Zhang Weizhen closes YaYa Green Kitchen and wants to share these things with everyone

Text / Zhang Weizhen (operator of YaYa Green Kitchen)

Over the past four years, YaYa Green Kitchen has carried the affection of many people. Whether we knew them or not, everyone simply hoped for a place where they could eat with peace of mind. Although we have chosen to pause for now, I always believe that "wherever one walks, traces are left behind." The space and meals we created, and even just a few small ideas, have provided many customers, and even fellow operators, with some beautiful memories and have held some meaning.

Recently, my good friend Nanqi hoped I would talk about the reasons why YaYa Green Kitchen closed, so that other operators who want to follow a green restaurant path could learn from others’ experience and make their operations smoother. It also happens that after more than a month of rest and reflection, it is time. It is time to put into words the things I have long kept in my heart, hoping it will be of some small help to Taiwan, China’s dining-out environment.

Ideals struggle against the pressure of insufficient profit

In early 2013, my sister and I actively opened the business. I personally know the hardship of people who eat out, because after eating out for more than 20 years, I wanted to cook for myself but lacked the energy to do so. I had long cared about food safety (back then, the frightening food safety news had not yet started). We always thought there must be many people who cared about food safety.

After opening, the first two years were spent working hard to build name recognition while learning restaurant internal management on the job, since neither of us had any restaurant experience. The gutter oil scandal, plus a report by CommonHealth magazine, pushed our business to its peak. While joyfully welcoming record revenue, I was also worried about quality issues... I think that to some extent it did go wrong, and I believe we lost some customers because of it.

Why close? Actually, before closing, I had thought about this question countless times. Since we had invested so much in setup costs and spent so much effort operating, why not find a way to continue? Yes, who would not want to? But the difficult dilemma of "not making money" forced me to make this painful decision.

We operated for four years, and accumulated many customers of truly excellent quality, yet we still had to take the path of closing. No matter how much reluctance was in my heart, it could not withstand the pressure of insufficient profitability.

The possibility of improvement and a way out

Is there a way to improve? Yes, as the saying goes, increase income and reduce expenditure.

First, reducing expenditure. I calculated that even if I reduced one employee, saving more than 30,000 yuan in costs per month, it would not be enough to improve the whole situation much. With ingredient costs, we could only try to reduce waste as much as possible and try to avoid using overly expensive ingredients (for example, organic baby corn, once the leaves are removed, very little remains, and the unit price is high).

Next, "increasing income"... I am more inclined to believe that "increasing income" (raising revenue) is the real way. If the costs we spend can be transformed into elements accepted by consumers, thereby increasing customer traffic and average spending per customer, then those costs become meaningful. On this point, we achieved some of it, but not well enough.

To increase revenue, the first idea in the traditional restaurant industry should be to "increase table turnover rate." Based on YaYa’s cost structure, to reach the break-even point, every meal had to be full, with one round per meal on weekdays and 2 to 3 rounds on holidays. But that level of customer traffic is really hard to achieve, unless we were a rare exotic cuisine or a famous barbecue restaurant!

Is there a way out?

I thought about it, and there were two paths to choose from:

(1) Close: let my body and mind rest for a while. (What kind of way out is this? But as far as my personal inclination goes, it was the final choice.)

(2) Relocate the store, increase income, and reduce expenditure, advancing all three at the same time. Since choosing to open a green restaurant already means choosing a path harder than that of fellow operators, of course one must willingly accept a harder challenge; since costs are destined to be higher than others’, one must find ways to increase revenue sources.

a. Relocate: find a location with easier parking or one accessible by metro.
b. Reduce expenditure: at the new location, adjust the kitchen workflow so that serving and prep lines run more smoothly, which might make it possible to hire one fewer person.
c. Increase income: add product lines, such as selling cooked food, selling handmade products, opening cooking classes during the afternoon break... and so on (the front area at the original site had no range hood or stove equipment, so it was not suitable for this). The front area of the new store would have to be able to accommodate refrigerated and frozen display cases. (The front area at the original site was too small; we originally planned to add a refrigerated display case, but it would not fit.)

The first path was simpler–this was also the choice I later made.

The second path had unknown success or failure, but it would definitely require investing more money and effort to carry out. I think my determination was not enough, and my physical and mental state was not that strong. Finding investors or borrowing money was too complicated for me, and at this stage I wanted a simpler life.

But since I once seriously considered this second path, it shows I thought it should be workable.

Consumer awareness ultimately determines operators’ behavior

I sincerely hope more green restaurants will appear (this is also the main reason I wrote this article). In recent years, many excellent green restaurants have opened across Taiwan, China, and they value ingredients and emphasize environmental protection... If this wave of openings can continue, perhaps one day Taiwan, China’s dining landscape can be very different.

But I believe even more that consumer awareness is the factor that ultimately determines operators’ behavior. If everyone is willing to spend a bit more of their dining budget for food safety and health, I believe more operators will be willing to work hard to achieve the appearance consumers want.

Background reading:Kaohsiung Breeze Market Alliance green restaurants see membership double during food safety storm