How long can Kumamoto Bear Coffee be popular in online Celebrity Restaurant

KUMAcafe (Kumamoto-themed Cafe) officially opened in Shanghai on the eve of the Spring Festival in 2017. With its cartoon characters from Japan to China in recent years, the coffee shop has attracted a lot of popularity among young people in Shanghai. Kumamoto theme Cafe is located in Xintiandi, Shanghai. The first floor sells Kumamoto bear peripheral products and Japanese soju and other specialties, while the second floor is a coffee and dessert restaurant area.

According to the operating company Bridge Japan, the store aims to sell 300 million yen (about 18 million yuan) in coffee this year and 4 billion yen (240 million yuan) for surrounding products.

Just in 2015, the famous social platform LINE opened LINE CAFE to Shanghai with the help of the popularity of its Brown Bear, Connie Rabbit and other cartoon characters. Similar to the Kumamoto-themed Cafe, LINE CAFE mainly deals in coffee, desserts and LINE's cartoon peripherals, and has two stores in Shanghai this year. Earlier, there are famous animation image Hello Kitty as the main theme of the restaurant and a large number of animation images with a large number of followers into the catering field, have set off an upsurge in the industry.

For the phenomenon that online celebrity images have entered the catering field on a large scale, the industry said that it is not new, which is similar to the popular animation IP restaurant, and even the star restaurant in the gimmick, with the help of popular IP to attract attention so as to gather popularity. Judging from the actual performance, both the newly opened Kumamoto-themed restaurant and LINE CAFE, which has been open for some time, have shown a strong ability to attract money, and there is an endless stream of customers queuing up to experience.

In response, industry insiders said that Kumamoto-themed cafes have just entered the field of leisure catering, and the popularity of Kumamoto's online celebrity image is still there, so it is normal for consumers to gather together to spend out of freshness, especially among young people who are more concerned about new things. LINE CAFE has been in mainland China for less than two years, and its freshness is still there. But it should be noted that such restaurants have excellent business conditions in the early stage, but whether the long-term development still has to return to the final demands of consumers, experience, cost-effective is now the most concern of consumers.

Coincidentally, many star restaurants similar to this popular online celebrity IP have encountered Waterloo in the past two years. The "Nice to meet you" restaurant, which was widely reported in the media, was not saved by Han Han's popularity, and some chain stores closed after a quality scandal, while Zhao Zhongxiang's noodle restaurant in Nanjing was closed at the end of 2016 because it was unable to operate. Some netizens on this social platform said that the popularity of such phenomenal restaurants is related to the popular IP and publicity efforts brought by the stars, but it is not long because the core products that are not available have a big gap with consumers' inner expectations, so freshness is doomed to be abandoned.

Not only that, industry insiders also said that popular IP takes the lead for restaurant operation, and it is also easy for some restaurants to carry IP with self-respect, ignoring the feelings of consumers, and it is difficult to guarantee service quality. such behavior today, which attaches importance to service quality, is bound to lead to a precipice decline in restaurants. Even if the online celebrity restaurant, which still maintains a good level of service, relies too much on the fan economy without considering expanding a wider consumer group, it will affect the sustainable expansion of the restaurant because of the limitations of the audience. In addition, the recently opened Kumamoto-themed Cafe and areas such as LINE CAFE that sell surrounding products are so large that they have to question their positioning of stores, and while it is not uncommon for the catering industry to sell surrounding products, being too noisy is bad for a restaurant.

Beijing Business Daily reporter Xu Hui trainee reporter Xue Chen