Din Tai Fung lost its whole North China network when the license broke

Din Tai Fung's mainland business ran on licensing: the first mainland store opened at Shanghai Hongqiao in July 2001, and the north was operated by Beijing Hengtaifeng under a brand authorization held by its parent. In August 2024 headquarters announced it was ending that authorization early: the operator's business license had expired and renewal talks failed. Fourteen stores across Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao and Xi'an shut at once — a shareholder fight at the operator surfaced that October, after the brand had already gone.

The shrinkage kept going through the stores that remained. The Ningbo IFC store closed on May 28, 2025 as the brand exited the city; the official WeChat store stopped operating on November 30, 2025; the Hangzhou MixC store shut on April 27, 2026 when the mall lease expired; and on August 3, 2026 the Shanghai Ganghui store closed on lease expiry. Fourteen stores were left — eight in Shanghai, two in Guangzhou, one each in Wuxi, Suzhou, Shenzhen and Beijing — with operating pressure, prime-location rents, rising labor costs and value-driven diners named as the squeeze.

The rebuild is being done in-house. The Beijing Kerry Centre store reopened in March 2026 directly operated by the Taiwan headquarters — and dropped the old 10% service charge; the Shanghai Xujiahui Center store opened in July; the Hangzhou Kerry Centre store is scheduled for October. The map that survives is smaller, and the brand is no longer renting its name out to run it.