Family in England Orders Hot Pot for the First Time, And...
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A foreign resident under the username @小马逛吃 shared a video on the Chinese question-and-answer forum Zhihu documenting his family’s experience ordering from Haidilao Hot Pot back in England.
Everyone seemed very excited to test it out. Let’s see how their experience unfolded…
Placing the order over the phone
Everything comes in with neatly separated ingredients as if they were being served at the restaurant!
He also shared his tasty hot pot dip recipe.
Haidilao Hot Pot is widely popular all over China and increasingly so overseas, but its incredible origin story isn’t as well covered. Luckily for you, we are going to talk about its founder and the rise of this Chinese hot pot phenom.
Haidilao founder Zhang Yong
Three startups failed
What's the path from technical school to a billionaire?
Haidilao founder Zhang Yong was born in Sichuan in 1971. His father was a cook in a factory. His mother was a primary school teacher. He brings the typical founder story: no background, no degree, no money.
All he could do was work hard on his own and have full control over his fate.
In July 1988, at 17-year-old, he graduated from a technical school and entered the factory as a worker, which was considered a good job at the time due to its stability. During the 6 years working at the factory, he often used his spare time to travel across China, inspecting the market and looking for business opportunities.
01
Poker machine game
When he went to Chengdu, he saw many people playing a poker machine game. Zhang Yong felt extremely excited about it: "I should get a machine like this, then money will come!” he thought.
Zhang began to turn over the newspaper. He found an advertisement for a poker machine.
The only problem was… the price tag was RMB 6000! The Fujian seller saw his hesitation and told Zhang Yong something that he would remember for more than 20 years: “Young man, I think you’ll be able to achieve great work in the future. So I’m gonna sell it to you for RMB 5000!”
Zhang Yong excitedly went home to save up and collect RMB 5000.
Unfortunately, the appearance of a fake gold watch cheater led Zhang Yong to lose most of his money. This marked his first business failure.
02
selling oil tickets
Zhang soon began thinking about other businesses he could start. Back in those days, gasoline was still a planned commodity in China and had been supplied with an oil ticket, which was issued only for drivers of government and state-owned enterprises.
"If I can get the tickets from the government drivers and resell them to private drivers, I can make money," Zhang thought.
Zhang found a piece of cardboard and looked for a property along the road where he could set himself up. But things did not turn out so well for Zhang, as after several days of patient waiting, no cards stopped. No orders were placed.
Zhang went home disappointed… His second business plan fell short.
03
Little hot pot
After two unsuccessful ventures, Zhang Yong began to understand that he could make money if he did a good job in a business that satisfied people's appetite.
He has previously found out about a small popular hot pot in Chengdu, where restaurants burn the spicy hot pot in a string, and customers cook it themselves.
Zhang Yong felt optimistic about this business opportunity. He found a more than 10 square meters of the street shop and with RMB 180 per month as rent, he started his third business.
After half a year, a string of 20 cents of spicy hot pot brought RMB 200,000 in revenue, and Zhang Yong cashed in RMB 10,000 in net profit!
However, love would soon fail him again and have him close down his small hot pot restaurant. But on the bright side, the woman he had met eventually became Mrs. Yong.
04
Haidilao
After the small hotpot shop closed, Zhang Yong thought: I didn’t go to university, I have no experienced background, so there’s really only one way to go: work hard! And with that in mind, Zhang Yong was ready to reopen his shortly successful hot pot restaurant!
Zhang Yong's girlfriend, his classmate and classmate's girlfriend showed their full support and helped to collect RMB 8,000 to open a shop together. Four people, each owning a 25% share of the hot pot restaurant.
Haidilao was formally established in 1994 when Zhang Yong was only 24.
But the competition for hotpot cooking in Sichuan is so fierce that he thought the road to success could be reached in only one way: to attract customers with an impeccable customer service and experience that would go beyond the ordinary person’s imagination.
How do you do that? When a dinner guest complained about his stomach hurting from the night before, Zhang Yong served him a pot of millet gruel. When a customer complimented their chili sauce, Zhang Yong offered him several cans to take home.
Free gifts
birthday celebration
Free shoe cleaning service
Free manicure
If you go to eat alone，they will place a toy bear to accompany with you.
It’s the little things that make the biggest difference. And it’s this kind of service that made Haidilao so successful and reputable.
How do you feel about hot pot? Yay, or nay?
Which restaurant do you prefer to take your friends or visiting family to?
I personally enjoy Xiaolongkan 小龙坎 with its face-changing performances.
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