Shenyang, a rapidly developing city seriously affected by the second wave of COVID-19, bears the brunt of the epidemic. A large number of restaurants are closed or renovated. However, some catering related industries and restaurants have not changed much, even during the most serious period of the epidemic.
With the question of why there is such a big gap between similar industries, I explored the functions, types, construction structures and locations of these restaurants and cafes. I mainly carried out this research in Zhongjie (Shenyang). The distribution study looked for ordinary home-made restaurants, fast food restaurants in the bustling pedestrian street, food squares in shopping centers, coffee shops, and tea (wine) station, and obtained relevant materials and knowledge.
Before starting the demonstration, the first question is: why has the catering industry suffered the most serious impact?
The answer is diverse. First, home isolation or restricted office makes people have little chance to go out, and they don’t want to take off their masks and eat in public at the risk of infection. Secondly, the import and export of raw materials in the catering industry can be said to be a process in which a few high-risk viruses are transmitted in closed cities. Under such conditions, those small catering industries that rely on a small number of acquaintances or do not have a solid external reputation will naturally be unable to support their expenses and then go bankrupt.
In order to explore the problem, First of all, I recorded a 15 minute video at the intersection at the core of middle street to observe and estimate the approximate flow of people and vehicles at noon and lunch time. Then, I entered the pedestrian street and visited a shopping center. At that time, it was time for lunch. At first glance, the number of people in the shopping mall was small. Most of them gathered in the catering on the lower floor and the working area above the fifth floor. During my observation, I found a very interesting phenomenon, which is also a place for drinks and rest. A tea on the fourth floor was ignored, but Starbucks on the first floor was noisy. Through observation, I found the following differences between their two stores: in the part of reputation and reputation accumulation, first of all, Starbucks is on the negative floor with a large number of other catering industries, which undoubtedly increases the possibility of going to Starbucks for consumption. On the contrary, on the fourth floor, it is almost full of clothes or shops unrelated to food, which makes it difficult for people to have the desire of consumption. In addition, the tea shop on the fourth floor is located in the middle of the first floor. It has no characteristics. It is difficult to be found at a glance. Coupled with its dark color and no protruding design, it is difficult to attract the attention of consumers. In contrast, Starbucks is located at the corner of the inner protrusion on of the first floor, which is quite eye-catching, and most people will notice the coffee shop here as long as they pass by. Its unique convex and sharp corner design also brightens people’s eyes, and makes people more eager to sit down and drink coffee. It is worth noting that there are a certain number of people who choose to eat in the food plaza on the lower floor (a large number of small shops share a seat and provide different types of food for choice). They are composed of some mall employees and some shoppers. In addition, some surrounding fast food chains such as KFC and McDonald’s are also very popular.
When making the video, I want to explain several aspects I mentioned by highlighting the difference between good and poor restaurants. It mainly compares the location (inside the mall and on the surrounding residents’ path), brand (the difference between famous brand and no fame), and architectural structure decoration (special design and ordinary bungalow, as well as day lighting), so as to further elaborate my core point, that is, diversified and mixed restaurants can be retained in Shenyang, which is developing rapidly in the epidemic
After discovering and integrating the above mentioned and some other phenomena, I have summarized the following laws: in today’s epidemic situation that can not be ignored, restaurants that only have the function of eating can not go far, because now this demand has been greatly restrained. More often, people enter those restaurants or cafes for other needs, such as providing a quiet place, Strange and comfortable working environment, or punch in some online popular restaurants to get social satisfaction. Wanghong restaurant specifically refers to those with special and unique architectural methods, or new creative dishes, or refreshing services. With the above two factors, restaurants can attract tourists with things other than delicious food.
The emergence of the epidemic has played a role in amplifying (not promoting) the urban development trend to a certain extent. In the catering industry, it points out the concepts of diversification and mixed functional attributes, which are sometimes ignored by old restaurants.
Reference:
Carolyn U. Lambert,(1984) Restaurant Design: Researching the Effects on Customers https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/001088048402400415
Nusairat, N., Hammouri, Q., Al-Ghadir, H., Ahmad, A & Eid, M. (2020). The effect of design of restaurant on customer behavioral intentions.Management Science Letters , 10(9), 1929-1938.
Kivela, J., Reece, J. and Inbakaran, R. (1999), “Consumer research in the restaurant environment. Part 2: Research design and analytical methods”, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 11 No. 6, pp. 269-286. https://doi.org/10.1108/09596119910281766
Amel et al., 2020 E. Amel, D. Lee, E. Secatore, E. Singer Independent restaurants are a nexus of small businesses in the United States and drive billions of dollars of economic activity that is at risk of being lost due to the COVID-19 pandemic C.Lexecon (2020) www.media-cdn.getbento.com
Brewer, 2017 BrewerThe Impact of Restaurant Review Website Attributes on Consumers’ Internal States and Behavioral Responses (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from: (2017) https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss
S. Sunthornpan and S. Hirata, “The situation and the survival of MSMEs restaurant under COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand,” 2021 IEEE Region 10 Symposium (TENSYMP), 2021, pp. 1-4, doi: 10.1109/TENSYMP52854.2021.9550848
Anderson, E.W. , C. Fornell , and R.T. Rust. 1997. Customer satisfaction, productivity, and profitability: Differences between goods and services . Marketing Science 16 (2): 129–45 .
Lu Bingzhang
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You represent the dynamic face of Shanghai with a fast-screening taking from the cross-intersection of the road, which is a very clever and effective way. Besides, you showcase the daily lifes of different Shanghai citizens in a down-to-earth manner, making audience easy to understand your message and thoughts. The short video montages taken are also well-chosen in order to echo with your topic. However, I think that it may be better for you to add some background music to it, to make the video more lively and also more coherently tied with the word ‘hybrid’. Script can also be more carefully-designed to deeply-reflect your topic to a greater extent.
I agree with you. Although a restaurant or tea restaurant ranks first in terms of the quality of its food, without proper publicity or certain added value (high-quality service, beautiful decoration), they will still receive far less attention than those so-called popular restaurants, as you said.
Very specific research question and method. I do appreciate your observation and analysis. Yet it seems the conclusion is drawn too quickly and absolutely as the sample size is small. Next time, perhaps you should consider if such a phenomenon is universal before drawing conclusions. Sometimes, a good analysis of your observation would suffice.