Diaoye Niuwei (雕爷牛腩) went from China's hottest restaurant to one store out of eight

雕爷牛腩 (Diaoye Niuwei) opened on 20 May 2013 in Beijing, the restaurant venture of Meng Xing — 'Diaoye' — chairman of the Afu essential-oil brand. He had bought a beef-brisket recipe for 5 million yuan from Hong Kong chef Dai Long, the inspiration for the film God of Cookery, who burned his own copy at the launch. Six months of invite-only 'closed beta' tastings for celebrities and critics built the buzz; with just two stores the chain raised 60 million yuan at a 400 million yuan valuation.

At its peak the chain ran about eight Beijing stores, with monthly revenue reported above 60 million yuan in September 2015 and table turnover reaching 8.68. But diners kept saying the food was pricey and not worth it: repeat customers accounted for only 10–20% of traffic, and a menu of four main dishes kept changing out dishes people came back for.

From around 2016 revenue fell by roughly four-fifths — all-store daily sales dropped from about 1 million yuan to 200,000. Meng Xing put most of his energy into other ventures and left the shareholder and director roles in June 2019; by May 2020 only one of the eight stores was open and bankruptcy-liquidation reports surfaced, with more than 100 crowdfunding investors suing over an unmet 2015 deal.