It is indispensable to travel by train, and it is indispensable to take the train to solve the stomach problem on the road. I still remember every time I took a car when I was a child, the taste of instant noodles on the green leather car always made me drool, which can be called a post-modern version of Pavlov’s experiment.
My mother sometimes brought a pack of chicken feet or other lo-mei to the car, eating instant noodles and nibbling the lo-mei, as the slogan said:
Life is like a journey. What you care about is not the destination, but the instant noodles along the way.
But now, I find that instant noodles are no longer the best choice to solve stomach problems during the journey. This is the era of the four kings of the railway station. What are the four kings of the railway station? As far as the domestic railway station is relatively large, you can always find a series of chain fast food brands, including Zhen Kung Fu, Yonghe King, California Beef Noodle King, Dicos, Hometown Chicken, etc.
Local chain restaurants, represented by these brands, dominate the taste buds of travelers together. Therefore, I call it the four kings of the railway station. Well, who said there can only be four of the four kings?
The China Culinary Association has published a list of China’s top 70 fast food, which is roughly equivalent to the list of gods in the fast food field. Among them, Hometown Chicken, Dicos, and Real Kung Fu ranked 4 to 6 respectively. Yonghe King ranked 9th, and California Beef Noodle King ranked 11th.
In this issue, let’s talk about why fast food chains have become the choice of tourists.
01
The story will start from 33 years ago.
In 1987, Shanghai Railway Station, the “new passenger station” among the old Shanghai population, was completed in Zhabei District. This railway station is generally regarded as the first modern railway station in China.
In 1987, China’s first KFC opened in Qianmen, Beijing, bringing the Chinese people the enlightenment of American fast food chains.
Coincidentally, in this year, Mr. Li Beiqi, who was born in a culinary family, also opened a fast food restaurant on Dongsi West Street in Beijing, named “Beijing California Beef Noodle King”, which later became famous. The famous “Mr. Lee King of California Beef Noodles”.
Although this first store has only 80 seats, it can receive 3,000 customers a day. It turns over 30 times a day, and the queue is no less than KFC a few kilometers away. To put it aside, although the name California Beef Noodle King is a copycat, Mr. Li is not a fake foreign devil brand like people complain about.
On the contrary, before opening a store in Beijing, Li Beiqi, as a Chinese living in the United States, has opened 7 California beef noodle restaurants in the United States, and he has indeed won the local food king, and he is an out-and-out export to domestic sales. And you see, California Beef Noodles, California Beef Noodles, the word formation is exactly the same as Kentucky Fried Chicken (Kentucky Fried Chicken). So it’s really unnecessary to complain about Mr. Li.
It can be said that the prosperous age of the four kings of the railway station today began with these three events in 1987.
Nowadays, in China, catering is undoubtedly the Red Sea Market. In these big cities, it is very common for a new restaurant to open for less than three months. In fact, the Chinese restaurant market startedVery late, the first individual restaurant was born in 1980. But by 1995, KFC had opened 71 stores, and McDonald’s had 62. With KFC, California Beef Noodle King and McDonald’s successively expanding chain stores, Chinese talents have discovered that in foreign countries, cooking does not rely on ninjutsu for food and beverage. This is how to open a store. This is simply a shadow.
From the mid-1990s to the 00s, inspired by KFC and McDonald’s, local Chinese fast food chain brands gradually began to emerge.
In 1994, Dicos, who also sold fried chicken burgers, was born. Two years later, it was acquired by Ting Hsin Group. He became Master Kong’s younger brother and became the third son of Western fast food.
In 1995, Lin Bingsheng, a native of Yonghe from Taiwan, brought Yonghe soymilk into the mainland. In the same year, Shanghai opened the first Yonghe King. Since then, the two brands have fought over the question of “Who is Li Gui” for many years.
In 1996, Li HongcongThe position of the lobby manager of California Beef Noodle King Chongqing Branch retired. Relying on experience and understanding of the Chongqing market, he opened the first village base in Jiefangbei.
No one thought that a small store would later become a US stock listed company.
In 2000, Wallace copied McDonald’s and opened its first store in Fuzhou. Today, this cheap McDonald’s has more than 12,000 stores nationwide, almost three times that of McDonald’s.
The local fast food chain is, to some extent, students of K and M.
02
The fast food chain is a traffic business. As long as it can obtain passenger flow, even if the profit is low, it can also rely on the scale effect to flatten the high store rent. How to open the store, only care about three things,Section, lot, or TMD lot.
In order to avoid KFC, which was in full swing at the time, these domestic fast food chains unanimously chose to sink to second- and third-tier cities. In small and medium-sized cities, when it comes to crowded places, apart from the city center, there is nothing more like a train station. Older students or students who live in small cities may still have an impression of the structure of China’s first-generation railway station. The Soviet-style red brick spire-topped station building has a square on the front and railroad tracks and platforms on the back.
Even some stations do not have station buildings, they are only surrounded by walls, and ticket inspectors hold small scissors at the gate to check tickets.
Such a station, the overall scale is not too large, and it can still meet travel needs in many small cities. In such a station, passengers who want to solve the problem of eating, as long as they run to the square, there will be snacks and fast food restaurants opened by locals on both sides, and they can eat one meat and two vegetables for a little money. To be simpler, there will be people pushing fast food carts and putting out plastic tables and chairs, and many people will just sit there and eat.
At that time, the railway station was often the downtown area of a city, and a series of industries such as catering, accommodation, entertainment, and retail were derived from the needs of tourists.
At the same time, the railway station is also very chaotic, and it is also a gathering place for many gray industries, such as selling invoices and applying for fake certificates. Unlike the brand new train stations that access the high-speed rail today, the old train stations were still crime-prone areas. Theft and slaughter happen from time to time. When people go to the train station, they are most often reminded of the phrase “cover your wallet.” There was even robbery at the railway station. The most famous one was probably the speeding party at the Guangzhou railway station, which gradually disappeared after several police crackdowns.
Back to the topic. Inside the station, the station building itself only undertakes the functions of waiting, selling and checking tickets. It can be said that there are almost no commercial formats in the first generation of railway stations.
Before Shanghai Railway Station, most railway stations in China adopted the above structure. This structure has four characteristics: clear divisions, single functions, developed commerce in front of the station, and short concentrated flow of people. The layout of Shanghai Railway Station is different from other places. It introduces the structure of the second-generation railway station for the first time.
Shanghai Station adopts the form of “south-north opening, elevated layout”. There is a huge square in front of each station in the north and south. After entering the station, go upstairs to wait for the bus, and then go downstairs to the platform to board the bus.
Such a structure brings four characteristics to the second-generation railway station: shrinking commerce in front of the station, long lines of people flowing, integration of functional areas, and large.
The shrinkage of commerce in front of the station is due to the huge square space, which separates the city’s commerce from the station and weakens the commercial agglomeration effect of the station. The long pedestrian flow line refers to the original simple waiting room-platform pedestrian trajectory, which has become the entrance to the staircase hall, then to the waiting aisle, then to the waiting hall, and finally to the platform.
Because the moving line is long, it is possible to set up a commercial area in the station. Commercial elements such as restaurants, supermarkets, bookstores, souvenir shops, and convenience stores have begun to enter the waiting halls, waiting aisles and even platforms. Make the functional divisions begin to merge.
The reason for all this is that the station has become larger, which can carry more people and shifts, and can also accommodate commercial forms inside. Starting from Shanghai Railway Station, more and more new passenger stations in large and medium-sized cities have begun to imitate the form of Shanghai Railway Station, introducing the structure of the second-generation railway station, and introducing more commercial elements inside.
And this process also happened in the 90s and 00s.
The popularity of the second generation of railway stations has been almost synchronized with the rapid development of the fast food industry in China. I think this is not a coincidence, because fast food is the most suitable commercial form for railway stations. This is related to the traffic properties of the train station.
The traffic at the train station is huge, but it is also the least loyal. It is almost impossible for you to find repeat customers who come here to buy tickets to eat because the restaurants near the station are delicious. This is far from the conventional dining model that relies on repeat customers. In addition, most people only consider eating when they are traveling, and do not consider eating well. As a regular restaurant, it depends on taste and the price is extremely low. Fast food, the easiest way to buy and eat, became the winner.
But at this point, it can only show that fast food dominates the train station, and it cannot explain why the “four kings” appeared.
03
What really makes the “four heavenly kings” popular is the popularity of high-speed rail and third-generation stations.
There is a data. In 2018, 60% of China’s railway capacity was completed by high-speed rail. By 2019, 2 out of 3 railway passengers will take high-speed rail. The emergence and popularization of high-speed rail has made intercity transportation more and more public. In the past, people needed to arrive at the train station 1 to 2 hours in advance to wait for the train, but now they only need to arrive at the station 30 minutes earlier to complete the procedures of buying, collecting, checking, and getting on the train. “Go” activities.
Therefore, the third-generation stations tend to be more “passing” rather than “waiting”, encouraging passengers to stop at the station less. In passing-through stations, during the limited waiting time, passengers have become increasingly picky in consumption.
Here is a concept of popular science. In a buyer’s market dominated by buyers, information asymmetry may not necessarily cut leeks. Instead, consumers who can or may not buy will become more inclined to choose not to buy directly.
At this time, the advantages of large-scale fast food chain brands are reflected. Consumers are familiar with Yonghe Daiwang, Ajisen Ramen, and Da Niang dumplings, which can easily build trust with consumers and reduce the inhibition of information asymmetry on customers’ purchasing power. There is even a strange landscape like Beijing South Railway Station.
In the report of “China Business Daily”, a paragraph was mentioned: I made an appointment with a friend at Starbucks in Beijing South Railway Station, but I couldn’t find anyone when I looked around. It turns out that there are 5 Starbucks in Beijing South Railway Station. In addition to Starbucks, KFC has a total of 7 stores in Beijing South Railway Station, real Kungfu has 5 stores, Yonghe Soy Milk and Yonghe King each have 3 stores. Mr. Li, Zhen Kung Fu, Yoshinoya also have several stores. Therefore, the prosperity of the Four Heavenly Kings actually conforms to the current era of high-speed rail.
04
But what has changed in the era of high-speed rail is more than just catering. At the same time, what has changed is the entire commercial form surrounding the railway and the relationship between the railway and the city. For example, in the past, around the railway station, there were various hotels providing accommodation, as well as chess and card rooms for transit passengers to kill time.
However, as the high-speed rail lines become denser and the frequency density is getting higher and higher, the situation of transit passengers spending the night at the transit station has become less and less. Sometimes the high-speed rail joint ticket is purchased without even leaving the station. Transfer directly inside the station. When high-speed rail becomes more and more like subway, commercial forms such as accommodation and entertainment are gradually disappearing.
I mentioned earlier that in the past, a train station was often the downtown area of a city. Although it may be dirty and messy, locals don’t like to go to the vicinity of the train station for nothing, but it actually drives the surrounding economy. Nowadays, high-speed rail stations and surrounding urban blocks often show a kind of indifference that respects each other. On the one hand, high-speed rail stations generally choose to be built in locations far away from the city center and not very prosperous. On the other hand, what the high-speed rail station radiates is not around the station, but the entire city.
Some passengers rushed in in a hurry, and some got off the train, got on the subway or bus, and left the station to enter the city. They will not take a second look at the vicinity of the high-speed rail station.
The form of the high-speed rail station itself also forms a clear separation from the surrounding neighborhoods. To some extent, residents living around high-speed rail stations not only did not enjoy the benefits of commercial development, but complained that such a behemoth affected traffic.
About high-speed rail and cities, there has also been a saying-high-speed rail vampire theory.
Different from the past “to get rich, first build roads”, the traffic counterattack theory is different. Some people think that more and more cities are openedHigh-speed rail actually enhances the siphon effect of big cities on third- and fourth-tier cities. Intercity high-speed rail may only take half an hour, between Beijing and Shanghai is only five or six hours, and it only takes half a day from the imperial capital to Guangzhou. The emergence of high-speed rail makes it easier for population and resources to flow to big cities. The only ones that benefited are the big cities and the “settled cities” around big cities like Langfang and Huizhou.
This question is too complicated, so let’s keep it here and leave it alone. But it reminds me of the mobile phone’s transition from 2G/3G to the 4G era, which seems to be an increase in transmission speed, but what I did not expect is a fundamental change in the way of information dissemination. Let video revolutionize the life of graphics and text, let live broadcast become the trend of the times, and let mobile phones completely replace PCs.
High-speed rail, like the 4G technology in the transportation field, appears to be an increase in speed and capacity. In fact, the space-time distance between cities has been shortened, the world has become smaller, and it has brought great changes in cities and commerce. The rise of the four heavenly kings may be just the smallest part of this ongoing change.