The last store in Beijing of the long-established Chinese snack Food “Dog Do” (狗不理包子) has quietly closed down and withdrawn from the Beijing restaurant market, causing many Chinese people to sigh and debate. In fact, even in Tianjin, where the company started, it is also quietly cutting down its stores.
Beijing Business News reported that the former Beijing store of Dog Do has been closed for nearly half a month, with a “store renovation” notice hanging on the closed door. Staff from other businesses around the area confirmed that there has been no movement in the store for nearly half a month.
According to the official WeChat public number of “Dog Do”, Qianmen Store is the only store of “Dog Do” in Beijing. However, on the official website of Dog Do, the company no longer has any stores in Beijing, which means that the Qianmen store has been removed from its own official website.
Shell Finance reported that the company responded to the reports about the closure of the Qianmen store by saying, “It’s just a restructuring, not what the internet says. However, it replied that it was “still considering” whether the former store would reopen.
In fact, the number of Dog Do’s bun shops in Beijing has been decreasing in recent years, and in 2020, the Wangfujing store, which is still open except for the Qianmen store, was given a negative review by a Chinese food self-publisher who visited the store, causing Dog Do Group to be strongly dissatisfied and once sued the self-publisher for “infringement of reputation”, which attracted a lot of criticism from the public.
Since then, the Group has started to cut back on its stores, and the above-mentioned store in Wangfujing, Beijing, which was given a negative review, was discharged from the franchise afterwards. As a result, the store changed its name to “Jingmen Ma Ji Bao Zi Shop” this year and continued to sell buns. However, the store’s decoration, tables and chairs, products and service model are exactly the same as those of the “Dogs” period.
At the same Time, the group was cutting back on stores in Tianjin, where “Dog Do” started. The Wuqing store in the far suburbs of Tianjin has been rumored to have been “dissolved and cancelled” a week ago because it was registered under the name of “Tianjin Gokudo Restaurant Management Co.
However, according to the large Chinese consumer platform “VW Dianping”, a number of Tianjin “Gokudo” stores are now showing “suspended” as well as the former store.
According to Wang Dongming, a Chinese restaurant chain consultant, the shrinking business of Dog Do is mainly due to the disconnection from the market, as its products and stores have deviated from the taste, decoration and price of the core consumer group of young people. If it can’t keep up with the times, it will be eliminated as an old brand.
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