, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), broke out in the spring of 2003 and killed hundreds of people.

"We only had about 500-600 employees when SARS broke out."

The statement added that its employees all came back to work after the epidemic broke out that year. But now as the business gets bigger, the cost has increased as well.

Only about 2,500 of Xibei's employees are on duty in recent days. Many of them have not returned from their hometowns because of the virus outbreak, while others have chosen to stay indoors, do some exercise and learn cuisine knowledge, as their restaurants remain closed, according to Xibei.

Smaller eateries hurt even harder

餐饮连锁店遭受打击的消息在网上刷了屏，但若疫情持续，一些小餐馆恐要挣扎在生死一线了。

孙巍在北京管庄经营着一家粤菜馆。1月20日年关将至，孙巍关门歇业回海南三亚过年，原本打算2月7日返京后第二天就恢复生意，却被突如其来的疫情打乱了计划。

和他的店一样，许多餐馆至今还未开业。管庄有270多家餐馆，目前只有约40家在营业。大部分只开设外卖业务。

即便在往年冬季热门旅游城市三亚，餐厅和酒店也不见昔日的熙熙攘攘。孙巍说，他在三亚路过的餐厅中，有超过三分之一的商铺都不约而同地挂出了出售或出租的招牌。

The chain stores' pains have caught great public attention, but for some mama and papa eateries, it could be life or death if the situation lasted.

"More than a third of the restaurants I walked by in the city of Sanya have posted notices about putting their businesses on sale or for rent," Sun Wei, a man who owns his own Cantonese food restaurant in Beijing, told CGTN about his findings in the tourist resort city in southern China's Hainan Province.

The eateries and hotels in Sanya, which in normal years would have seen a boom of tourists during winters, this year barely had many customers, as many tourists have cancelled their travel plans.

Sun temporarily closed his Beijing restaurant on January 20 to spend his Chinese New Year holiday in Sanya. He had planned to return to Beijing on February 7 and reopen his restaurant the day after. But he received phone calls from local authorities in Beijing who advised him to wait a bit before further notice. Later on, he was told restaurants can reopen if they obtain sanitation and anti-virus qualification paperwork from local authorities.

However, many restaurant owners like him have been reluctant to restart business. In the Guanzhuang Village area in eastern Beijing where his restaurant is located, only about 40 out of 270 plus restaurants are now operating, said Sun. And most of them are only doing take-out business for now, he said.

而在疫情最严重的武汉，情况就更糟了。

我们的记者在武汉采访了一些餐饮业从业者，戳视频↓

武汉餐饮协会会长刘国梁在接受CGTN电话采访时说，1月20日之后，客流量大幅下降，“此后几乎没有人出来吃饭了”。

武汉一家中型餐饮企业员工在接受CGTN新媒体采访时说，如果一直是这种情况，他们将难以为继。

At the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, the situation is even worse.

"We saw a tremendous drop (in customers) on January 20," Liu Guoliang, chairman of Wuhan Catering Association, told CGTN in a telephonic interview, indicating the date was exactly when China's leading medical scientist Zhong Nanshan confirmed that the virus could spread from human to human.

"After that, we barely see any customers coming in to dine."

Liu said small- and medium-size restaurants were struggling the most as the rent alone was a huge burden to shoulder.

"If the situation remains like this, then it will be tough for us to keep going," staff member of a medium-sized restaurant in Wuhan told CGTN Digital. 

Is delivery a way out?

疫情之下，虽然店铺只开设线上外卖业务，但依然艰辛。

刘国梁说，只有20%的餐厅提供外卖服务，因为平台每单会收取他们高额费用。“我们正在尝试与一些主要的在线外卖平台协商，要求他们降低外卖费用。”这样更多的中小餐馆就可以提供网上外卖服务。”

Liu Zixi, a dumpling shop owner in Wuhan, said the shop only does delivery now as the customers are only allowed to order from outside or online now. But the delivery business is not that easy.

"We don't get too many daily deals, not as many as before," she said.

Even year before this outbreak, food delivery in China had not been that novel at all, especially to city folks.

But according to Liu Guoliang, only 20 percent of the restaurants have offered online delivery services because the platform charges them a substantial amount of money for every order.

"We are trying to negotiate with some major online delivery platforms to ask them to reduce the fees for restaurants to deliver," said Liu. "So that more small- and medium-sized restaurants can offer online delivery services."

A Meituan deliveryman works on a day of heavy snowy. /CGTN Photo

How to save themselves?

除了靠外卖业务，西贝还将其900名员工“租借”给阿里巴巴旗下生鲜超市“盒马鲜生”，以减轻成本压力。

然而，真正让西贝“松口气”的是北京市地方金融监督管理局，在其大力支持下，西贝餐饮集团收到来自浦发银行北京分行的1.2亿元款项。西贝表示，北京将旅游、住宿、餐饮等10个重点行业社保费征收期延长至7月底，也帮助缓解了不少压力。

与此同时，中国许多省市相继出台了相关政策为企业“救急”，比如减免税收和租金、延期还贷、降低利率以及减免逾期利息等。

此外，工信部也出台了20条政策措施，帮助广大中小企业实现有序复工复产，渡过难关。

No matter how big or small, all restaurants are trying to get through this "cool down."

Besides delivery, Xibei also "lent" 900 of its employees to tech giant Alibaba's offline retail store, Hema, to relieve the labor cost pressure.

However, what really gave Xibei time to "catch its breath" is the Beijing Local Financial Supervision and Administration, which supported the restaurant chain after media reported its woes.

With the administration's endorsement, Xibei received a total of 120 million yuan in financial support offered by the Shanghai Pudong Development Bank's Beijing branch. 

Meanwhile, many Chinese provinces and municipalities have rolled out supportive measures, such as tax and rent deductions, delaying loan payments, cutting interest rates and waiving overdue interest to help businesses tide over the ongoing epidemic.

Xibei said it is also a relief for them that Beijing has postponed the social security payment of 10 industries, including the catering sector, to the end of July.

Furthermore, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology unveiled a string of 20 measures to support small- and medium-sized enterprises, including financial support, which is a good news for a lot of such enterprises in the catering sector.

"It doesn't make a lot of sense to discuss the coronavirus impact on GDP. I don't really care about those numbers," Xu Xiaonian, professor of economics and finance at China Europe International Business School told the media earlier. "What I really care is whether many SMEs can get through this."

More restaurants are on the lookout to see how long the epidemic will last.

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