The old cafes in Xiamen are closing now.

In Xiamen, foreign-branded cafes like Starbucks are expanding.

Taiwan Strait Network (Weibo) May 30 (Straits Guide reporter Luo Yumin Xiang Huiwen / photo) as one of the most famous local cafes in Xiamen, the Waterfront Coffee Park shop on Xi'an Road has always been popular with many Xiamen citizens. Recently, however, citizens have found that the cafe has been closed.

Not only the Waterfront Coffee Park shop, the leading newspaper reporter yesterday found that in Xiamen, due to the impact of higher and higher store rents, some old brands of cafes have also closed down or changed owners one after another. On the contrary, some foreign brands such as Starbucks are expanding in Xiamen, and the Xiamen coffee shop industry seems to have entered a reshuffle time.

Shrink and close at least 600 to 700 a year

The Waterfront Cafe Park shop located on Xi'an Road has always been very famous in Xiamen, often full, and it is often difficult to find one on weekends. Although it is doing well, the cafe closed down last year. This also aroused the regret of the public, and some people even posted "condolences" on the Internet.

It is understood that Waterfront Coffee used to have four direct stores on the island, and the first one to close was the Chinese sons and daughters gallery shop near Xiamen University, and then the Zhongshan Road shop and the park shop also closed last year. Today, there is only Binbei shop left in Xiamen Island for waterfront coffee.

According to industry insiders, the Waterfront Cafe closed the Zhongshan Road store mainly because the storefront was identified as a dangerous house and was not suitable for business. The main reason for the closure of the gallery store of the sons and daughters of China is that the passenger flow is too low and the loss is huge. As for the park store, which is the most popular business, the main reason for its closure is that the rent is too high and the landlord suddenly wants to raise the rent.

As one of the most influential brands in the cafe industry in Xiamen, the successive closure of Waterfront Coffee has also caused panic in the industry. In fact, it is not only waterfront coffee, with the sharp rise in store rents in the past two years, many established cafes in Xiamen have been closed. For example, Shangdao Coffee, which was once popular, has closed many stores in Xiamen one after another, and its stores on Hubin South Road and Lianyue Road have also been renamed into two independent cafes. "there are almost 3000 cafes in Xiamen, and at least six or seven hundred close down every year." Some industry insiders say that independent cafes have mainly closed down in previous years, but some chain cafes have been unable to hold up in the past two years, such as Waterfront, Wangjia, Shangdao and so on.

Expand more and more foreign brands in Xiamen

On the one hand, the existing cafes of old brands in Xiamen are shrinking, while on the other hand, new foreign brands are expanding crazily.

In the past two years, new brands have been entering Xiamen. Take Starbucks as an example, since it entered Xiamen in 2011 and opened the largest Starbucks in the country, the number of its stores has risen sharply, and now it has reached about 20. Starbucks can be seen in the main business areas on Xiamen Island. Starbucks is even outside the island.

Not only Starbucks, but also some influential international coffee chains are stationed in Xiamen, such as the Pacific Cafe, which has at least three stores in Xiamen, while Costa Coffee, which originated in the UK, will also enter Xiamen this year and take the lead in opening stores in Terminal T4 of Xiamen Gaoqi Airport.

Not only that, some Korean cafes have also entered Xiamen. Like Hollis Coffee in Xiamen, which claims to be the largest coffee shop in the world, Man Coffee has also entered Xiamen, and the business is also very hot. Another Korean cafe coffee accompanies you to open a number of stores in Xiamen, but in the face of many coffee shop competitors in Xiamen, one store has taken the lead to close.

But the transformation of Binbei Coffee Street

In recent years, foreign brands such as Starbucks have been entering the Xiamen market, which has had a great impact on the original cafes in Xiamen. In order to seize the site, many foreign brands do not hesitate to win good business premises at high prices, leading to a rise in shop rents in the cafe industry as a whole. " Some people in the industry said that taking the once leading Binbei Coffee Street in Xiamen as an example, it is no longer just cafes, but has been replaced by clothing stores, red wineries, and so on.

"once a cottage here rented for 10, 000 to 20, 000 yuan, but now it has gone directly to 80, 000 to 90, 000." Bai Zhirong, a former president of the Xiamen Coffee Association, said that shopkeepers have 3000 yuan in rent to pay as soon as they open their eyes every day, and many stores are simply working for landlords.

Today, Bai Zhirong has become the official president of the Business Circle Association. on the basis of Coffee Street, they include all the surrounding western food, imported supermarkets, bars, hotels, and so on, so as to form a business circle and improve their competitiveness. become another typical of Xiamen coffee transformation.

Some industry insiders say that precisely because of the high rent, cafes of local brands in Xiamen have been transformed one after another. Many cafes serve food and light meals, which are no longer pure cafes. For example, Binbei Cafe, Waterfront Cafe, has started a "wedding banquet" business. "if local cafes are not transformed, there will be no way out." The above-mentioned industry analysts said that with the development of the Xiamen coffee shop industry today, it has entered a period of fine service, and the popularity and financial resources of local brands are generally unable to compete with foreign brands, so they have no choice but to find another way. "most of the local cafes that can survive today have refined the market and followed a different path from Starbucks."

Author: Luo Yumin Xiang Huihui

Source: Taiwan Strait Network (Xiamen)