Interview with Birdfeather Hirodo, founder of Coffee King DOUTOR Cafe

To have a cup of coffee here, you need to wait in line outside the door. When a customer gets up in the room, the waiter will send the guest out of the door and lead the new guest in, the table has been cleaned up.

Hirodo Bird, the founder of DOUTOR Cafe, is sitting in his office on the 10th floor of the DOUTOR building, talking to us Chinese friends. The 70-year-old bird feather Hirodo has given up the post of president of DOUTOR Co., Ltd. Zen to his son. But he remains the leader and supreme decision maker of the DOUTOR kingdom. Today, DOUTOR Group has more than 1500 cafes in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, its own coffee plantation in South America, and its own training and recuperation base in Hawaii. Bird Yu Hirodo has formulated social training and basic policies for DOUTOR, which has become the motto of tens of thousands of DOUTOR employees.

As an Asian country, the people of Japan have always taken tea as the main drink, and the tea ceremony has become a part of Japanese culture. In a country where tea is the main drink, the rapid rise of DOUTOR coffee chains has become a research topic for economists and sociologists.

This is the beginning of our conversation with Bird Yu Hirodo.

Niaoyu left his hometown of Saitama Prefecture at 16 to work in Tokyo and became the manager of a coffee shop at the age of 19. After that, he went to work in a cafe in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and learned how to make all kinds of coffee. In 1962, Bird Yu, who had returned to Japan, started a coffee processing and marketing business. In 1971, Bird Feather went to Europe to investigate the trends of the coffee industry in various countries. On the Champs Elysees in Paris, Bird Yu saw people standing in front of the counter drinking coffee and eating bread and chatting, which filled him with longing, and he firmly believed that one day the Japanese would do the same.

In the view of Niaoyu, the rise of coffee in Japan is due to the weather and man-made. After the end of World War II, Japan's economy is in a recession, coffee in Japan is a luxury, is a kind of high-end consumption. At that time, a cup of coffee at least 300-500 yen, plus snacks, per capita consumption reached 1000-2000 yen. At the end of 1970s, after the rapid growth of Japan has entered the era of popular consumption, coffee has got rid of the image of luxury goods and become a mass consumer goods into daily life.

"I keep asking myself, why do I open a coffee shop? What is the effect of a cup of coffee? Finally I understood my mission: people need a place to communicate, and their hearts need to be adjusted. I need to provide such a place for people to communicate, so that more citizens can go into the cafe and provide people with relaxation and vitality. "

With a sense of mission and business philosophy, Bird Yu Hirodo began to design the social training, policies and systems of DOUTOR.

In order to let more consumers go into a relaxed and lively environment and drink mellow and delicious coffee, it is necessary to create a relaxed and leisure atmosphere in the store. Bird Yu personally designed the pattern of the cafe, making customers feel relaxed and warm when they go into the cafe. At the same time, we will fully implement the low price strategy. A cup of coffee in DOUTOR costs only 150-200 yen. With snacks, the per capita consumption is only 300 yen, which is several times the price of other cafes. The change of DOUTOR makes people's life change obviously, not only the coffee is cheaper, the consumption is lower, but also the environment is better, thus changing the way people drink coffee, that is, changing the way people consume and live. Bird Yu founded Japan's first self-service coffee shop chain in Tokyo in 1980 and has since been unstoppable. Today, the DOUTOR coffee chain has spread all over Japan, becoming the first chain coffee brand kingdom in Japan and the second in the world.

In order to improve the quality of coffee, DOUTOR has developed a 670000 square meter estate in Kana, Hawaii, making it a stable base for supplying coffee beans and providing high quality coffee. In order to ensure the supply of food raw materials, DOUTOR has gradually set up supply bases in Japan and other parts of Asia in the form of sole proprietorship or joint venture.

Bird Yu told me that DOUTOR will consider entering China in the next step. Bird Yu has great admiration for Deng Xiaoping, saying that Deng Xiaoping advocated the socialist market economy and led China, which has been in poverty for a long time, to prosperity. Bird Yu said that China has entered a period of rapid development, very similar to the rapid development of Japan in the 1970s, the transition from luxury consumption to civilian consumption in cafes is inevitable, and DOUTOR's coffee chain should be welcomed.

On the relations between China and Japan, Bird Yu said that the relations between the two countries need to be for the sake of others, for the sake of each other, and not for themselves blindly. For the sake of others, many disputes can be settled, and the people want peace. Bird Yu Hirodo is now the honorary president of the Japan-China Environmental Association, making great efforts to promote the friendship between China and Japan.

On the office wall of Bird Yu Bo Road, there are two mottos engraved on the stone wall: "this is written to me by my father-if the heart is not poor, money will not be poor; this is written by myself-a cup of coffee is love for the guests. Give the heart to the guest, and the money will come back." Bird Yu told me that every time he walked into the office, he would stand solemnly in front of his father's motto, "I often reflect on myself. Do I still remember my father's instructions?"

Bird Yu Bodao attaches great importance to the corporate culture of DOUTOR. "the same two cafes, one only wants to make money, the other has a sense of mission, the former is bound to lose to the latter." Because the products of an enterprise come from personality, only with personality will there be product quality. For this reason, Bird Yu personally wrote tens of thousands of words of "DOUTOR's Law of success" for DOUTOR employees. Bird Yu wrote: our mission is to pursue the highest quality and bring happiness and satisfaction to more customers; our goal is to actively contribute to society and achieve our own happy life through the development of the company.

Bird feather set seven coordinates for DOUTOR coffee:

The coffee industry refers to bringing relaxation and vitality to people through a cup of mellow coffee, and customers must be led in a positive direction.

-- A strict and humane company

To do business means to provide help to people through work.

The greatness of a man is determined by how much happiness he brings to others.

The so-called good thing means that it can touch the heart and resonate.

Do not consider profit or loss first, but consider whether it is correct first.

Wealth can only be acquired by those who can create wealth for others.

Today, DOUTOR's Law of success has become a bestseller in Japanese bookstores and a textbook for university marketing.

Twenty-five years ago, Birdhwa wrote a letter to every member of Congress, putting forward his own suggestions for the development of the country, including responses to an aging society, environmental protection, and regional settings. the free opening of the National Museum and the cultivation of the middle class. Niaoyu pointed out that if the annual income reaches 35 million yen (more than 2 million yuan) and has three bedrooms and one living room, even if they are successful people in Japan, the continuous expansion of this group means the success of the country. Most of the suggestions made by Bird Feather at that time have been fulfilled. Bird Yu told me that he had just filled out a form to accept the Emperor's Award, "my life is not to get this award, but this award is an affirmation of my life."

Bird Yu told me that he was influenced by Chinese culture, especially Confucius and Laozi, so he was in awe of nature, and benevolent people loved others. "only by giving love can we get natural feedback and achieve harmonious symbiosis between man and nature." Bird Yu is proud that after his son became the heir to DOUTOR, he has completely inherited the business philosophy of DOUTOR and enlightened the spirit of DOUTOR with all the DOUTOR staff. "even if someone falls down, the spirit of DOUTOR will never fall." When saying goodbye, Bird Yu said humorously, "I just made a cup of coffee!" This cup of coffee is lingering in aftertaste. (reporter Wan Runlong)