Restaurants serve up range of new ideas

The couple, which owns a total of seven restaurants in Beijing and Beidaihe, Hubei province, offers cookery instructions through short videos.

The pair has incurred losses of 1 million yuan a month during the pandemic. "I have never worked harder than in the past two months, thinking about how to save our restaurants each day and learning new skills," Li Yang said.

Strongly impacted

Liu Gang owns several Japanese restaurants in Beijing and Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province.

Both the Ootoku Changan outlet in the central business district of Beijing, which features kaiseki ryori, a traditional multicourse Japanese meal, and Ootoku Sakabais, a Japanese izakaya in Chaoyang district, have been strongly impacted during the pandemic.

"An izakaya is where friends and colleagues gather together, but with social distancing during the pandemic, people are not venturing out to eat and drink," Liu said.

Meanwhile, he is looking for new opportunities, with many spaces becoming available for rent as some business fail to survive the outbreak.

He has already found a site in downtown Beijing to open a restaurant with the craft beer chain Great Leap Brewing.

"The pandemic has brought restaurant owners closer, as we talk with each other about ways to boost our business. Suddenly, the idea emerged that a combination of Japanese cuisine and craft beer might be a new market opportunity," Liu said.

Shotamuni, in Beijing's Haidian district, which specializes in Japanese cuisine, is operating two robots to help with kitchen deliveries and to take meals to walk-in diners.

The pandemic has also forced some small restaurants to close, with "for rent" signs posted on their doors. Others are doggedly soldiering on.

Wangpopo, or Grandma Wang, which occupies just 40 square meters in Chaoyang district and serves cuisine from Hubei, faces rental payments of 200,000 yuan every three months. However, revenue for the past three months has been only one-tenth of this figure.

Wang Xiaowei, who owns the business, said: "I have many ideas for promoting our restaurant, including running an account on the social media platform Douyin to show how we cook. I need to try these ideas one by one to see if any of them work."

He also plans to promote his mother's signature stew dishes to a wider audience.